A new Smart TV App I've been working on

I recently got one of those nice LG oled smart TVs but I was sad when there wasn't a giantbomb app for it. So I've been trying to make my own.

Here's a demo video

https://streamable.com/vhq3z

https://i.imgur.com/b4c2o7y.jpg

I've got it to play premium videos, live streams, and podcasts. And there's a working search function. It's still a bit janky and buggy at the moment though. Hopefully I can get that stuff fixed and upload it to the LG store in a few weeks. The app will probably run on other smart TVs too, but since I have an LG that's what I've been testing on.

The source code is all on github if anyone wants to contribute, help fix bugs etc, or use it as a base for their own giantbomb application.

https://github.com/jamesmgittins/smartbomb

Hey nice work! How different is it to create an app like this for other TVs? I know Sony is Android under the hood I think, and I think LG is WebOS (what ever that is) but how different is it all really, any idea?

LG webOS is based on blink (the browser engine from google chrome) so It's just built with html5 and javascript, which can run on pretty much anything. There are a few LG specific function calls for handling the remote control that would need to be changed for other TVs, but other than that it should all just work. I haven't tested it yet but I'm confident it will run on Samsung Tizen TVs with minimal changes. Samsung apps are also web based, using the slightly older webkit engine. For android TVs I could probably wrap it in a webview to turn it into an application. I know the android webview is also based on blink so it will likely just work there too. The tricky part is every TV manufacturer seems to have their own SDK to build applications, and their own app stores to submit your app to. So it could take a while.

@jgittins: This looks fantastic!

Dude! This looks amazing! I just picked up my OLED yesterday, and finding this was a pleasant surprise! Looking forward to it being posted!

@jgittins: dude you need to upload this

I submitted it to LG over a week ago. I'm still waiting for them to accept it or reject it. They're pretty slow it seems. I've been testing it on Samsung and it seems to be okay there, so I will submit it to Samsung this weekend hopefully.

@jgittins: awesome! My Sony had built in chromecast, when I returned it I was sad that I would have to use the ie explorer from Xbox. Didn’t know GB app could exist for a TV!

@jgittins: any news on this? can't wait!

I'm still waiting for LG to approve it. I emailed them to ask what the hold up was and they said they are prepping for a new version of webos so it's taking longer at the moment. They said it usually takes about 2 weeks and they've had it for nearly 4 weeks now, so hopefully not too much longer.

Crazy that it takes them 4 weeks to test an app I wrote in 1 week.

Do you have a link to the repo for the build? I'd love to look over your code. I've never build an app for a tv before and I'd love to see how it was done.

@jgittins: yeah that really sucks. can't believe they still have not approved it.

@jgittins any luck? did they approve it? I searched for it but didn't show on my LG TV

@jgittins: also wondering whether LG have told you anything about this yet? Would love to have it.

I too am very much interested/looking forward to this. Hoping for good news soon!

@lordrenrew: @bollard: @ruiyo: @chonkun:

They did eventually get back to me a few weeks ago. Unfortunately they failed the app for a number of issues. They sent me an xlsx file with some notes on things I need to fix, but I can't really figure out what they mean by some of it. It looks like the xlsx file has embedded WMV videos but I haven't been able to open them. The only version of excel I have is for Mac and it doesn't recognise the embeds.

If any of you are excel pros and know how to get those videos out of this file that would be a massive help and I might be able to figure out how to fix the issues.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WGYpRo5pXcAHyB9ESd_0-Whl0yQiVSeE

@jgittins: Unfortunately I don't have Office at home, but I can open it up at work tomorrow and see if I can recover the videos. Seems like some of the fails are just for TCR-type stuff like having the Back button always return you to the previous page and having the Pause/FF/Rewind buttons work in the player, so hopefully not too tricky to fix!

I ripped the .WMV files out for you (I hope you are OK extracting .rar files?):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uLYnqsxgr_LkjANYNPq4SPtxXVVVeR24/view?usp=sharing

Hope this helps.

@ceen: Thanks so much. The videos aren't great quality but hopefully I should be able to track down those issues.

@jgittins: No problem, man. As somebody who’s always looking for that perfect Giant Bomb big screen experience I’m more than happy to try and help out a developer. Keep up the work and if it comes to a Samsung TV I’ll give it a go!

Count me as another that would love to have a webos GB app for use on a new LG. Looks great and good luck with the bugs.

@jgittins: As someone who recently picked up an LG OLED, is there any development on this? :) I am rooting for you guys!

Any progress on this? Just picked up an LG OLED myself and I'm struggling to get the site to work in the TV's web browser.

Any progress on this

Is LG ever going to get off their ass and approve this?

Anyone have any updates on this? ... Anything ... ? Please .... ?

Any update on this, just got a new LG TV and would love to help get a native app on it

Someone was able to get a new app based on this published to the LG store. The published version is called Chewiebomb. Enjoy!

@jgittins: Huge news, thanks! Still waiting on a Twitch app for the LG store now 😅

I just started using the Chewiebomb app for LG. Has anyone else had an issue where the video doesn't resume where you left off?

I am also experiencing the issue of the videos not resuming despite seeing the green progress bar before hitting play.

Anyone else getting wild audio-video lag and occasional crashes during premium livestreams with Chewiebomb, as of a couple of weeks ago? The program hasn't updated in a good long while, so I'm guessing something changed in the GB backend that the client doesn't like? I'd really like to see it working again - of anyone's got any hot tips, I'd love to hear them!

Chewiebomb not working anymore. Sad face

Yep, came here to report. Have become so reliant on it too.

Hi, I'm the developer of Chewiebomb. I'll take a look this week to see what is going on.

Did some poking around, I'm seeing the ajax API requests to GB return with error, ERR_INSECURE_RESPONSE. This is impacting older model TVs below WebOS 5 (older than 2020). WebOS 5 TVs and greater do not have this issue (> 2020). I'm checking with LG support to see if they can shed any insight to why older models might be getting cert errors. This might take a while to fix.

@viperlasson: Sincere thank you for looking into the problem. Your app is one of my primary avenues that I use to engage with Gb content and I appreciate the effort you put into making it.

@viperlasson: Yah big thanks if you manage to get this fixed. This has been my go to app on my TV ever since I got it two years ago. I reached out to you on Reddit in the past and I know that LG aren’t great to work with so really appreciate looking into it at all.

@viperlasson: Thank you!

Thank you @viperlasson ! Literally not watched any premium content since the app broke.

Huge thanks! Hopefully you can get it working without too much hassle @viperlasson

Hey @viperlasson , any luck? It's awful trying to use the web browser! I miss your app so much!

Nothing, sorry folks. I can't do anything without LG's support and they have been quiet. Only other measure I can see is routing ChewieBomb's requests to some inbetween server which has an SSL cert recognized by LG, but I really cannot put that much time into this project anymore.

Edit - finally got a response from LG support. Looks like we will get a firmware update 'eventually' which will automatically fix ChewieBomb once your TV is updated.

ISRG Root X1 in the previous versions of the webOS TV in a future security update.

But we cannot confirm when it will be ready as we don\'t have any fixed schedule for it now

@viperlasson: It finally started working again after the latest firmware update for my B9. Thanks a lot for your effort!