Browsers in SmarTvs: Which engine do they use?

Question

I've been searching for a while and I found no answer good enough for this. I have decided to validate my layouts for this kind of platform, but never thought about how they would appear on this kind of TV.

So I would like to know if SmarTVs use some existent engine like Webkit, Mozilla, Presto, or even Trident (hope not) or do they use one of their own, at least for the following manufacturers:

• Sony
• Samsung
• LG
• AOC

These are the most common in my country.

Much obliged!

Margarite

Answer 1

• Sony has Opera.
• LG has Webkit. http://developer.lgappstv.com
• Samsung as @WojtekT said had Maple and now it is Webkit too. http://www.samsungdforum.com/

If you want to test how your layout will work with those TVs you can install SDKs. Samsung and LG have emulators in SDKs. SONY hasn't any official SDK.

For TV models form 2011 and older you don't want to use CSS3 as it is not supported (Samsung,LG).

Chesser

Thanks, I'll give a try to those SDKs! – Margarite

Answer 2

As far as Samsung Smart TV goes it depends on version:

• versions 2010 and 2011 are using maple browser (which stands for markup engine platform for embedded systems) which is highly modified Gecko engine
• versions 2012 are using WebKit engine

Inundate

Nice! This is the very first time I hear about this Maple browser. Are there known issues related to the renderization of html? Is there a way to emulate it, so I can test my layout without having the SmartTv itself? – Margarite

Samsung have emulators built into their SDK packages. There are a lot of bugs and quirks in the engine with almost no information on them online. It seems to act like a Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 hybrid, containing bugs from both as well as a few new ones. This site might help: samsungdforum.com although a lot of the documentation and examples are wrong and buggy too. So be careful. – Unready