Overview: Brightcove Native SDK for tvOS

Overview

The Native SDK for tvOS allows you to create video-centric apps for the Apple TV.

Video Cloud customers can play Video Cloud library content
Brightcove Player customers can play videos with internet accessible URLs

When ingesting your content, we recommend using a high resolution profile for the best renditions for Apple TV. For more details, see Apple's Video Formats for Apple TV documentation.

Supported versions

Active support

Brightcove provides active support for the latest tvOS SDK on the latest public release of the following tvOS versions:

tvOS 18
tvOS 17
tvOS 16
tvOS 15.6
tvOS 14.7
tvOS 13.4.8

Passive support

Brightcove provides passive support for the following tvOS versions:

tvOS 12.4.1
tvOS 11.4.1 (If you want to use IMA ads, you will need tvOS 12.4.1 or newer)

Understanding support levels

Support is defined in terms of the [major version].[minor version].[patch version] of an OS (for example: tvOS 11.4.1). In order to take advantage of the latest technology improvements from Apple, we offer two levels of support:

Active: Brightcove will test and fix bugs on these OS versions.
Passive: Brightcove will test on these OS versions, but bug fixes will be handled on a case by case basis.

Generally, Brightcove provides active support for the versions of the OS that are used by 80% of the user base, and passive support for other versions used by at least 5% of the user base.

Getting started

Before beginning development with the Native SDK for tvOS, there are a few concepts you should learn about:

Media
The current version of the Native SDK supports playing content from your Video Cloud account through the Playback API, or as remote assets with internet accessible URLs.
Analytics
With the Native SDK, Video Cloud customers automatically get robust analytics data reported in Video Cloud.
Core SDK and Dependencies
The Brightcove Native SDK for iOS and its plugins can be added to your project using the CocoaPods dependency manager. The podspecs for all of the Brightcove Native SDK components are hosted in the BrightcoveSpecs repository.

CocoaPods version 1.0 or newer is required.
Native SDK Reference
Learn about the Native SDK, including installation, quick start and architecture. You'll learn how critical components interact to handle the complexities of controlling the native video player.

You'll also find the latest beta version of the SDK, if one exists.
Mailing list
Join the Brightcove Native SDKs mailing list to stay informed of release announcements for the Native SDKs.

The posts in the channel are for historical purposes. Signing up will add you to the email list for SDK releases.

Download the SDK

The Brightcove Native SDK for tvOS is contained within the Native SDK for iOS. Here, you will find a dynamic library framework which supports tvOS.

Get the latest version of the Brightcove Native SDK for iOS:

	Package (Github Repo)	Podspec	Reference Documentation	Notes	Sample
SDK	Native SDK for iOS 7.0.0	BrightcoveSpecs	SDK Reference	Release Notes	Basic Apple TV sample

or select this button:

To view the product updates for all of the Native SDKs and the associated plugins, see the Release Notes for the Brightcove Native SDKs document.

Notes:

The minimum Deployment Target for all Brightcove Native Player for iOS frameworks is now iOS 12 and tvOS 12
To improve CocoaPods compliance, the Native SDK for iOS 6.7.7 has renamed some Podspec files. For details, see the Native SDK Reference.
The Brightcove Native SDK for iOS 6.5.0+ requires Xcode 11.0 or higher.
Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) is required in your project. This is the current default for Xcode projects.
The Brightcove Native SDK for tvOS is written to allow you to create custom apps using Obj-C and Swift, but it does not support Apple's Television Markup Language (TVML).
A known Apple issue with FairPlay streaming content is that it will not be rendered in AirPlay Mirroring mode. For more details, see the WWDC presentation: Content Protection for HLS (scroll about halfway through the transcript).

Integrations

The following table contains links to get plugins integrated with your SDK implementation. The plugins can be downloaded from their respective Github Repos, and each repo contains a detailed README with instructions on how to setup the plugin.

The sample applications demonstrate the basic functionality of each plugin integrated with the SDK. These sample apps are a good way to learn about each plugin, and serve as a reference point when debugging.

Previous integration versions

Category	Plugin (Github Repo)	Podspec	Reference Documentation	Sample Apps	Supported Partner/ Vendor Plugin
Advertising	IMA plugin 7.0.0 ^[1]^[2]	Brightcove-Player-SDK-IMA	IMA Reference	Google IMA Samples	Google IMA SDK 4.6.1
	FreeWheel plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-FW	FreeWheel Reference	FreeWheel Samples	FreeWheel Ad Manager 6.52.0
	Pulse plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-Pulse	Pulse Reference	Pulse Samples	Pulse SDK 2.6.21.6.0
	SSAI plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-FW	SSAI Reference	SSAI Samples	VAST 4.1 AdVerification
	DAI plugin 7.0.0	Brightcove-Player-SDK-DAI	DAI Reference	DAI Samples	VAST 4.1 AdVerification

The following notes refer to the integrations in the table above.

^[1] The current version of the IMA plugin supports Google's IMA iOS SDK v3, which supports iOS versions 9.0+. For details, see Google's documentation.

The Brightcove Native SDKs support VMAP XML templates that contain the VAST protocol, including VAST 3.0, and limited support for VAST 4.0. For more details about VAST version compatibility, see Google's Support and Compatibility document for the IMA SDK for iOS.

The Native SDK for tvOS supports the IAB Open Measurement SDK v3.1.22.

^[2] If you are using Swift, you must manually add Google's IMA libraries, instead of using CocoaPods. This is because Google's IMA library does not support dynamic frameworks, and Swift does not support building static libraries. For details, see the Manual section of the IMA Plugin for Brightcove Native SDK for iOS documentation. Even though Brightcove's IMA plugin uses a dynamic framework, the Google IMA library is only provided as a static framework.

Samples

The following table contains links to code samples that are in addition to the samples associated with the integrations in the previous section.

Sample Application	Description
Apple TV	Create a basic app that plays videos from your Video Cloud library.
Playback with FairPlay	Protect your content with FPS (FairPlay Streaming). For a complete sample, see the Basic FairPlay iOS sample.
Sidecar Subtitles	Display captions for videos which include them in a separate file. This is an iOS sample, but should be relevant for tvOS.

Solution guides

The following table contains links to developer docs which will help you get started with your own app using the Brightcove Native SDK, and guide you through some of the features and functionality available.

Guide	Description
Working with Apple TV UI Controls	Learn how to leverage the Brightcove Native SDK for tvOS to use the TV player controls.
Simple Video Playback	Learn how to create a simple video app using the Brightcove Native SDK for tvOS.
Source Selection	Learn about the default source selection process when playing a video.
Using WebVTT Captions	Learn how to configure WebVTT captions for HLS videos when using the Native SDK for tvOS.

Best practices

Here is additional information that you may find helpful when working with the Brightcove Native SDK.

Advertising

Companion ads and click-through ads are not supported on Apple TV. Because there is no web browser support on Apple TV, there is no destination for a click-through URL.