Need hotstar

[ravi teja]

Highly dissappointed after buying lg 4k tv because it doesnt support hotstar app

[George Hofmeister]

The TV can happily support a Hotstar app, it just needs Hotstar to produce one for it.

[ravi teja]

Shouldn't lg people be taking care of that??

[ravi teja]

And you know what we cant even open hotstar desktop version on webos.Awesome job by Lg's webos

[George Hofmeister]

The reason that content providers are ultimately responsible for an app being produce is that they have access to the inner workings of their systems.  LG cannot magically produce an app if it relies on accessing someone else servers, APIs, CGIs etc.  As for not being able to display Hotstar's desktop version (I am assuming you are talking about their website) then I am guessing it has some reliance on Adobe Flash on which much has been written on this and many other forums.  Flash is outdated technology, it is dying and will be put out of its misery in 2020.  No major TV manufacturer to my knowledge supports Flash in their browsers do to the complexity of programming for it and its many security issues.  Content providers that still rely on Flash are sadly not moving with the times, even Amazon whom it could be considered forward thinking still have a certain level of integration with it.

If you want an app from a content provider or you want to be able to view their website in the webOS browser then the only people you should be complaining to are the content providers themselves.

That said it would be nice if LG acknowledged that there is a call for specific apps and let the users know that they at the least had reached out to content providers to offer help in developing for the platform.

[ravi teja]

If the solution for this is to contact the content provider what is this forum about?

Since you assumed a lot of stuff here about flash,apis,cgis etc let me take the privilege and correct you that flash is a builtin feature in browsers these days which means flash always exists.

I am literally shocked at your response which suggests me to contact the content provider,if i need netflix i should talk to netflix. Need amazon then talk to amazon.you are giving us a very good job to keep contacting the service providers after buying lg tv.

I am very curious to know if you contact all the providers if u need stuff in android or just post your request in android forum??

[George Hofmeister]

1 hour ago, ravi teja said:

If the solution for this is to contact the content provider what is this forum about?

Since you assumed a lot of stuff here about flash,apis,cgis etc let me take the privilege and correct you that flash is a builtin feature in browsers these days which means flash always exists.

I am literally shocked at your response which suggests me to contact the content provider,if i need netflix i should talk to netflix. Need amazon then talk to amazon.you are giving us a very good job to keep contacting the service providers after buying lg tv.

I am very curious to know if you contact all the providers if u need stuff in android or just post your request in android forum??

This is a user to user (it says so at the top of every page) forum, here to allow LG webOS TV owners to ask questions, raise interesting topics, ask the community to help fix faults etc.  It is not a direct line to LG, because with the exception of the Developers forum there is (to the best of my knowledge) no official LG user forum.  Yes you can tell everyone here that you would like a particular app created, you would like support for Flash, but it does not mean LG are going to read your request and act on it.  The forum allows for other users to  offer advice and voice opinions, mine was to contact Hotstar, if you do or do not wish to do so then that is your prerogative.

No Flash is built in all browsers, obviously it is not, otherwise we would not be having this conversation.  Google's Chrome has their is their own implementation of Flash not Adobe's and that will be dropped in 2020 as will all support for Flash:

link hidden, please login to view

Mozilla have published there own missive on the future of their support for Flash:

Flash is at best a plugin/addon so no it does not in fact 'always exist'.  The simple fact is that Adobe is killing Flash off, going as far as to stop development on mobile devices as far back as November 2011:

Other Smart TV manufacturers do not support Flash either due to the fact that there is no support from Adobe:

While I understand it is frustrating that the particular website you want to use does not work in the webOS browser the fault is not necessarily with LG, in the same way it would not be reasonable to expect that every website in the world to work in say Firefox.  The manufacturer of a web browser be it LG or Opera have no control how well a website is written, or what technologies it uses. 

To quote one user on CNET replying to someone complaining Samsung TVs lack of support for Flash:

 If the web site wants their site to work on smart tvs they'll have to test for and support it. These TVs are not PCs so there is nothing for use to install. 

Expecting LG or any other Smart TV manufacturer as this late stage of Flash's life span to suddenly introduce support for it is naive.  The sad fact is that content providers with sites that currently rely on Flash are going to have to pull their collective fingers out and move with the times and undertake some serious upgrades.  I have been to several websites in the webOS browser that do not ever recognise the user agent string falsely reporting says as Chrome.  Now this is the website owners fault not LG who cannot force them to add support.

As for contacting software creators directly, well yes I have done so on many time for many different products, be it a full blown desktop package through to add-ons for Mozilla projects.  Were possible I will join a producers own forum in the hope that if they run one they will actually read and interact with the users, Enpass is the latest site I have joined to give feedback and add my support for feature requests.  Also, for several years I ran an independent forum for users of a personal information manager software and was lucky enough to not only engage directly with the business that created the software but had them participate on the boards.  Forum members were instrumental in advancing new ideas and features in the software on many occasions. 

Yes things would work better on this and other related webOS forums is there were LG staff members involved, being given a definitive idea of how apps get developed, LG's interaction with content providers.  Again I am going to have to guess that LG have approached some content providers in differing regions to get them to help develop Premium apps with the aim of capturing the biggest players in those particular areas.  The BBC iPlayer is one that springs to mind.

[ravi teja]

George,dont you think you are getting too many requests about hotstar.Instead of taking time and replying every body to contact service providers why don't you escalate this to LG.

ACTION WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED THAN ADVICE

[George Hofmeister]

13 hours ago, ravi teja said:

George,dont you think you are getting too many requests about hotstar.Instead of taking time and replying every body to contact service providers why don't you escalate this to LG.

ACTION WOULD BE MUCH APPRECIATED THAN ADVICE

Hi Ravi,

Yes action would be much more appreciated than advice, so please let me know what feedback have you had from contacting both Hotstar & LG? 

I like yourself and all the other members of this forum are just then end user/consumer, I cannot get LG or Hotstar to create an app, nor can I create one myself.  If you want a Hotstar app then you need to take action yourself, by start a writing campaign to both Hotstar and LG.  Here is an official contact link for LG on the forum which you can use to voice a request for an app:

https://www.lgwebos.com/topic/2550-lg-has-a-feedback-and-suggestions-form/

Hotstar can be contacted via [email protected] 

The more users that take the action of contacting both LG and Hotstar the more the likelihood that an app will be produced.  Just complaining about the fact there is not one will not get one created, take action contact LG and Hotstar.  When you do contact them mention you belong to the forum, send them links to individual threads to show there is the desire for an app and if you get any feedback post it here preferably with contact email addresses so other users can contact them as well.

Hotstar is not some fly-by-night little company with no ability to produce apps for Smart TV platforms, they have iOS and Android apps so writing for webOS should be well within their capabilities.  May be they just do not realize that there is a demand.

Also see if Hotstar has Facebook, Twitter etc and post your request there as well.

[George Hofmeister]

So just a little more on the subject, I have sent this email to Hotstar:

Dear Hotstar Support

I am a member of the LG webOS User to User Support Forum, where we have many users asking why a Hotstar has not yet produced an app for the platform.  I am hoping that you could provide some on whether you are aware of LG's webOS platform and if so what plans if any are in place for producing support for it.

 

Any feedback you could provide would be appreciated so I can pass it back to forum members.

 

Your name here

 

https://www.lgwebos.com

-----

Feel free to copy and paste the message above (changing the name to your own of course), and if I do get any feedback I will let you know but the more people who contact Hotstar the more likely that they will engage with us, LG and webOS.

[George Hofmeister]

On 12/05/2018 at 12:14 PM, ravi teja said:

And you know what we cant even open hotstar desktop version on webos.Awesome job by Lg's webos

Unfortunately I cannot test this fully as Hotstar is not available in my region, for me the home page loads but as I cannot log in I am unable to see what does or does not not work.   The home page at least does not appear to rely on Flash according to 

link hidden, please login to view

 but who knows what is used after logging in.  A possibility for things not working are that the Hotstar website has not had support for the webOS browser written in to it, basic things such as adding support for its browser ID string may not have been implemented. 

If you can give further explanation of what is going wrong would be appreciated by the forum.

[George Hofmeister]

Hi All,

I hope you have all been contacting Hotstar to voice your request for a webOS app, below is the reply I received to my email I have detailed earlier in this thread:

Hi Gavin,  Greetings from Hotstar.  We understand our users need to view the content bouquet we offer on the big screen.  We have recently released an app for Android Smart TV. Also, you would be glad to know that we are working on an App for LG WebOS which should be available soon.  Your continued support and patience is highly appreciated.  Have a good time!

Thanks,  Kruti  Hotstar Team.  ---- So Hotstar are working on a webOS app, but please contact them as weight of numbers will be what gets things progressed quicker.

[ravi teja]

George,thanks a lot for the support.

After irritating you so much this was expected ;-)

Regards&Apologies

Ravi Teja

[George Hofmeister]

6 hours ago, ravi teja said:

George,thanks a lot for the support.

After irritating you so much this was expected ;-)

Regards&Apologies

Ravi Teja

But have you contacted Hotstar yourself?

[ravi teja]

Oh..now i have to show you the proof??If you are imagining that only because you have contacted hotstar they are developing app for webos then you are absolutely wrong Mr.George.

 

[George Hofmeister]

14 hours ago, ravi teja said:

Oh..now i have to show you the proof??If you are imagining that only because you have contacted hotstar they are developing app for webos then you are absolutely wrong Mr.George.

Sorry Ravi, I in no way suspect that just because I contacted Hotstar that they suddenly decided that they would produce an app for webOS TV users.  Say an app does not appear from Hotstar and I contact them again only to get the reply that they did not feel there was actually enough demand for the platform.  What I would like is feedback from other forum users showing that they have contacted content providers and that they are in turn getting some sort of feedback, be it positive and negative.

I have done the same thing for BBC America, a content provider I will never user but who I wanted to show that there was a desire for an app.  If I am the only one contacting content providers they are not really going to latch on to the fact there is a demand out there are they.

[Rohan Chopra]

a) Hotstar works well on the browser in my TV. I tried watching GoT on it and it ran very smoothly on 1080p resolution; and it ran full screen  I wonder why it doesn't run on some users' TV browser as reported in this thread! My TV is one week old.

b) Also, I too wrote to Hotstar and got an instant encouraging reply from them which goes like this -

"It is good to see your active engagement with our digital platform. We have recently released an app for Android Smart TV OS 7.0 & above. Also, we are working on App for Samsung Tizen OS & LG Web OS App which should be available by end of this year. "

Although option a) above works fine with me but I have a question - Since the Hotstar logo on the top right is always fixed on the screen will it not run a risk of getting burnt-in on that spot of the TV? I am very concerned about this. Does the logo also appear on the app version (say on Sony's Android TVs)?

 

[Nitin1438]

On 11/15/2018 at 7:44 PM, Rohan Chopra said:

a) Hotstar works well on the browser in my TV. I tried watching GoT on it and it ran very smoothly on 1080p resolution; and it ran full screen  I wonder why it doesn't run on some users' TV browser as reported in this thread! My TV is one week old.

b) Also, I too wrote to Hotstar and got an instant encouraging reply from them which goes like this -

"It is good to see your active engagement with our digital platform. We have recently released an app for Android Smart TV OS 7.0 & above. Also, we are working on App for Samsung Tizen OS & LG Web OS App which should be available by end of this year. "

Although option a) above works fine with me but I have a question - Since the Hotstar logo on the top right is always fixed on the screen will it not run a risk of getting burnt-in on that spot of the TV? I am very concerned about this. Does the logo also appear on the app version (say on Sony's Android TVs)?

 

Yes, I was also wondering why users are so keen to get the app when we can access it via browser. But as you mentioned, it might be the case that it works on some models and not on others. I've 55UK6500 and it works without any glitch.

Regarding your question about burn in due to logo, I think that should not be an issue as other channels also have their logos on top right corners and that doesn't have any side effects afaik.

Nitin

[George Hofmeister]

1 hour ago, Nitin1438 said:

Yes, I was also wondering why users are so keen to get the app when we can access it via browser. But as you mentioned, it might be the case that it works on some models and not on others. I've 55UK6500 and it works without any glitch.

Regarding your question about burn in due to logo, I think that should not be an issue as other channels also have their logos on top right corners and that doesn't have any side effects afaik.

Nitin

With regards to users wanting a Hotstar app as opposed to viewing in the webOS browser this is because in the past the website would not load due to Adobe Flash/JavaScript issues.  If the site is now working it is most likely Hotstar have addressed these issues.  

[Dharmesh Patel]

Yes I see on my LG tv it doesn't support either 

[Nitin1438]

4 minutes ago, Dharmesh Patel said:

Yes I see on my LG tv it doesn't support either 

I use hotstar from the Web browser and it works great! Try it.

Nitin