DTV Tools
Virgin Media does not offer a dedicated development & support team as an external resource to Content Partners. But we will do the best we can to provide as much support as possible, in the form of documentation, tools, sample code and test environments to enable you to develop a fit for purpose interactive service that is a benefit to our interactive platform and gives you a presence that you can build on for future releases.
TV Emulator Client (otherwise known as "emmy")
For development purposes, most coding would be done on a PC and tested using the emmy. It is only when coming to tweak colours, graphics and page alignments, that a set top box is more suitable and should be conducted under the guidance of Virgin Media in one of their lab facilities in either their Winnersh or Langley offices.
If you haven't got the latest "emmy" version (DTV_1.275.14Cb12), then please download and extract the zip file below, locate the "emmy.exe" file and run as normal.
Emmy walk through
A few settings before we start. Our Liberate mirror environment (connect suite) is housed within our Langley Operations lab environment. Connectivity to access these environments is privileged and will need to be permissioned within one of our corporate firewalls.
More than likely, these environments will also need to be permissioned on content partner network firewalls as well, unless you will be running the emulator client on a standalone internet ready machine with a static IP address.
So, speak to your network team in order to ask them to permission the following through your network:
- Langley Operations Lab IP address - 80.0.233.164
- Connect Suite - 80.0.233.132
- Non-standard ports 8080 (for HTTP traffic) & 9093 (for SSL traffic) need to be opened on your external facing IP of machine running emmy.
Virgin Media will need to permission on our network firewall the external IP address of the PC you are using to run the emmy client. So, if your not sure what your external address is please speak to your network team.
What to expect when you run emmy
To start the emmy client, you need to locate the 'emmy.exe' file within your tv emulator directory on your hard drive. It should normally be found under:
[hard-drive disk drive (C,D)]:\emulator_1275_14cb12\TVEmulator1.2.7.5.14cb12
Run the 'emmy.exe' file and it should eventually appear as the screen below:
At this point you need to press the 'CTRL' & 'HOME' keys together on your keyboard and this will load the Virgin Media "INTERACTIVE" menu screen with links to the familiar genre menus below:
Troubleshooting
1. If you are not seeing the screens above when you start 'emmy.exe', then please double check the permissioning IP's mentioned previously again, with your network team.
2. Also, check that ports 8080 & 9093 are open on your network, as the emmy client will only run on these ports.
3. If there are still problems, then locate your 'emmy.ini' file. It should be located under the [hard-drive disk drive (C,D)]:\emulator_1275_14cb12\TVEmulator1.2.7.5.14cb12\emmy directory, and check that this configuration file has the following values below:
- httpAddr=80.0.233.132
- httpPort=8080
- sslOkeAddr=80.0.233.132
- sslOkePort=9093
If these are the same, then we have a problem that may take a little longer to resolve and will need some packet tracing of IP’s. Please contact your Virgin Media technical contact for further assistance in this instance.
Testing URL's
The emmy is a neat way of checking your 'live' service in your office, especially if your office is not within a Virgin Media franchise area.
The other benefit of the emmy is that you can test out any URL whether it's live or in development. There is an option within the emmy client to actually type in a URL, you or your team may been working on. This is a quick method of testing your development work before you are ready for submission to our own QA process and lab environments.
The option to type in any URL is within the "Settings" menu screen. To get to the "Settings" menu screen you need to be on the "INTERACTIVE" menu screen, as described previously above.
Once on the "INTERACTIVE" menu screen, press the 'HOME' key on your keyboard. This will take you back a step to a "HOME" menu screen as shown below:
Using the number pad on your keyboard, press option '8' to go to the "Settings" menu directly, or alternatively use the 'Down arrow' key until you get to the 'Settings' option below and press 'Enter' as normal.
The "SETTINGS" menu screen below is now shown. The option to test a URL is option '8', i.e. 'Load URL1'. Choose this option to load the URL input screen.
Note: Option '7 Load URL' can also be used, but may not be familiar to you. It has a few extra functions, most notably it has the ability to load a URL as a full screen page, as opposed to a page that is loaded within our TV browser.
Once on the 'LoadURL bar' screen, you can type in any URL of your choice. But more importantly this screen is for testing any URL's you or your team have been working on prior to submitting to the Virgin Media QA team.
We have used the BBC website as a good example of what a normal website would look like without it being retuned for an interactive environment. So, I've typed in on the URL bar the "http://www.bbc.co.uk" home page and pressed 'Enter' on the keyboard as follows:
This is what the BBC website would look like below without any redevelopment work for the interactive environment. As you can see there are obvious page scrolling and sizing issues, although it does still function to a degree.
