Float Left Interactive works at the intersection of video delivery and device engineering. The focus is narrow on purpose: OTT platforms, connected TV apps, and the plumbing that connects content origins to living room screens.
The streaming industry moves fast, but the problems at the device level tend to be persistent. Memory constraints on consumer hardware. Fragmented browser engines across smart TV platforms. DRM implementations that behave differently on every device family. Playback pipelines that are documented in theory but surprising in practice. These are the kinds of problems we work on and write about.
What we do
We maintain a set of engineering resources covering the practical aspects of OTT and connected TV development. The site includes:
- Platform notes for Roku, Google TV, Samsung Tizen, and LG webOS, covering runtime details, media pipeline behavior, and device-specific constraints.
- Technical guides on topics like HLS and DASH delivery, DRM testing workflows, startup time optimization, and buffering diagnostics.
- Solution overviews for OTT platform engineering, video delivery performance, streaming app architecture, and device QA processes.
We also provide consulting for teams that are building or maintaining streaming applications. That work typically involves architecture review, playback stack selection, device QA strategy, and performance optimization for specific device targets.
How we think about this work
There is no shortage of high-level content about “the future of streaming.” Most of it is not useful when you are trying to figure out why a specific Samsung TV model drops frames during DRM license renewal, or why your Roku app crashes after 4 hours of continuous playback.
We try to be specific and practical. When we write about HLS, we include segment duration tradeoffs and manifest structure details. When we cover device testing, we talk about actual hardware, actual memory limits, and actual failure modes. The goal is to produce resources that are genuinely useful to engineers doing this work.
Scope and limitations
We focus on the areas where we have direct experience: client-side playback, device integration, delivery chain configuration, and QA processes. We do not cover content acquisition, rights management business logic, or content recommendation algorithms in any depth.
We also do not pretend to have all the answers. OTT engineering involves a lot of vendor-specific behavior, undocumented quirks, and hardware-dependent edge cases. What works on one device generation may not work on the next. We try to document what we know, update it when things change, and note uncertainty where it exists.
Get in touch
If you have questions about a specific platform or delivery challenge, or if you want to discuss how we might help with your project, reach out through our contact page.
For updates on new guides and platform notes, check the changelog.