gingaf: A Cross-Platform Architecture to Execute Ginga-NCL and Ginga-HTML5 Applications

• Alan L. V. Guedes University of Reading
• Paulo Victor Borges PUC-Rio
• Daniel Moraes PUC-Rio
• Sergio Colcher PUC-Rio

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/webmedia.2026.30538

Resumo

Ginga, alongside its Ginga-NCL and Ginga-HTML5 subsystems, is an international standard for interactive digital television defined by the ITU-T/SBTVD. It is used in Brazil and several Latin American countries, and reaches over 60 million people. However, traditional Ginga development tools rely on heavy, platform-specific C++ implementations, creating a steep barrier to entry for developers. This paper presents gingaf, a Ginga architecture which focuses on decoupling logic components from UI components to support running both Ginga-NCL and Ginga-HTML5 applications directly from the web browser, mobile, or desktop. On the web, we present a portable Lua interpreter and a Ginga-HTML5 player that intercepts HTTP requests to support Ginga-CC-WebServices. This architecture does not require any native browser plugins, paving the way for webbased development playgrounds and debugging environments.

Palavras-chave: TV, Ginga, Ginga-NCL, Ginga-HTML5

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