Cisco — Set-Top Box EPGs
Took the set-top-box program guide from 2 FPS to 60 FPS on an optimized Chromium instance — interactive TV guides that stayed fast on constrained, non-GPU hardware.
Building the interface millions of living rooms actually touch — the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for Cisco’s next-generation set-top boxes.
The signature number: 2 FPS → 60 FPS. The guide crawled on constrained, non-GPU boxes; through relentless profiling and a modified, optimized Chromium instance, we took it to a fluid 60 frames per second — performance the hardware wasn’t supposed to be capable of.
The work
- A lightweight, client-side JS framework on an MVC-P architecture (PureMVC), designed to port cleanly across set-top boxes, tablets, and smartphones.
- HTML5 / CSS3 for rendering and animation inside the box’s browser, with server-side components written in Node.js and ported onto the device.
- A custom in-browser performance tool (built with D3.js) that measured screen-transition and execution time — so the guide stayed responsive on non-GPU boxes, where every frame is fought for.
- Unit testing with Jasmine, code review, and agile delivery against fast-moving, volatile requirements.
Industry & impact
This is digital TV / pay-TV infrastructure — carrier-grade software running on tightly constrained consumer hardware. It’s where the instinct for performance under real constraints took hold, recognized twice by Cisco (You Amaze, You Inspire) for performance work on non-GPU boxes.