Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for a port-connected television upgrader system. An embodiment operates by receiving a fetch command from a first instance of an application executing locally on a host device physically connected to a media device through a port of the media device. The fetch command is provided to the media device executing a second instance of the application to fetch a file associated with displaying an interface of the application on the media device. Metadata corresponding to the file that was retrieved by the media device is received. A rendering command corresponding to the interface is determined and provided to the media device that is configured to display the interface of the application responsive to executing the rendering command.