Re: REVIEW: Controlling Sky/Sky+ from the Internet

[Joseph Heenan <joseph-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In message <42DC282F.8060807@xxxxxxx>
David Greaves <david@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> It's a different approach to IR so it's pretty cool :)

Indeed :)

> Having said that, my Sky box lives in my rack and has the IR
positioned
> in front of it. It hasn't missed a recording or channel change in over
a
> year (that's probably over a thousand recordings).
> It also sends the 'backup' and 'Sky' button codes every 5 seconds to
get
> rid of the DOGs and to ensure the box is powered on after a sky
update.

I could change the firmware on my device to do that if there's
general interest in that. (I'm not quite sure how you're doing that?)

> As for changing channels from the internet - why would you want to do
> that <grin>? With Myth I can go into the web interface from the
internet
> and play with the program guide, reschedule recordings etc etc. The
> backend box changes channels whenever it likes :)

Indeed - one of the outputs of mine is connected to a normal sky
box which is then controlled by myth :-)

(The other output being connected to the sky+. Much as I love myth,
the sky+ UI is so much slicker for a lot things!)

> And, FYI, I recently bought two IR transmitter/receivers for $25 each
-
> a bit less than £47 but I did have to solder them together.
> (http://www.iguanaworks.net/ir/)

Yep, my solution won't suit everyone, no surprises there :)

I designed mine with a bit of forward thinking - RS232 ports are so
1980s and bound to vanish in the next few years, and pulling power
from them is at least a little dodgy at the best of times. USB is
specified to allow the devices to pull power from the bus (and also
is much simpler to drive in software - open device, write commands,
close device - no need for millisecond accurate timing loops!).

Joseph

--
Joseph Heenan, Glasgow, UK              http://www.heenan.me.uk/