[mythtv-users] Comcast OnDemand on Multiple STBs

Chris Isip cmisipster at gmail.com
Sun Nov 11 05:43:27 UTC 2007


On Nov 10, 2007 7:08 PM, Worldnet <onley at worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>
> > Have the channel change script write some status information to a file
> > and use it to determine which capture card is watching what?
> > Basically, the point is that the external channel change command knows
> > which capture card/input is being used, so, don't throw that information
> > away. Put it somewhere you can find it... Specific implementation
> > instructions would require knowledge of exactly what your plan is for
> > navigating the On Demand menus, but it shouldn't be too difficult to
> > figure out (once you start going down the right path ;).
> > Mike
>
> I'm not following you. If the channel change script was to write to a
> status file it would reside on the backend. How would the frontend
> go about reading this file? Further more since all OnDemand programing
> is on Channel 1 if two frontends were to watch OnDemand at the same
> time the status file would show 2 STBs watching channel 1.
>
> The exact plan is to be able to send left, right, up, down and select
> to the correct STB. Since I am already controlling 4 STBs in exactly
> the way you suggest I don't see where I am not on the right path.
>
> I have 1 master backend server which has 5 tuners and 4 STBs. In the
> configuration of each tuner that is connected to a STB there is a
> place to enter a command to control an external tuner. I have added
> code to the DCT2000 channel_change executable to accept a command
> line argument for the port to send the information to and in each
> tuner configuration I have entered "/usr/local/channel_change x"
> where x is the serial port that the STB is connected to. This is
> EXACTLY how this is supposed to be done as well as how you recommend
> I do it, so up to this point we should be in FULL agreement. Now,
> I have 5 remote frontends, one in the living room, one in the kids
> playroom, one in my bedroom, one in the boys bedroom and one in the
> girls bedroom. If the kids are watching OnDemand in the playroom
> how should I go about sending the left, right, up, down, and select
> interactive codes to the STB that they are watching?
>
> I can only see 2 scenarios that would work.
>
> 1)      Modify Myth so that you can send things other than channel
>        numbers out through the external tuner command.
>
> 2)      Somehow have the frontend that you are watching interogate
>        the backend to see what STB it is connected to.
>
>                As I undersand I can query the database to get this
>                information. I do not yet know how to do this but
>                it appears I will have to learn.
>
>        Somehow send the codes to the STB which is connected to the
>        backend.
>
>                At this point the frontend knows which STB it needs
>                to send the codes to but I am not sure how to go
>                about calling a program on the backend. I would
>                imagine that a daemon would have to be created
>                to listen for requests from the frontends and
>                forward the codes to the STBs
>
> If you think I am on the wrong path then please tell me where I'm
> going wrong.
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If you only have one frontend  doing VOD, I can see how it might be
possible, by grepping index.html for "Live" or "VOD" which you get with
"wget backend:6544".  ( I assume an encoder  recording channel 1 would
display channel info  as VOD)

Once you figure out which encoder is doing live TV VOD , then you know which
STB is connected to your frontend.  You can then use ssh to remote execute a
command.


I dont know how else you can figure out which frontend is connected to which
STB if you have more than one STB doing VOD.

Alternatively, if you just need one VOD active at any time, then perhaps you
can eliminate this channel from the three STB's so that when you select
channel 1 on any frontend, you are immediately connected to a known STB.

Another thing you might do is to have a slightly different lineup for each
tuners.  For example, tuner 1 only has channel 99, tuner 2 only has channel
100.  That way you can select a specific tuner (hence a specific STB) by
changing to the unique channel, then channel change to 1 after that.

I'm really just rambling these ideas.  I dont know if they will work.

Hope it helps
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