[mythtv-users] Recording from STB that requests channel access pins

Martin Bene Martin.Bene at icomedias.com
Thu Jan 14 15:23:57 UTC 2016


Hi,

Lots of good feedback on this thread - I really appreciate the help.

> The channel change script simply needs to spawn a child process to do 
> the monitoring (and pin entry), then return an exit code for MythTV 
> indicating the status of the channel change.  

Currently, I think the channel change script isn't the best place to attach this; an event script for the "Recording started" or " Recording started writing" looks like a better fit: I can get information on the recording file and card as parameters so I don't have to look around for the right recording file and can also avoid monitoring recordings from sane sources that don't require this voodoo.

Currently envisioned logic looks like this: 
* spawn a monitoring process from "Recording Started" event script
* end the monitor if the recording file doesn't change for 30" (recording finished)
* grab last 5mb off the recording file, feed to ffmpeg, extract first keyframe as a jpg
* cut out a region from the image that's constant for the popup (no date/time/channel name/program info)
* compare grabbed image to corresponding part of the popup using imagemagick compare function 
* send pin if compare returns reasonable similarity.

I'll share my results if I get this running in an acceptable way. 

> Though the whole PIN entry at whenever the STB decides is completely 
> broken--to the point that the provider really /should/ allow a way to 
> disable it.  (And I'd search high and low--even wade through cable company 
> customer support to try to get a different STB--for a way to disable it, 
> even if doing so requires going into some service/maintenance interface that 
> my cable company may not want to tell me about).

I wholeheartedly agree, it's definitely ridiculous. The provider only supports one model of STB (they went so far as to send a new box to customers owning previously supported different models).

Bye, Martin
No Disclaimer.icomedias


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