direct tv

[jtrue]

anyone have any info on interfacing the direct tv control utility to control the reciever
i would like to be able to record from the dtv reciever like a pvr have it change the channel when it is schedued to record that kind of stuff any help would be greatly appreciated
thanks

[stevenhanna6]

i will be adding something like this very soon...right after I get the new plugins stuff worked out.

But I have a question, I'm also using satellite and I have some ideas how I will go about getting xlobby to switch the channel and record at a specific time. But what about pausing live tv and rewinding, is that an important feature in your mind?

what do you use right now for recording?

[Lifter]

The Girder serial port plugin can be used to control any STB. The thing Xlobby needs to do is send several events with payload data upon changing channels. Say I select "channel 245", the following 5 events could be sent:

xChanNum (with payload data: pld1=245, pld2= 0245)
xChanDig0
xChanDig2
xChanDig4
xChanDig5

[Lifter]

But what about pausing live tv and rewinding, is that an important feature in your mind?

I think everyone would love to see that, but I'd imagine that's a lot of work to do at this stage. I had an idea to jerry-rig it, so that you could do all this without needing to change Xlobby much. It could just send events that allow external programs to do all the work. The first program (say DVB software, or any video capture software) will start recording the video to a scratch folder, and then the second external program (Zoomplayer, WMP, Winamp or whatever) will simultaneously playback the recorded file, thus giving you VCR controls over live video (live after a few second delay).

[noviceboy]

pausing live tv and rewinding, is that an important feature in your mind?

If this is what you mean then YES

When people implement pausing live Tv so far they a have mostly forgotten the "killer option" - timed paused live TV.

Scenario. You watch a show reqularly, or want to watch a particular live event but you will be X minutes late. So you want to start recording via an EPG timer and then be able at the press of button rewind and watch semi-live while the recording goes on behind.

Everything I have seen so far makes this a real button fumbling pain

[noviceboy]

Lifter.

Actually I think that is how many people implemented it. My DVB-S software works like that. I,e a Direct show based player is used to playback while the DVB stream is being written to HD. For native MPG2 streams works very well.

But it doesnt do timed, without at least three button presses.

[jtrue]

i think pausing and rewinding live tv is less important then recording and playback
my scenario is i want to set up a dtv reciever hooked to my server use it to handle all the recording issues so for example using xlobby i want to set it up to control the recording and have the reciever hooked to the server handle the recording then have other recievers hooked to a systme running xlobby at each tv

[stevenhanna6]

what I want to do first is get the tvvi,tvpi added to my epg first...then make a little addon that calls WinTvCap....just to get something going. I was going to do this next but the plugin support has got bumped up...but I will go back to EPG stuff soon

[wmandra]

Depending on the model of DirecTV STB you are using, you may be able to control it directly via a serial cable. Look on the back of your box, if you see a plug that is labeled "Low Speed Data" you're golden. There are a bunch of web sites with instructions on how to make the cable. One end is a serial port connector and the other is a telephone handset connector (not a standard RJ-12). Most PVR software that I have seen and tested have the ability to control a Satellite Receiver Box via this method.

Bill