[mythtv-users] Comcast OnDemand on Multiple STBs

Worldnet onley at worldnet.att.net
Sun Nov 11 00:08:46 UTC 2007


> 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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