On Tuesday 23 October 2007 07:12, Brian Butterworth wrote:
> Erm, yeah, I know. I did stuff like this in the past. What I meant was it
> was not possible to implement it in the set-top box (Sky Digibox).
Actually Sky *could* do that. The processing power may be massively
underpowered (no idea of spec, but I'm assuming v low performance),
but a Sky+ box could certainly be changed (by sky) to do this.
After all, what facilities would you need on a Sky box to do it?
* Second tuner that's usually idle (got that, except when recording a
channel you're not watching)
* A disk store (got that)
* A means of storing capturing images from the transport stream (got that)
* A means of resizing images (the interactive portion requires that)
* A means of tiling images, and then having a selection UI.
Pretty much every thing needed (by Sky) is there. That linux based sky
receiver (Dreambox?) is probably moddable as a DIY, but I guess would
have dubious legality.
For the limited subset of image processing required, storage and UI display,
I'd be very surprised if a Sky+ box couldn't be modified by Sky to do it. The
advantage of doing it in the box I suppose is that it'd be able to pick up
your favourites (if set) and what channels you're subscribed to.
(nb, I'm not talking about a mosaic of small video clips, rather a mosaic of
images, which is much more trivial, and is taken at a sensible point in time,
potentially just as useful. Unless it hits an ad.)
On the subject of favourites, I just wish that the Sky box tracked (by didn't
share) what channels you normally watch by frequency and then maintained (but
didn't share!) a menu sorted by least/most frequently used channel. (which
gives you an approximation of your favourite channels for free) If you do
that using the stats from a ring buffer (as well as an historical ordering),
it tracks how your tastes change with time pretty much for free, keeping it
relevant. (result from web caching & UI window buffer placement caching)
Michael
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