Without doubting that it's a good idea in principle... On 23/10/2007, Michael Sparks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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.
Sky+ boxes, of course, have two tuners, Sky boxes only the one. 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) Ah, and being used to provide the EPG, of course, as it is not cached in the box. Try recording two things at once and then using the EPG on a Sky+ box - you get a "oh no you don't message". * A disk store (got that) Which can't be used by interactive services... sorry. * A means of storing capturing images from the transport stream (got that) In fact, you cannot do this. The OpenTV software has no "grab" facility. Remember the apps have two layers - one is a 256-colour-palette one used for rendining the text onto which some static images delivered from the carousel can be used. * A means of resizing images (the interactive portion requires that) The images cannot be captured in the first place, so you may be able to blitter, but you have to do it "by hand" too... * A means of tiling images, and then having a selection UI. OK, it can do this! 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. Indeed, you could do it using Windows Media Center and a DVB-S card too... 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. If Sky could do this, they would have already done it, it's been around since 1998... (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.) I'm not sure how useful... 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) If the damn boxes would allow you to remove the channels you don't subscribe to from the EPG, we would be onto a starter... Michael > > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please > visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial > list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ > -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv
