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Developing an app for FOX T2

B

Bartyblaster

New Member
Hi, I'm in the process of developing an application which interfaces with the HDR FOX T2. I'd like to work with another like minded developer to explore my ideas and help me test with another T2. Anyone interested?
 
Sounds interesting. Is it a custom firmware extension or something that runs externally and connects via DLNA, FTP or something similar?
 
We're always keen on new ideas though and in my experience there will be plenty of people here willing to help test.
 
New ideas, yes, but there's no point the OP barking up an old alley. We may have already solved whatever problem he is trying to address - but we await more info.

(and this probably needs to be in the Custom section, unless the idea works with an unmodified unit)
 
I'm sure you'll find volunteers here if you explain what you want to do. Most will have modified boxes but they still support FTP.
Btw, the FTP server in an unmodified Humax is very flaky with a tendency to crash a lot.
 
Bartyblaster said:
I want this to work with an unmodified humax, since it only communicates over ftp with humax
Click to expand...
Are you sure you are really adding anything to what is already available, albeit by other means? There is no reason at all to avoid custom firmware, unless you are also targeting the HDR-1800/2000T (which don't have the luxury of custom firmware).

Please understand that, if you really are focused on HDR-FOX, your audience will be very small in the shadow of the CF.
 
I want to offer a service (amongst friends) that shows a consolidated list of recordings we all have, then if you want to watch something your friend has on his Humax, it will initiate a peer-to-peer exchange of the recording, then you can watch it on your own Humax as if you'd recorded the program yourself. There is a web-service "agent" that would need to run on a machine on the same local network as your Humax. This agent only communicates with the Humax over FTP. I've written most of the code, but want to do some testing.
 
Bartyblaster said:
I want this to work with an unmodified humax, since it only communicates over ftp with humax
Click to expand...
Bartyblaster said:
...then if you want to watch something your friend has on his Humax, it will initiate a peer-to-peer exchange of the recording, then you can watch it on your own Humax as if you'd recorded the program yourself.
Click to expand...
If they are unmodified Humaxes then how will it get round all the recordings being encrypted so that they only play on the unit that recorded them?
 
Bartyblaster said:
I want to offer a service (amongst friends) that shows a consolidated list of recordings we all have, then if you want to watch something your friend has on his Humax, it will initiate a peer-to-peer exchange of the recording, then you can watch it on your own Humax as if you'd recorded the program yourself.
Click to expand...
How do you handle the list of members and how do you handle security of setting up the IP connections between them?
I hope you're all on fibre with a decent uplink speed as it is going to take for-bleedin'-ever on ADSL.
 
Bartyblaster said:
I want to offer a service (amongst friends) that shows a consolidated list of recordings we all have, then if you want to watch something your friend has on his Humax, it will initiate a peer-to-peer exchange of the recording, then you can watch it on your own Humax as if you'd recorded the program yourself. There is a web-service "agent" that would need to run on a machine on the same local network as your Humax. This agent only communicates with the Humax over FTP. I've written most of the code, but want to do some testing.
Click to expand...
Assuming an adequate network speed (the first hurdle), the obvious way to do this would be to simply create a VPN to link the friends home networks, then use the DLNA facilities each HDR-FOX has as standard to access between them. Job done, no code required.

Other than using DLNA (ie your FTP idea), as mentioned above you are stuffed without dealing with the encryption problem. You could have it that the only shared recordings are those copied to a USB drive (as long as they are not HiDef - which would cripple your bandwidth anyway). You need to get up to speed on encryption - see Things Every... (click) section 5 and follow the links.

We already have the RS facility to centralise information - it pools EPG data, and allows us remote access to our boxes, but at present there is no real sharing going on. However, it provides a framework that would be a good starting point - and I have previously suggested a means of pooling recordings in case somebody later finds out about a recording they should have made.

Your data bandwidth and ISP data allowance is going to be the biggest problem. Yes, OK, you might have 20Mbps download, but your upload will be a tiny fraction of that. For real-time rendering of StDef video you need to sustain about 2.5Mbps end-to-end (my broadband is only 3Mbps download at the best of times). Otherwise you will need to transfer the file at a slower rate ahead of time. And all that data will eat into your data allowance (which is measured as the aggregate of download and upload).

Frankly, I think the most practical way of doing what you want is by USB stick and sneakernet.
 
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