Previously the RS portal was almost perfect for my use. The only hiccup was that I was teaching myself some network setup and configuration and had created a home network which was so secure that the only normal (I'm sure a persistant hacker could find a way) way of accessing my pvr remotely was via a vpn. So I didnt really want to register any of my machines on any internet service (although I'm sure the portal is a secure and legitimate service).
However the bigger and main reason I am researching this is I recently spent some time picking up some linux admin skills to branch out a bit and am now looking to start doing some proper linux development. I needed a pet project to teach myself and have come up with the following as both a solution to my hiccup and a fun learning project.
I plan a service similar to the excellent RS Portal but using local (to my network) servers rather than remote ones. I hope to have a linux box sitting on my internal network running a little request management daemon (which means learning how to program linux daemons) which sits listening for comms from remote clients (so I shall practice with message queues, socket programming etc). The remote client will send a request to record a program to the request management daemon. If the pvr is awake the request management daemon will make an update to the rsvp.db (probably making use of an ssh session and the JIM libraries perhaps as they seem pretty developer friendly). If the PVR is off the request management daemon will store the request in a local sql database (teaching myself sql usage), when the PVR next boots I will have a little script that runs at boot to access my little database and make the additions to either rsvp.db if I can get it to run before rsvsync (teaching me how to use scripts triggered at boot up and the boot sequence) or perhaps after rsvsync but before the humax software.
Its a bit of a long project but I should be able to pick up some new skills along the way. So, erm. There may be a few more questions from me in the near future as I stumble over things
Thanks very much for all the help so far. Oh and if anyone has any ideas or suggestions of better ways of doing things or ways to enhance the learning aspects of my project please let me know. All suggestions greatfuly accepted.