[mkerdman]

AVS accessDTV Software Enhancement Dev. Team: ENGINEER SIGN UP SHEET


While I am happy that iTech appears to be posied to respond to the idea of an AVS accessDTV Software Enhancement Development Team, I myself claim no particular expertise in software development other than feature set suggestions.


I am glad to artempt to coordinate the genisis of the Team and am first going to use this thread to open up:



AVS accessDTV Software

Enhancement Development Team

ENGINEER SIGN UP SHEET


Please post


"AVS accessDTV Software Enhancement Development Team: ENGINEER SIGN UP SHEET"


in the ---POST SUBJECT--- line of your reply and then state your ability to contribute to the development once iTech releases their accessDTV SDK and source code under an NDA and non-compensation agreement.


You may also PM me with your contact information.




Murray Kerdman

 

[gsr]

I'm still interested .


Plenty of C++/Windows experience and am willing to put time into this.


I've sent you PM with my contact info.

 

[mkerdman]

Geoffrey


You are at the top of the list.


Let's see if we excite some of the HiPix guys and anyone else with skills and the interest and motivation!


Murray Kerdman

 

[BobbySteel]

The call is for software engineers right? Where's the incorrect usage there?

 

[mkerdman]

If someone has the skill and knowledge to make a positive contribution to the advancement of the software, great.


I really have no use for the various associated labels others would assign or not assign to such efforts.


If your interest lies in making a contiribution you are welcome no matter what, if any, "title" you are refered to by.



Murray Kerdman

 

[mkerdman]

Please sign up if you can/want to help with accessDTV:


in the ---POST SUBJECT--- line of your reply and then state your ability to contribute to the development once iTech releases their accessDTV SDK and source code under an NDA and non-compensation agreement.


You may also PM me with your contact information.



Murray Kerdman

 

[mkerdman]

Well said Geoffrey.


With no offence to others, we in this thread are ONLY interested in making the ADTV hardware more robust and usefull through enhancing the software.



Murray Kerdman

 

[donlyon]

I'm interested in helping with this effort.


I have 8 years experience in software development in C/Java. Not having much experience in Windows programming may limit my usefullness somewhat but I'll do what I can.


I have a degree in aerospace engineering but write software for a living. What can I call myself?

 

[Eiffel]

Murray,


I'd be glad to help anyway I can (I have an engineer diploma, but my programming carreer, if one excludes LUA scripts for Girder, has been on hold for 10 years... so don't set your expectations too high).


Actually, not completly true... I just finished tweaking other's people work to bring back some EPG functionality to the AccessDTV card via myHTPC (mostly Pablo's excellent work). I plan on posting my solution on the myHTPC forum as soon as I get the instructions to upload files there (My solution works very nicely -at least as well as titantv used to- as long as your digital stations, or their analog counterparts are included in your local xmltv/ www.gist.com listings)

 

[Sterling]

I would like to contribute to the project. I have some time and interest.


I am an Engineer, Programmer, Hacker, whatever. Until there is a certification board all the titles in the world are meaningless. I personally like the title Software Architect for myself. But no one gave me that. I have a BS in CS and have written award winning enterprise level software for the W2k and XP platforms. Now currently programming in .NET.


Now, if I can just figure out how to resolder that surface mount capacitor that fell off my AccessDTV card... Any advice from you "Electrical" Engineers?

 

[mkerdman]

Eiffel wrote:


"Actually, not completly true... I just finished tweaking other's people work to bring back some EPG functionality to the AccessDTV card via myHTPC (mostly Pablo's excellent work). I plan on posting my solution on the myHTPC forum as soon as I get the instructions to upload files there (My solution works very nicely -at least as well as titantv used to- as long as your digital stations, or their analog counterparts are included in your local xmltv/ www.gist.com listings)"



Congratulations Eiffel!!!



It sounds as if you have made an excellent "undocumented" (as yet) contiribution to the OFFICIAL AVS accessDTV Software Enhancement Dev. Team with your work on the TitanTV issue.


The AV board has instructions on how to upload a file when posting or replying.


"Attach file:

Maximum size: 512000 bytes

Maximum pixels: 640x640

Valid file extensions: gif jpg png txt zip bmp jpeg pdf "


Also, please join the Yahoo AccessDTV "Group" at, where else, Yahoo Groups and upload the file there as well.



Murray Kerdman

 

[Karnis]

Thread cleaned up to remove unwanted fluff. Please stay on topic.

 

[Jeremy]

I am willing to contribute to this project. I have many years of programming and reverse engineering experience. I can't promise that I will be able to spend time implementing requested features, but will contribute back any fixes or enhancements I make.


Jeremy

 

[TracerBullet]

Hi,


just pm'd you, mkerdman, with a (short) list of my qualifications. I'm definitely on board, and can give some good chunks of time.


even shorter: 9 years programming, 7 years c/c++, 4 years windows. Focused on AI in college, now doing image acquisition and analysis for a scientific imaging company, and heading up a large portion of the software development there.


this will be so cool once we get going

 

[Eiffel]

As announced yesterday, I have just completed the first version of an EPG plugin for the AccessDTV HD card (this is based on Pablo's TV/EPG work for 99.9%). It is available in the myHTPC download area and was also posted in the AccessDTV yahoo group.


I have implemented the record (the ADTV card only supports digital recordings... so you'll get an error message otherwise), watch now (analog and digital), and live tv features.


As XMLTV doesn't grab info for all the HD channels in my area (it's not as complete as Titantv, unfortunately), but shows complete information for their analog counterparts, I have added a remapping capability to the script so that the ADTV application will record the digital version of the analog shows you select, whenever possible. If you're not in the Washington DC area, this will need to be adapted, based on the supplied example. Also, if you don't trigger the ADTV application through Girder with an event called myHD, some -very- simple adaptation of the plugin is needed for the liveTV function to work.


Direct subchannel access is not implemented (... it's not reliable in the ADTV software anyway), so the system defaults to the .1 channels. Finally, for a channel to be recognized as digital, the station name should include the string 'DT' (preceded by at least 3 other characters). This seems to be a common convention, but might not hold 100% true


All this is explained in the script and readme file.


Please give me some feedback on how it works for you, and if there are any modifications that need to be made.


Thanks, and enjoy!

 

[scottatl]

Once you have your list together I will be happy to host a conference call to kick off this project.

 

[jmcomp124]

After using the ADTV card for more than a year, I recently sold it when I knew that I would be moving to Dish. I still love this card and I am interested in helping out. Do I need to own a card to contribute ? I am particulary interested to see ADTV support PVR functions for Satellite programs. Is such a thing possible ? It would be great if someone can shed some light into the encryption and copyright related issues associated with satellite HD programs. I do believe, I have the necessary background to contribute and an urge to learn how this stuff works !

Thanks,

-Jai

 

[gsr]

Quote:

Originally posted by jmcomp124 After using the ADTV card for more than a year, I recently sold it when I knew that I would be moving to Dish. I still love this card and I am interested in helping out. Do I need to own a card to contribute ? I am particulary interested to see ADTV support PVR functions for Satellite programs. Is such a thing possible ? It would be great if someone can shed some light into the encryption and copyright related issues associated with satellite HD programs. I do believe, I have the necessary background to contribute and an urge to learn how this stuff works !

The AccessDTV card (and all the other HD tuner cards available for that matter) doesn't have a satellite tuner, so there's no hope of tuning satellite programming unless you have a satellite receiver that outputs the HD content as a modulated signal on channel 3 or 4 (I have heard that a few of the receivers do this), but then you would have issues to deal with (not insurmountable) in automating channel changes on the satellite receiver.

 

[mkerdman]

The ONLY satellite receiver that outputs the HD content as a modulated signal on channel 3 or 4 is (and soon to be was) the Dish 5000 w HDTV modualtor (Ch. 3 or 4).


This is how I for instance I record HBO-HD and SHO-HD to my accessDTV card as well as my Panasonic D-VHS deck.



Murray Kerdman

 

[mkerdman]

I am growingly confident that there will shortly be an announcement in this forum thread concerning the release by iTech of all the source code necesary to allow the OFFICIAL AVS accessDTV Software Enhancement Dev. Team to begin it's exciting work.


Please stay tuned---in HDTV of course.


This should be significant to the HTPC Community in general and to accessDTV owners and users in particular.



Murray Kerdman