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Comment on Show HN: hacking our set-top box

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Would you please explain STB component of the app? I don't see any.

Basically we have a server connected to STBs running C++ scripts that rotate over every channel (the STBs are operated with an IR blaster) to capture snapshots which are then uploaded to S3 (with a little node.js component) that are fed to the client app via XMPP.

I'm curious, how are you handling the time-zone issue? For example, MTV runs an East and West Cost feed. Usually those are just time-shifted mirror images (but not always). Fox often runs eight or more national feeds breaking the country into arbitrary sections (think NFL Sunday). Are you planning to scatter your set-top boxes in different regions of the country?

Excellent! Thx for response. Just curious how many STBs you have. Why can't pull EPG data and use that as a source? But yes, won't get screenshots that way.

Thanks for the suggestion ! We'll have to look into the EPG, for now we get the TV listings data in another way ;) Right now we only have 2 STBs, and their input is captured by 2 video cards (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/). We picked this one because it has a very nice C++ SDK. Ideally though, we'd have as many STBs as we can to get more screenshots !

Do you have your email address here?

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