Michael, On 23/10/2007, Michael Sparks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Tuesday 23 October 2007 13:36, Brian Butterworth wrote: > > Without doubting that it's a good idea in principle... > ... > > After all, what facilities would you need on a Sky box to do it? > Sky+ box of course. > > > > > * Second tuner that's usually idle > > > 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". > > So, in short, you're saying that they can't change the way they can use > the > box? I don't buy that for a second. :-)
Have you ever even tried suggesting this to Sky? The usage of the second tuner therefore becomes something like: > * If not recording, > * If not in EPG, > * Periodically, scan channels, grab frames, dump to disk BSkyB say that you cannot. If you wish to run an OpenTV application on the box you have to follow the Sky rules, which are somewhat onerous and do not allow access to the EPG or hard drive. > * A disk store (got that) > > > > Which can't be used by interactive services... sorry. > > Who said anything about this being an interactive service? You did when you mentioned having some buttons to press. Perhaps "application" - meaning not just watching the TV - would have been a better word.. > * A means of storing capturing images from the transport stream (got > > that) > > > > > > In fact, you cannot do this. > > *I* can't you're right, but it runs software. Software can be changed. If > Sky > wanted to do it, they could. (eg, it changed when they added the Anytime > service) But the box uses an overlay to do the video, the contents of the video buffer are not available in OpenTV. It's not MY rules... > * 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... > > Not exactly difficult. No, but as you can't capture the image in the first place, academic. > > 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... > > Not necessarily - they might not simply have thought it worthwhile. I don't think Sky do "worthwhile", they only do "profitable". > (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... > > See - that's what I meant above when I said they might not have thought it > worth while :-) If it was worthwhile, then promo clips of the movies on "Box Office" and the movie channels would surely have been a priority? > 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 > maintaine > > > (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... > > Not quite the same, but the grid view of favourites is pretty close. ie > press > "tv guide", press blue button ? You can only have 20 favourites though. The default should be to list channels you can access, with a button to press to see them all. But the EPG is not driven by user requirements, but by Sky's sales requirements. Favourites themselves would be irrelevent with a LFU-time option of listing > channels, and it could also be ordered by the likelihood you are to want > to > watch the channel. You wouldn't see channels you're not sub'd to because > you > wouldn't watch them. Once again this falls back to the problem with televisions being "shared" devices, unlike a PC or mobile phone which is personal. Auto favourites is fine, but they only work on a personal basis. However, Sky might not like that because it discourages you from knowing > what > you're missing - cf the interleaving of the Sky Movies HD1,Sky Movies SD1, > Sky Movies HD2, Sky Movies SD2 channels. By "forcing" you to skip past > them > its a constant reminder that you *don't* have Sky HD (if you don't :) ). > (favourites do enable that, but I've no idea how many people use > favourites) Yes, that is the idea, you should be able to get a job at Sky now :-) Similarly if you could look at a grid of video and see that there was > nothing > worth watching on, it'd reduce channel hopping and accidental advertising > somewhat. Again, not necessarily in a commercial operator's best interest. It's not in the interests of the gatekeeper for sure. 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/[email protected]/ > -- Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv
