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My Story: SKY+HD Box and Eir Sports LAN distribution

  • 24-08-2018 1:39pm
    #1
    Johnboy1951
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,048 ✭✭✭✭


    I have an old Sky+HD box that was donated to me, and an old card which eir registered for their sports channels. It works fine and all 6 HD sports channels are receivable as well as Boxnation in SD.
    In addition all the FTA channels are available.

    For me it is a really frustrating experience to try to use this box without a subscription. I cannot arrange the channels, even in the favourites list, in the order of my preference which maddens me no end.

    Anyway I divert.
    I have centralised all my media storage and tuners etc etc., so this Sky box did not fit in anywhere useful. All other TV channels, from Satellite and Terrestrial, as well as stored media such as recordings and videos are all available on the LAN to any device that has the ability to play them, including phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and TV Boxes.
    I bought an Edision HDMI to DVB-T converter (too costly really but cheaper than paying a sub) and put the Sky box on the LAN also. So now the box could sit with the other devices in the media press.

    That raised a problem though ... how to change channels on the Sky box from a remote location?
    I looked at various 'magic eyes' and other such solutions, none of which fulfilled my needs -- mainly to be able to change channel from any location I might be viewing it.
    Nothing that is ... until I came across this nifty software which can send the remote signals to the box over the LN!
    https://github.com/dalhundal/sky-remote
    Magic!

    So I did some testing on the software, and it worked as expected.
    I quickly came to dislike having to mouse click a picture of the remote in a browser window. Yes I am of the old school that prefers apps to stand-alone and not work from within a browser :)

    No bother, the developer has that covered also. There is a CLi method of sending the signals on the LAN which I proceeded to test, and found it much to my liking. So much so that after a short time I wrote a script to display my preferred buttons in a simple GUI .......
    Sky_Box_Controller.png

    It has changed a little since then but not appreciably.
    A single button press can send a series of signals, which is how I get to Favourites with one button click in the GUI.

    So now I can sit at my PC and play the 'Sky-box TV Channel' and select what I want to watch etc from this small app without moving my ass at all.
    Ah the laziness of it all! :D

    The only problem I had was that the Edision was set at its highest bit rate which was excessive, and caused considerable delays in response to my button presses.
    Reducing the video bitrate got rid of most of the delay, so now for a first button press the is a 2 sec delay before I see a screen reaction, and if buttons are pressed immediately after each other there is no delay with subsequent responses.

    So now I have the 7 Sports channels on my favourites list, along with a couple of Sony channels that get cleared by the card, and a quick one button press to get to the list.

    It has been fun and rewarding trying to 'tame' this Sky+HD box :)


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