Cydia Tivoconnect

businesstime · 03-31-2009, 09:21 PM

Hey guys, I'm pretty new around here, but I've found this forum to be quite a wonderful place for tivo developers already. I've recently put one of the apps I wrote for the iPhone out in Cydia called TiVoConnect. Wish I could post the url, but the forum requires I have at least 5 posts under my belt.

I'm looking for a few things, that perhaps some of you would be able to help me out with:

1. I need feedback- what's missing, what's lacking, what's not working.
2. I would love to figure out how to stream/download video from my tivo to TiVoConnect. I can get at the .tivo files fine, and I even got tivodecode-0.2pre4 to compile up on my iphone. The problem is, downloading a 1.3 GB 30-minute tv show just isn't time & space feasible. Is there a way to fetch a more compressed or low-res version from the tivo? Maybe a "&hrez=320&vrez=480" type uri?
3. I am working on audio/video support. I'd like to be able to stream: itunes library, dtunes downloads, mxtube downloads and cycorder videos. Right now, I'm just cleaning up the 1.1 release and getting photos to serve up faster.

Thank you in advance.

wmcbrine · 03-31-2009, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by businesstime

Is there a way to fetch a more compressed or low-res version from the tivo?

No.

businesstime · 04-01-2009, 09:11 AM

Thanks, wmcbrine. I suppose the "right" thing to do, then, is let the PC fetch and transcode and let the iPhone be a secondary step. It seems that all of Tivo's api's require that the tivo itself do as little work as possible.

Worf · 04-01-2009, 11:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by businesstime

Thanks, wmcbrine. I suppose the "right" thing to do, then, is let the PC fetch and transcode and let the iPhone be a secondary step. It seems that all of Tivo's api's require that the tivo itself do as little work as possible.

If you think about it, it makes sense. The TiVo's processor isn't very powerful - at best, it's as fast as a 10 year old PC. TiVo does its magic via hardware encoders, decoders, and tuners that let it copy the digital streams. The PC using the APIs is not only much more powerful than the TiVo unit, and more flexible - the PC can easily convert the video to another appropriate format.

Also, the processor on the TiVo is just powerful enough to handle all the tasks the TiVo has to do, so doing anything more can easily cause TiVo to start acting really badly - dropping frames, stuttering, etc. The UI is already sluggish when the TiVo indexes the guide data...

businesstime · 04-02-2009, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Worf

If you think about it, it makes sense. The TiVo's processor isn't very powerful - at best, it's as fast as a 10 year old PC. TiVo does its magic via hardware encoders, decoders, and tuners that let it copy the digital streams. The PC using the APIs is not only much more powerful than the TiVo unit, and more flexible - the PC can easily convert the video to another appropriate format.

Also, the processor on the TiVo is just powerful enough to handle all the tasks the TiVo has to do, so doing anything more can easily cause TiVo to start acting really badly - dropping frames, stuttering, etc. The UI is already sluggish when the TiVo indexes the guide data...

I couldn't agree more. The ironic thing is, the iPhone is about as powerful as a 10+ year old PC. Browsing the Tivo menus while it loads VOD stuff is almost painful. I'm not as interested in the Tivo doing the conversion, just simply providing low-res formats. This would not only solve my dilemma, it would also allow me to share my HD tivo with my non-HD tivo.