why no sports score app?

Has development on this stopped?
No posts here in a while so I thought I might just ask.

 

I don't know about that. Galleon pretty important too.

 

No, development hasn't stopped, it just paused for a while! I've started up again and have basically just been fixing known issues, mainly the memory issue. It appears to be fixed and I'll get that uploaded shortly. I just need to test it a little bit more...

As far as the future, here's what I am thinking -

I'll add box scores for the NFL and NBA when those seasons begin. NCAA basketball and football are also a possibility, as long as the data is available. But obviously the scores of all other sports will still be there, just no box scores.

The really longterm, ultimate goal is to have a complete sports package, which would include scores, box scores, standings, and stats for the major sport leagues. I think that certainly is realistic, just will take some time. I know a few people have mentioned it, but I have no plans for the live scores with pitch by pitch account of what is going on. I just cannot see where anyone would really sit in front of their tv and just watch that. If I wanted to follow a game that closely, then I would just go to my PC - just my opinion. I think the main goal of this project (and all Tivo HME apps) is to get basic information quickly.

Chris

 

Thanks for the well wishes. Maybe I made it sound like my 'family issues' were something negative - actually it was quite the opposite. My wife delivered twins a few weeks ago. So needless to say, finding free time has been very difficult But as I said in my last posting, I have been doing a little bit here and there on this and will be uploading an update very shortly (just bugs and memory issue fixes). But I still do have big plans for this, as I also mentioned in my last post.

 

Here is an update. Basically this is just a memory leak bug fix. I believe this should fix that issue. Next, I'll be working on fixing cosmetic bugs. I'm just attaching the jar file...

Chris

 

Hey Csell,

Just to let you know if you don't already. Still a couple of issues. Before games start it just says "lineup" and if you press right it doesn't show the lineup - it would be cool if it did. Also, if you pick a boxscore for a game going on and for some reason it doesn't show than the computer uses 100%. Thanks. great app.

 

Could you put this on apps.tv?

 

That's something I have thought about and will probably do after I get a better version finished. There's still some bugs I need to fix, but more importantly, I am currently working on adding NFL games. I had to wait until pre-season to do that. But now I have data, so I am hoping to have that done before the season starts...

 

I was looking at the apps.tv site, and it looks like you need to host the application on your own server (or a public server). Is this true? If so, I do not have access to that. I'd like to post it there, but cannot if that is the requirements. If anyone knows anymore about this, let me know...

By the way, I have the sports app updated for football scores. Unfortunately I was never able to time my development/testing with games in progress, so it never got tested that way. I was only able to work with completed games. So I wouldn't be surprised if there are problems with games in progress. I guess I'll just post it and then test it during this upcoming weekend games and see how it performs. I'll get it uploaded over the next few days...

 

You can register your app in the 'Downloadable Apps' section:

http://apps.tv/downloadable.php

 

I'm attaching an update that gives box scores for the nfl football games. There are still problems with it that I haven't been able to fix yet, but I wanted to get it out there for the die hard football fans. For in progress games and completed games, it works great. But there are problems for games that are just beginning, when stats are just beginning to come in. The problem is my window for testing is very minimal, basically just a few minutes at the start of the games. So its been extremely difficult to debug, especially since I wasn't at home for most of the games on Sunday. Two problems may occur if you try and go into a game that just started - either you will have some junk on the box score screen or it might even crash the application. But unfortunately there is no way to test it for a whole week now, so I figured I'd just go an release it anyway. I'm just giving the .jar file for the same reason as I have in the past (I don't have an install program). If you need instructions on updating the jar file, let me know. It's very simple...

Chris

 

If its under the downloadable apps, then you would still need to run in on your machine.

If anyone has a server or a location where this sports scores app can reside, then I'll gladly place it on apps.tv. Just let me know.

Chris

 

That's the largest problem with all the hme apps. No one wants to host them. Mainly because it costs money for the server and they don't really get money to cover the costs. It would have been great if tivo provided a mechanism for adding apps to your tivo box itself. But I guess they're just protecting themselves with the whole concept of hme. Security through obscurity.

 

Could you ask f8ster (owner of bitrazor.com) to host the app.
I think he already has some of the older versions on there at http://bitrazor.com/sportscores/
So it wouldn't be to hard for him to add it.

Is there more to it than just any old server, maybe it has to be entirely devoted to hosting the app?

 

Unfortunately, I just have a copy of the local installer out there -- I'm not hosting a live running instance of the app. There are a few requirements that must be met by your hosting company, and most accounts have a bandwidth charge or monthly traffic cap (like mine). This is one of the barriers to us little folk hosting apps out there.

I had a similar situation a few years ago where I was exceeding my 35GB traffic limit per month because of something like this (not a TiVo app, something else), and it's really ugly -- if you're not careful, your account can get suspended, you have to pay for additional bandwidth allocations, etc. So, unfortunately, I've avoided hosting anything too high-bandwidth, and I think most of the individuals that are creating apps have a similar problem. The remote-hosting option is really best suited for the big guys -- Amazon, Yahoo, etc.

I think it was smart of TiVo to enable both models with the SDK, though. In the early days of the SDK, remote hosting wasn't even an option.