Community Discussions

[Virosa]

(Flashback to 1998):

"Let me get this straight: You want to.... take a picture... with your cellphone?"

"RokuShawnS" wrote:
I believe in the last two years that this truly is the first time I've ever heard of a request like this. I had to read it twice to be sure. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Certainly unusual and (on the surface) an interesting idea, but there are so many cheaper ways to do it, I don't see engineers devoting time to something like this.

C. Shawn Smith

[Basil]

"Virosa" wrote:

"RokuShawnS" wrote:
I believe in the last two years that this truly is the first time I've ever heard of a request like this. I had to read it twice to be sure. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Certainly unusual and (on the surface) an interesting idea, but there are so many cheaper ways to do it, I don't see engineers devoting time to something like this.

C. Shawn Smith

(Flashback to 1998):

"Let me get this straight: You want to.... take a picture... with your cellphone?"

And, in 1998, how much would that have cost? What you're wanting isn't a bad thing, there's just no demand for it. At least, not yet. And, it may be a bit before such functionality is in a $49-$99 device.

"Virosa" wrote:
... I was hoping for ... limit time on per day, maybe auto play something like the weather channel when I wake up, ideally autoplay local web content so I can see at a glance what I have on my plate for the day...

What you're describing is an iPad. They start at $499.

[Virosa]

"Basil" wrote:

What you're describing is an iPad. They start at $499.

The functionality I am describing can be done with a $22 arduino. An HTTP browser? Replicating the remote control over wifi/ethernet? The ability to run a cron job? We're not talking about hardware acceleration. We're talking about 1992 technology.

[Gilgamesh]

My router has a function that I never have had any reason to use but might do what is wanted. You can set a limit on times that a given mac address can access the internet. You can either set it so that a given device can only access the internet at certain times or it can be set so that a device cannot access the internet at other times.

That is you could say that your Roku cannot access the internet between 19:00 and 08:00 or that it can only access the internet between 18:00 and 20:00. Also on my router you can have multiple "allowed" or "disallowed" for any device.

You might want to look at your router's settings to see if it can do that. If it cannot you might want to check to see if you can flash it with dd-wrt or Tomato as they both have that ability.

[Virosa]

The more I think about it, the more it looks like all the Roku developers would have to do is give me the same functionality as the remote control, but over the wifi or ethernet interface. That way I can have another computer on my network automate things for me.

It would have to be able to select, scroll through channels, search, and do some queries (such as searching for vids or reading ratings information off of the results), and report some metrics ("you've watched xx minutes of shows today...")

No additional hardware cost, minimal firmware cost, and I would be surprised if the firmware developers don't already have such an interface. Just open it up to the hackerish public.

[Gilgamesh]

"Virosa" wrote:
The more I think about it, the more it looks like all the Roku developers would have to do is give me the same functionality as the remote control, but over the wifi or ethernet interface. That way I can have another computer on my network automate things for me.

It would have to be able to select, scroll through channels, search, and do some queries (such as searching for vids or reading ratings information off of the results), and report some metrics ("you've watched xx minutes of shows today...")

No additional hardware cost, minimal firmware cost, and I would be surprised if the firmware developers don't already have such an interface. Just open it up to the hackerish public.

Such apps exist that control the Roku over the network but I doubt there is any way to determine what the Roku is doing at any time.

It really seems that the best course is to control the internet access via your router. Otherwise each and every developer would have to write a function into their app to communicate to the network what is playing and how it is rated. I very much doubt developers would be willing to spend the time to do that as there would be such a tiny, as in infinitesimal, demand. I very much doubt even two out of every thousand Roku users would have any use for this kind of functionality.

It really would, I think, be much more complicated than you think and you can already limit access based on time which covers most of what you asked for at first.

Remember, right now, your Roku only knows the name or identification of the channel playing. Your Roku does not know the title being played by the current channel. Adding that functionality to the Roku and to all channels that exist would be a complex and time consuming task and the reward for spending that time would be extremely small.

[Basil]

"Virosa" wrote:

"Basil" wrote:

What you're describing is an iPad. They start at $499.

The functionality I am describing can be done with a $22 arduino. An HTTP browser? Replicating the remote control over wifi/ethernet? The ability to run a cron job? We're not talking about hardware acceleration. We're talking about 1992 technology.

Roku doesn't, and won't, have a browser. As for the remote control, there are such things already. There is http://remoku.tv for that, which you can use from your computer or tablet. There are also smartphone apps that control your Roku over the local network. But, all the stuff you're asking for? You may want to use your handy-dandy $22 device for that.

[Virosa]

"Gilgamesh" wrote:
Remember, right now, your Roku only knows the name or identification of the channel playing. Your Roku does not know the title being played by the current channel.

<-- that is amazing. There is no way to get any metadata on what is playing?!?!

"Basil" wrote:
Roku doesn't, and won't, have a browser. As for the remote control, there are such things already.

That is useful! Can you please point me to the API for remoku.tv? I'd like to play around and see if I can replicate some of this from a linux command line if possible. (and also see if there's anything the API allows that the remote doesn't take advantage of...)


Thanks!

[DerekHelps]

"Virosa" wrote:

That is useful! Can you please point me to the API for remoku.tv? I'd like to play around and see if I can replicate some of this from a linux command line if possible. (and also see if there's anything the API allows that the remote doesn't take advantage of...)


Thanks!

It probably wont get you everything you want, but you might be interested in some of the external control guide.

A starting point would be:
http://sdkdocs.roku.com/display/sdkdoc/ ... trol+Guide

[Basil]

"Virosa" wrote:
...Can you please point me to the API for remoku.tv? I'd like to play around and see if I can replicate some of this from a linux command line if possible. (and also see if there's anything the API allows that the remote doesn't take advantage of...)...!

I don't have anything other than their Website: http://remoku.tv/. There have links there to the source code.