3 ms·

Show HN: hacking our set-top box

15 points by juliennakache 15y ago

We're 2 hackers out of NYC and we had tons of fun building Zapkast.com, our take on Social TV. We played with: - c/c++ for hacking our set top boxes, - ruby/rails for the rest api, - eventmachine/node/erlang for the xmpp api/real time backend, - ios/cocoa for the iPhone app, - redis & mysql for the datastores. We did everything ourselves, even the logo and UI :) Tell us what you think! http://zapkast.com

patothon 15y ago
Nice!
mickeyben 15y ago
too bad it's limited to the US store
- juliennakache 15y ago
  Let us install a set-top box at your place and you should be good to go ! :)
- dahawi 15y ago
  well, it's not like a lot of people are going to watch live american TV from abroad ;)
lordarf 15y ago
i love the screenshot feature
vkdelta 15y ago
Would you please explain STB component of the app? I don't see any.
- dahawi 15y ago
  Basically we have a server connected to STBs running C++ scripts that rotate over every channel (the STBs are operated with an IR blaster) to capture snapshots which are then uploaded to S3 (with a little node.js component) that are fed to the client app via XMPP.
  - vkdelta 15y ago
    Excellent! Thx for response. Just curious how many STBs you have. Why can't pull EPG data and use that as a source? But yes, won't get screenshots that way.
    - dahawi 15y ago
      Thanks for the suggestion ! We'll have to look into the EPG, for now we get the TV listings data in another way ;) Right now we only have 2 STBs, and their input is captured by 2 video cards (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/ http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/). We picked this one because it has a very nice C++ SDK. Ideally though, we'd have as many STBs as we can to get more screenshots !
      - vkdelta 15y ago
        Do you have your email address here?
  - hughesdan 15y ago
    I'm curious, how are you handling the time-zone issue? For example, MTV runs an East and West Cost feed. Usually those are just time-shifted mirror images (but not always). Fox often runs eight or more national feeds breaking the country into arbitrary sections (think NFL Sunday). Are you planning to scatter your set-top boxes in different regions of the country?
mickeyben 15y ago
clickable: http://zapkast.com http://zapkast.com
lithium42 15y ago
Great idea, I like it !
julienhwd 15y ago
Nice App!
isalmon 15y ago
Very nice idea guys, going to use that.

15 points by juliennakache 15y ago

patothon 15y ago

Nice!

mickeyben 15y ago

too bad it's limited to the US store

juliennakache 15y ago
Let us install a set-top box at your place and you should be good to go ! :)
dahawi 15y ago
well, it's not like a lot of people are going to watch live american TV from abroad ;)

lordarf 15y ago

i love the screenshot feature

vkdelta 15y ago

Would you please explain STB component of the app? I don't see any.

dahawi 15y ago
Basically we have a server connected to STBs running C++ scripts that rotate over every channel (the STBs are operated with an IR blaster) to capture snapshots which are then uploaded to S3 (with a little node.js component) that are fed to the client app via XMPP.
- vkdelta 15y ago
  Excellent! Thx for response. Just curious how many STBs you have. Why can't pull EPG data and use that as a source? But yes, won't get screenshots that way.
  - dahawi 15y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion ! We'll have to look into the EPG, for now we get the TV listings data in another way ;) Right now we only have 2 STBs, and their input is captured by 2 video cards (http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/ http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/). We picked this one because it has a very nice C++ SDK. Ideally though, we'd have as many STBs as we can to get more screenshots !
    - vkdelta 15y ago
      Do you have your email address here?
- hughesdan 15y ago
  I'm curious, how are you handling the time-zone issue? For example, MTV runs an East and West Cost feed. Usually those are just time-shifted mirror images (but not always). Fox often runs eight or more national feeds breaking the country into arbitrary sections (think NFL Sunday). Are you planning to scatter your set-top boxes in different regions of the country?

mickeyben 15y ago

clickable: http://zapkast.com http://zapkast.com

lithium42 15y ago

Great idea, I like it !

julienhwd 15y ago

Nice App!

isalmon 15y ago

Very nice idea guys, going to use that.