«

who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder boxes?

which programming course did s/he fail out of?

why does sky, with its growing share prices, revenues and customer base,
neglect to hire a programmer with half a clue about writing realtime
embedded software?

--
Cheers
EB

--

One who is not a conservative by age 20 has no brain.
One who is not a liberal by age 40 has no heart.

On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 14:12:03 +1200, Evil Bastard wrote:

> who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder boxes?
>
> which programming course did s/he fail out of?
>
> why does sky, with its growing share prices, revenues and customer base,
> neglect to hire a programmer with half a clue about writing realtime
> embedded software?

It could be argued that MS lead the charge. Makes money who cares how
useless our product is. Works as people need to get active eh?

Evil Bastard <> wrote in
news::

> who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder
> boxes?

It's a modified version of OpenTV, IIRC.

http://www.opentv.com/
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/daily/2001/1217.shtml

"Evil Bastard" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
> who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder boxes?
>
> which programming course did s/he fail out of?
>
> why does sky, with its growing share prices, revenues and customer base,
> neglect to hire a programmer with half a clue about writing realtime
> embedded software?
>
> --
> Cheers
> EB

Wundrin if you're having the same issues as we are here. The box rebooted at
least three times yesterday.

ShuckItAnShee wrote:
>>who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder boxes?

> Wundrin if you're having the same issues as we are here. The box rebooted at
> least three times yesterday.

Yep.

Multiple reboots per day (which makes it a gamble when programming a VCR
to record a programme)

Painfully slow response times

Several other lesser annoyances

--
Cheers
EB

--

One who is not a conservative by age 20 has no brain.
One who is not a liberal by age 40 has no heart.

"ShuckItAnShee" <> wrote in message
news:jLlte.8559$...
> "Evil Bastard" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>>
>> who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder boxes?
>>
>> which programming course did s/he fail out of?
>>
>> why does sky, with its growing share prices, revenues and customer base,
>> neglect to hire a programmer with half a clue about writing realtime
>> embedded software?
>>
>> --
>> Cheers
>> EB
>
> Wundrin if you're having the same issues as we are here. The box rebooted
> at
> least three times yesterday.
>
>
Mine crashes occasionally, and the audio / video gets out of synch too. Sky
says just to switch on/off to fix the prob.

Mark C wrote:
>>who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder
>>boxes?

> It's a modified version of OpenTV, IIRC.

> http://www.opentv.com/
> http://www.aardvark.co.nz/daily/2001/1217.shtml

Anyone got the hardware specs on the decoder boxes?
Any OS/API details?
Any doco on the format of Sky feeds?

Any (God forbid) SDKs available?

Anyone tried compiling/installing an embedded Linux on the thing?

--
Cheers
EB

--

One who is not a conservative by age 20 has no brain.
One who is not a liberal by age 40 has no heart.

jedmeister wrote:

>>Wundrin if you're having the same issues as we are here. The box rebooted
>>at
>>least three times yesterday.
>>
>>
>
> Mine crashes occasionally, and the audio / video gets out of synch too. Sky
> says just to switch on/off to fix the prob.

Thats great when the thing takes over 2 and a half minuites to boot up eh.

Mums one keep having the background behind the guide mess up and be replaced
with a flickering pink and blue mess, and it still misses keypresses from the
remote unless you wait between every button press - thankfully no sync issues
and it rebooting is quite rare.

What really ****es me off is how slow it is, and the interactive features are a
joke, to get the weather its quicker to go into the next room, turn the computer
screen on and go to the xtra webpage and click weather and walk back.

Wundrin now if folks getting SKY Digital content off cable get any similar
experiences ......... probably not?

"Evil Bastard" <> wrote in message
news:42b600fd$...
> ShuckItAnShee wrote:
> >>who the hell wrote the software for the Sky set-top decoder boxes?
>
> > Wundrin if you're having the same issues as we are here. The box
rebooted at
> > least three times yesterday.
>
> Yep.
>
> Multiple reboots per day (which makes it a gamble when programming a VCR
> to record a programme)
>
> Painfully slow response times
>
> Several other lesser annoyances
>
> --
> Cheers
> EB
>
> --
>
> One who is not a conservative by age 20 has no brain.
> One who is not a liberal by age 40 has no heart.

In article <O8ote.8589$>,
"ShuckItAnShee" <> wrote:
>Wundrin now if folks getting SKY Digital content off cable get any similar
>experiences ......... probably not?

Saturn / TelstraClear cable appears to take the Sky digital feed from the
satellite and run it through Sky decoders before putting it on the cable.
I base this on the occasional onscreen messages I see if a Sky originated
channel goes out - the messages are identical to those I've seen from
domestic Sky decoders.

There are persistent rumours TC will roll out digital cable in the next year
or so - while it will allow them to add more channels (they are apparently
maxed out on the current analogue channels) I'll bet they'll squeeze the
bitrate budget just as hard as Sky does. Hopefully they'll be able to simply
route the Sky digital stream directly onto the cable to remove the current
double decoding.

--
Don Hills (dmhills at attglobaldotnet) Wellington, New Zealand
"New interface closely resembles Presentation Manager,
preparing you for the wonders of OS/2!"
-- Microsoft advertisement on the box for Windows 2.11 for 286