Getting VOD Text Data???

[Drbuzzo]

Hello,

This is somewhat off topic, but there is no off topic area. And I don't know any other forums where there would be people knowledgeable about motorolla cable box internals.


I'm wondering if there is any way of getting the VOD program data out of the box in a text format, as opposed to the GUI interface which the box has.

The reason is that I am building a home-made DVR setup, and I would like to integrate the VOD programming the CC offers into the menus so that I can navigate it within the DVR interface. Basically I want to bipass the interface built into the box.

Any idea if this is possible? Could it be output via the BDM? Or maybe serial or something?

[tester5]

i dont think so....some people didnt even start with vod.....i have testing vod for a while but i dot know what you want more then that.... you have to record when movie starts......

[patsfan]

i can't remember where i saw it now but there used to be a program out there that you could control a dct through it's serial port. basically let you use a computer as the remote control. in order to get the text you would have to somehow get the guide data to download to your pc dvr. no idea if you could do that or not.

[cipher]

Well you can control the channels using the serial port if the CC enables the function, I have looked at the code and there is an SCI interrupt handler listening for incomming serial data and it interacts with the BCM7xxx chip ports. But if you read the TIVO forum's they all complain that it does not work because most CC's disable it for some reason. There is initial code that checks for a positive value in NVRAM before it calls to read the SCDR register (Serial Data Register) note sure what the NVRAM value is for yet.
; 00421924 ;Serial interrupt handler entry point

MOVEA.L #$002203A0,A4 ;Read some value location in NVRAM
TST.L (A4) ;Test it and set the CCR
BNE 0041B37A ;Go to read SCDR

It also echo's the recieved data back out the SCDR reg.