Tips, Tricks and Blueprints

Today's tips and tricks are often blueprints for future OSTV features.

Networking OSTV

I have my main computer with a large monitor setup with OSTV with a DVB card and remote control, but sometimes I'll watch OSTV in another part of the house with my laptop using keyboard control. I installed OSTV on the laptop but do not have a dvb device and I did not install any of the additional plugins. I simply access the recordings directory in my main computer using NFS.

There is an easy to follow tutorial on how to set this up at:

http://mybeni.rootzilla.de/mybeNi/2007/how_to_set_up_nfs_and_how_to_share_files_in_a_local_network_with_ubuntu_linux/

I mount the recordings directory in the main(server) computer to the recordings directory in the laptop(client).

When this is set up you can watch any recording and watch tv.dump as it is being recorded. As for tuning in different stations this is possible to do by sending OSTV commands to the main computer with SSH. I am experimenting with this and it should be in the next version.

File Maintenance

OSTV has no way to delete files. It could be implemented but it would be bulky and I have always found doing file maintenance in settop boxes or the kind of environment that OSTV has or with remote controls to be clumsy. I just go into my file manager to do that. The ideal solution would be for at the end of every video played an option to delete the file. [Note:I figured out how to delete videos very simply from the OSTV menus, this will be in the next version.]