Plea to ICE for a generic Remote device

[markb]

I sent an email to ICE support asking for this but got little response so I thought I'd bring it up here for discussion.

I'd like ICE to consider adding a "generic xmltv" device to their ICE remote service which would merely save the recorded schedule to an XML file which could be downloaded explicitly by the user (or ideally the recording flag could be merged as an explicit new XML tag into the user's base XMLTV file although this may not be as easy for ICE to do?)

I would think this would not be difficult for ICE to do (at least compared to supporting a new actual device) but could then be exploited by the community solutions like TEDS etc? E.g. I use my own home grown script to pull down the ICE xml data and do favourites searching etc for my toppy 5000. There are other similar community solutions available. If I/we could programmatically get at the remote data then we could exploit the wonderful web/phone interface provided by ICE to set timers/favourites/series etc.

C'mon ICE, can't be that hard to add this? Failing that, can somebody from ICE please explain how I can set my remote preference to one of the existing devices and get the data programmatically?

[Daniel Drysdale at IceTV]

Mark,

Currently our Remote Protocol is only available for use by selected partners under an NDA.

We are however currently working on an alternative that will suit your needs, we do not have a firm release date at this point but it should be within the next 3-4 weeks.

Our "Remote API" will be available in XML or JSON and should provide everything you need to support remote programing including series recordings and favourites.

We are really excited about this new API and look forward to seeing what the developer community can do with it.

We are currently developing an all new widget that will be available on the Dashboard for OS X, Konfabulator and hopefully as a Vista Gadget. The new widget will be built on top of the Remote API, so we will be eating our own dogfood on this one ;)

I'm sorry I can't give you any more details but the API is still under heavy development and the technical details may change before we release it.

Please be patient for just a little longer, I guarantee it will be worth the wait...

Cheers
Dan - IceTV Software Manager

[markb]

Well, I can't complain about that response!  :)

Thanks very much Daniel. I'll be waiting keenly to see what comes out.

[toppytools]

We are however currently working on an alternative that will suit your needs, we do not have a firm release date at this point but it should be within the next 3-4 weeks.

Please be patient for just a little longer, I guarantee it will be worth the wait...

Daniel, Any news on the Remote API ???

PS Happy New Year!  :D

[Marc]

I'll let Dan respond in full in his own time (he's the best person to be talking about it), but it's likely that it won't be long. The IceTV office officially opens again on the 7th, so development will be at full pace again after that.

For the mean time, here's a teaser of the version 2.0 widget:



As you might have guessed, we'll also have some of the I Watch This services in the API. It's a lot more than just remote recording.

[markb]

waiting, waiting ..... :)

[Marc]

The IceTV Remote API is in testing right now and so far it's working very well. Documentation and other info won't be released until the widget has been out for a little while (we want to ensure what we're giving developers is stable).

We're really excited to see what you'll do with this though. Remote recording for Toppy's would be great!

[toppytools]

We're really excited to see what you'll do with this though. Remote recording for Toppy's would be great!

We're also excited to see what we can do with it.

Though I think the really exciting stuff will happen after Beyonwiz release a firmware with Remote support.

[j s]

Remote recording for Toppy's would be great!

Ahem!!  Haven't you heard of ToppyWeb?  http://topfield.qmtech.com

[mattg]

Can you give us any updates on the remote API or Vista Sidebar gadget?
Thanks

[Marc]

Beta testing of a Yahoo! Widget Engine Windows widget will commence very, very soon. Please contact IceTV support if you'd like to be part of the beta. We'll release the Windows widget as soon as we're happy it's all working well (it's looking very positive for a quick release).

It's looking like a Vista Gadget might be difficult at this point. That doesn't rule one out for the future, but the Yahoo widget and Dashboard widget are probably the most ambitious widgets I've ever seen and definitely the most application-like widgets I've ever worked on. Our testing has led us to believe that something that complex might not be easy to achieve with a Vista Gadget.

The API will follow the widget, however we need to make sure we have all the documentation in place first. It might be worthwhile also emailing support if you'd like to be one of the first to use the Remote API so we can make sure you're notified as soon as it all goes live.

[Marc]

I'm sure you've all seen it, but just letting everyone know that the Yahoo! widget has been released.

[toppytools]

Still waiting for the Remote API...  ::)

[Daniel Hall at IceTV]

The Remote API is still being worked on, along with documentation for it as well. There is no firm time frame for when this will be available.

[markb]

The Remote API is still being worked on, along with documentation for it as well. There is no firm time frame for when this will be available.

Note that Daniel Drysdale, TceTV Software Manager said the following 4.5 months ago (see second post at top of this thread):

we do not have a firm release date at this point but it should be within the next 3-4 weeks.

Dan - IceTV Software Manager

Moral of the story - never believe any software estimate!