Monday, July 28, 2014

HDHomeRun DLNA Streaming Options

SiliconDust makes a series of network over-the-air and digital cable/CableCard tuners. I wrote an overview of the streaming support of these tuners on Zatz Not Funny: Streaming Cable TV via HDHomeRun DLNA

Here are a few ways to consume this content using the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) features of Smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, desktop and mobile operating systems.

I will expand on each over time and add more options as I come across them. Please add your suggestions in the comments!

Smart TV – Samsung Hub (certain models)
This works very well via the included DLNA network browser.

Android - DLNA Browser – MediaHouse
Requires a video player like...

Android Video – Wondershare
Requires a media browser like MediaHouse.

Android Video – MX Player
Requires a media browser like MediaHouse.

Android App – HDHomeRun View (by SiliconDust)

Android App – HDHomeRun TV (not by SiliconDust)
Android only right now. Coming to iOS.

Windows Media Player
Can browse UPnP/DLNA folders via Windows Explorer and open streams using WMP. Maybe. If it works.

Windows Media Center (Windows 7 Home Premium+ and 8 Pro)
Multi-platform - VLC
Can use a DLNA browser or use this method to open a channel stream using VLC.

iPad 2 - Elgato App
Was the first app for mobile that could stream HDHomeRun Prime video. Only worked with the iPad 2, and may have disappeared/gets no support.
Problems: http://www.silicondust.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=79&t=16829 (discussion gone as of 9/9/2014 - fixed?)
Allowed recording too.

Down the Road
·         Android TV has been mentioned, as well as some sort of guide/UI for browsing channels. That would be very cool!

What else do you use to stream HDHomeRun content on your home network?

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Accessing HDHomeRun Prime DLNA Stream via HTTP

If you have an HDHomeRun Prime network TV tuner with updated firmware (and don't forget your CableCard), you can access your (non-encrypted) digital cable channels using DLNA. Many DLNA browsers, including some TVs and tablet/phone apps, can automatically find the channel listing so you can skip using a cable box--or watch something live while your DVR records a few other shows.

If you want to use something like VLC Player or another network streaming app that has trouble accessing the channel list, you can do use the following URL format:

http://IPOFHDHOMERUN:5004/auto/vXX

Insert the IP of your HDHomeRun and replace XX with the channel number.

E.g.

http://192.168.1.100:5004/auto/v50 

would load channel 50.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Feature Contributor to Tech Blog Zatz Not Funny

Over the past few months I've started blogging as a feature contributor to the tech blog Zatz Not Funny. This has given me an outlet for reviewing some of the lesser known but still very interesting technology out there. So far I've racked up three reviews:

Thanks to Dave Zatz for the opportunity! 

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Speaking at SharePoint Saturday DC 2013

UPDATE: Unfortunately I fell ill this week and the result is that we will not be presenting at SharePoint Saturday DC on Saturday.

*** CUT HERE ***

If you are in the neighborhood and/or have signed up for tickets for SharePoint Saturday DC, come check out Cicely Behne and I present "SharePoint Under the Surface: Doing More with Out-of-the-Box Features" at SPSDC in Chevy Chase, MD on Saturday, June 8th, 2013.

Here is an summary of what we're going to talk about. Lots of demos. It's geared towards SharePoint newbies and budding power users and front-end developers:
Your client wants SharePoint, but not plain old SharePoint. They won’t let you hire a developer. You cannot deploy solutions to the server. We see this often while working for various government and commercial clients, and on the surface it looks like it will limit our ability to provide the solutions they need. However, there are many features of SharePoint right under the surface that are often overlooked. SharePoint can do a lot if you just know what's possible.  
This session will discuss ways to create business solutions using SharePoint without complex programming or needing to deploy complied code solutions to the server. We will cover Functionality (Libraries & Lists, Metadata, Workflows, and Forms) and Visualization (List Views, Pages & Web Parts, Branding, and Reporting/Dynamic Content).  
The audience for this session is anyone using SharePoint, in particular new users, content managers, and budding Power Users and Front End Developers in scenarios where they do not have access or control to fully customize the instance of SharePoint they are using. You will come out of this session with some out-of-the-box features and front end configurations that can be used to enhance your SharePoint sites.
We hope to see you there!

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Chumby is dead. Long live Chumby!

It's time to get blogging again. Sure I'm active on Twitter, post those requisite photos of my kids to Facebook, and write more than my fair share of posts on my company's Yammer feed. However, this is where the longer form explaining it all really happens. Recently, happenings in the gadget world got me thinking I need to put on my blogger hat once again.

Chumby One
The Chumby One, running Zurk's Offline Firmware.
Many of you know that I have always held a special place in my heart for the Chumby line of desktop gadgets. Ever since their unveiling back in 2006, I have liked the idea of a simple desktop internet-connected clock/radio/widget device.

Sadly, while the devices sold okay over the years and even spawned versions from Sony and Best Buy, the company shut down in 2012. There are many of reasons for this. I even gave a eulogy of sorts for the Chumby company and outlined some of my own thoughts about what happened. Luckily, one of the former Chumby staffers founders, Duane, kept the Chumby servers running for many months so those of still using our dear old Chumbys could still get our widgets and music streaming.

Then abruptly, though not surprisingly, the Chumby servers shut down recently. This seemed to be the beginning of the actual end of Chumby...but not so fast!

From www.chumby.com:
In January 2013, one of the volunteers initiated an effort to create a company to acquire all of the remaining assets of Chumby Industries for the purpose of maintaining the service. That company, "Blue Octy, LLC", completed the transaction in mid-February.
They created a temporary stub service that will allow the following devices and apps to boot to a clock:
  • chumby Classic, chumby One, chumby 8
  • Insignia Infocast 3.5" and 8"
  • Insignia Connected TV
  • WOWbox 3.5" and 8"
  • chumby Lite (Android)
  • chumby for Sony Tablet S (Android)
The Sony Dash is supported directly by Sony now and no longer runs off the Chumby servers.

Full text of the the Chumby announcement is available on Chumby.com. At this point there is no timeframe for when the full service will be back, but at least you can get a basic clock and even Pandora and other streaming services still seem to work as well.

Alternatively, and what I've decided to do with my Insignia Infocast 3.5" and Chumby One, is to run Zurk's Offline Firmware for Chumby. This runs off a USB stick to insert into the device and you can customize the widgets and settings using XML files as well as Zurk's very cool browser-based dashboard.

I am both anxious and excited to see what happens next. While I still expect my Chumbys to become expensive paperweights one day, I do not think that is going to happen just yet.

Chumby is dead. Long live Chumby!

Friday, August 31, 2012

Where has Joel been?

It has been four months since I posted anything to this blog. Admittedly, that is pretty pitiful. I need to do better.

I started the Scrum for SharePoint article series back in March but it is still not complete. The last post on Joel Explains It All was about the sad demise of the Chumby company. Then some life changes occurred--nothing major, just life--and the end result was that the blog fell by the wayside, as these things often do.

That ends now. Thanks to one of my favorite tech bloggers, Dave Zatz, I got a guest spot on his blog Zatz Not Funny. Dave lent me his Logitech Revue box and I had a few things to say about our experience with Google TV: Google TV Two Years Later: Still Not Very Good

The Scrum for SharePoint series is going to be revived as well. I just can't get enough Scrum. :-)

Saturday, April 21, 2012

RIP Chumby

Today I am taking a short break from the Scrum for SharePoint series to cover another topic near and dear to my heart.

Insignia Infocast 3.5"
The Insignia Infocast 3.5 by Best Buy
(similar to the Chumby One).
Way back in the mid-2000s, before we had the iPhone or Android or even webOS, a little company named Chumby appeared on the scene with a neat gadget that was going to replace your clock radio with something much cooler. Prototypes of the Chumby came out in 2006 and 2007, and the first widely-available consumer version was released in 2008. I was very excited to see the Chumby appear on the scene, in part because I was sad that the 3Com (Palm) Audrey had failed so miserably back in 2000.

It's hard to remember, but back in 2008, there was not much out there like the Chumby. The iPhone and Android operating systems were relatively new and still gaining traction. There were zero consumer grade tablets available on the market. Even with the iPhone and Android out there, they were geared towards phone devices. There were definitely no clock radio gadgets to compete with Chumby. So theoretically, the Chumby had a good chance to succeed.

The Chumby is not a tablet and it is not a phone or iPod-like device. It really has no equivalent out there in the world. It is first and foremost an internet clock radio. Think of your old Sony Dream Machine, add in the likes of Pandora and Shoutcast internet music and podcast services, and add the ability to change the clock face to one of hundreds of different options. That is a Chumby.

There are other things a Chumby can do, like display news feeds, Facebook, Twitter, internet web cams, and more. Yet at its core, the Chumby is a clock radio that can get live content from the internet.

Sony Dash
My boys really enjoy the Sony Dash. We have it
in our dining room.
I bought a Chumby One for my dad in 2009. At first, he didn't know what to do with it, but over time he came to appreciate the different clocks faces to choose from and its ability to play Pandora and other internet music services.

I got my first "Chumby" in 2010 when I picked up a Sony Dash for a relatively good price. However, even though I got a "deal" at the time, price was one of Chumby's downfalls: the Dash list price was $200 at the time--I think I got my for a "steep discount" at $150--and the Chumby-branded units were not much cheaper.

The Dash was a step up from the Chumby, as it had internet video as well. You could (and can still) get Netflix, YouTube and Hulu Plus video, among other choices. So it was worth a slight premium over the much smaller Chumby One (3.5" screen vs. 7" screen), but still a bit expensive for what you got.

Bathroom media station
We have installed the Insignia Infocast 3.5 in our master
bathroom media station.
Later in 2010 I picked up Best Buy's Insignia branded version of the Chumby One, the Infocast 3.5. This time I got it for under $45 and had a $25 gift card to boot. Now that was a deal. Under $50 would have been the perfect price point to allow the Chumby to be more successful.

Alas, regular prices didn't get much lower than $100, most people didn't understand why they needed one in addition to their iPhones and iPads, and therefore not many units were sold. In 2011 Sony stopped making the Dash. Around that time Best Buy also stopped making the Infocast line. Later in the year, Chumby itself stopped making hardware as well, leaving the Chumby platform flailing around a little bit without much support. The company said they were going to focus on a connected TV platform, but nothing much came of it.

Just the other day, Chumby announced that the whole team had moved on to new things at Technicolor and that there was no one left at Chumby to turn the lights off.

The Chumby network is still up and running--for now--but much like what happened to services like ReplayTV, it could be shut off at any time. This leads to one of my ongoing concerns with this particular platform: it is 100% dependent on having a network connection to work at all. Without a WiFi or optional Ethernet connection, a Chumby is essentially worthless. There isn't even a way to boot up a Chumby in to a disconnected mode. The thing just stops at the "Connecting to Network" screen and gives up.

(As an aside, there are some ways to run some Chumby devices offline. One example is: Zurk's Chumby One/Infocast 3.5 firmware and Zurk's Infocast/Chumby 8 firmware.)

Another issue was the app platform: all Chumby apps were free and had to be build on the Adobe Flash platform. While that worked well enough for the most part, there are two issues with it: no way for developers to make any money, and somewhat limiting of a platform. The Chumby is based on a modified Linux kernel, but won't run regular Linux or Android apps without major modifications. So it's a relatively closed platform.

I guess even back in 2008 we could see the writing on the wall, but I still had high hopes that a device dedicated to being an internet clock radio could survive. I still think there is a place for a Chumby-like device, with some tweaks to the platform. Using a phone or tablet as a stationary clock or radio is not always practical or economical. Sure, as an individual I can use my Android phone as an alarm or an iPad as a Pandora music player, but what about family or group situations? Sometimes a dedicated device is useful.

Maybe something else will come about to take Chumby's place? Or Chumby will get picked up by another company and the legacy will continue? I can only hope.

UPDATE: Chumby is dead. Long live Chumby!