4th Year Project, please advise/help me.

Mitch Connor

Hopefully this is the right place for this, sorry if it is not.

OK, have to do a 4th year project, and i have two choices at this point.

one is gonna be very tough (i reckon) and the other is a cop out.

Right so, i need help with the tough one, or at least some advice on it.

My idea is this. I want to set up a system on which you register your details and download a program from. the program will then be installed on your PC. Through this system you can send a SMS to a program (different to the one on the PC) with a channel number, start time, and end time. this information would then be sent from the recieving server to the program installed on your PC. The program would then start your TVTuner Card, select the channel and start recording from the start time to the end time. so basically you can use your phone to remotely start your TV Card to record a program (if you are down the pub or summit) I would have to create, or integrate the required technology.

So what i reckon i would need is a program (progA) to accept a SMS in a certain format (such as 1,21:00,22:00) then send that coded information to a program on the PC (progB) which accepts the info and starts the TV Card accordingly. I realise the various problems involved in this, especially as i have limited coding knowledge, and 8 months (at a maximum) to do this in.

It is not essential to get it fully working, proving it can be done and having the PC display something, or do something in response to the SMS would be enough to do well (providing my research is good)

I need advice on this. Can it be done? Are there programs that could point me in the right direction? Would it be possible (for me) to create a program that would start a TV card as required? I really have no real idea how to do any of this yet. Could it be done or should i go with my cop-out project instead?

satchmo

Sounds like a handy program... I'd buy that for a dollar!

madramor

Tauren wrote:

Can it be done?

yes

Tauren wrote:

Are there programs that could point me in the right direction?

they have something like this with fischlar

Tauren wrote:

Would it be possible (for me) to create a program that would start a TV card as required?

I don't know about you but it could be done using Java Comm API or other technologies.
also check out TV card makers websites they might have an API available

Tauren wrote:

I really have no real idea how to do any of this yet.

How I would do It

CLIENT:
have a program you install on your desktop.
This send a request to the server every 5mins to check if there
are any instructions.
If it has an instruction it tells the TVCard to record it etc..

SERVER:
the server would wait for client requests(tomcat and servlets/jsps)
when it gets a request it uses a SMS gateway to check to see if
the account details sent from the client has any sms message
if it has it reads the message through the gateway and converts
into an xml format and sends it to the client

Tauren wrote:

Could it be done or should i go with my cop-out project instead?

anything can be done, but this is really not very difficult
break each part down
CLIENT:
communicating with server (java: HttpRequest)
process server response (java SAX)
communicating with TV card (java: Com API) TVCard api
SERVER:
communicating with client (java: Tomcat,servlet)
communicating with sms (use a sms gateway)
parse the sms into format to send to client (xslt)

Mitch Connor

Cheers - sounding more reasonable now!

Mitch Connor

was thinking this morning, that if the SMS function of the system proves to be too hard, WAP via the mobile would be easier to set up (wouldn't it?) and it would keep the main idea of the program - that you can set to record via your phone, so is that the path i should be looking down as opposed to (i assume expensive) SMS facility.

rsynnott

You may want to look at using Linux for the recording machine, as it has a standard tv-card interface (v4l).

Mitch Connor

might look into that, but not to fond of the idea of putting linux on my machine - i know its more secure and more efficient then Windows, but i am already used to windows and it does seem (to me anyway) to be more user-friendly - when not presenting blue screens of death of course. I may set up a linux partition on a small portable harddrive though for the purpose of the project if it can cut down on the work load. cheers for the info.

ressem

SMS isn't too costly, if you can pick up a mobile or terminal with GSM modem inbuilt.
See http://www.cellular.co.za/hayesat.htm
for the AT+cmgr and related sms commands.

If you're making up a budget, then perhaps lookup price for an old M20, TC35, connected by serial cable to your PC + Sim card.

In real life, with large volumes, your server would act as a proxy between a telco's SMSC (accessed through a restricted secured web service) and your client that does the recording, assuming client has always on, low cost internet connection.

Wap would be simpler and cheaper though. You could use virtual phone emulators, instead of a real web server accessible from the inet.

Controlling TV card recording with MS media centre OS is meant to be possible through trivial scripting. But not very impressive.
There's a TV API as part of DirectX's directshow which you're looking at using?

yossarin

If its a fourth year project i'm guessing your budget is €0.00 + your personal phone ?

You could plug in a phone in the serial port and look at using nowSMS (windows) or Kannel (linux or cygwin*) as an SMS gateway. This will be fiddly, but will probably work.
If you wanted to be fancy, you could use J2ME on the phone to provide a nice UI and to send the SMSes and recieve confirmations.

so you have:
(SMS/J2ME SMS) <--> SMS Gateway <--> JSP/Servlet <--> some scripting interface <--> TV card APIs

ressem has a point though: What is the real goal here? what are you trying to prove? With fourth year projects, its best to identify whats intersting about your idea and strip the rest away. Talk to your project sponsors and see what they think. They'll be marking you after all.



*I never tried to get kannel through cygwin to interface with my phone, so i'm not sure if it'd work. I was using it as a WAP gateway att.

Mitch Connor

ressem wrote:

SMS isn't too costly, if you can pick up a mobile or terminal with GSM modem inbuilt.
See http://www.cellular.co.za/hayesat.htm
for the AT+cmgr and related sms commands.

If you're making up a budget, then perhaps lookup price for an old M20, TC35, connected by serial cable to your PC + Sim card.

In real life, with large volumes, your server would act as a proxy between a telco's SMSC (accessed through a restricted secured web service) and your client that does the recording, assuming client has always on, low cost internet connection.

Wap would be simpler and cheaper though. You could use virtual phone emulators, instead of a real web server accessible from the inet.

Controlling TV card recording with MS media centre OS is meant to be possible through trivial scripting. But not very impressive.
There's a TV API as part of DirectX's directshow which you're looking at using?

The fact is the TV Card idea is the only decent idea i have had - my other idea was a cinema related wibesite with various SMS, MMS features, which i figure would be a lot easier. My assumption is the TV Card idea is a lot harder to do, and something 'different' in comparrison to what i have done in college, or the project proposal suggestions (downloadable here: http://homepage.eircom.net/~iandowney/prsugg.doc)

As to what i am trying to prove or do, pretty much nothing - i just want a decent project that i can actually do and i have to hand up my project proposal on Friday. If i could think of something better and still do-able i would be delighted, but i am running out of time and lack the imagination!

revolver2k

I can sympathise with the OP.
In a similar situation, with my proposal deadline on Friday too.
Not a far stretch from your TV Card idea, I was thinking about a mobile app that would allow the user to stop/start/schedule their (legal :P )Azureus downloads remotely.

But then, one of the lecturers concepts appealed to me also:
"11.1 Music Tutor
This project would focus on the development of an Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) where the domain is music. An ITS is educational software containing an artificial intelligence component. The system monitors students' work, make inferences about strengths and weaknesses and can suggest additional work. The project could focus on any musical instrument, even voice. "

Considering I have an interest in music ( guitar ), this may be the better option in terms of actual enjoyment + project satisfaction.
But on the other hand, it isn't exactly innovative.
Anyway, Best of luck to the OP with his/her project, whatever it ends up being!

SachaJ

ressem wrote:

SMS isn't too costly, if you can pick up a mobile or terminal with GSM modem inbuilt.
See http://www.cellular.co.za/hayesat.htm
for the AT+cmgr and related sms commands.

If you're making up a budget, then perhaps lookup price for an old M20, TC35, connected by serial cable to your PC + Sim card.

In real life, with large volumes, your server would act as a proxy between a telco's SMSC (accessed through a restricted secured web service) and your client that does the recording, assuming client has always on, low cost internet connection.

Wap would be simpler and cheaper though. You could use virtual phone emulators, instead of a real web server accessible from the inet.

Controlling TV card recording with MS media centre OS is meant to be possible through trivial scripting. But not very impressive.
There's a TV API as part of DirectX's directshow which you're looking at using?

or http://www.advocotechnologies.com

Irish company