Fire ComcastTV - improved antenna, Roku, Tivo Slide

Time to improve the antenna again.  A bit of searching lead to a number of interesting sites:

• Gray-Hoverman: http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/design.htm
• Gray-Hoverman: http://www.diytvantennas.com/sbgh.html
• Bow tie: http://www.tvantennaplans.com/ (angle 24.8 degrees)
• Bow tie (8): http://www.qsl.net/w/w7lk//misc%20pdf%20files/Misc%20PDFs/Build-a-Large-DB8-HDTV-Antenna-Big-Bertha.pdf (angle 2*16.83 = 33.66)
• Fractal: http://www.scienceprog.com/fractal-antenna-constructions/

DB8 Bow Tie

Will fabricate according to this drawing:

Cut some plastic for standoffs.  Stripped some #12 wire for antenna elements.

Click issues in linux/flash

Had some issues with mouse click not working when viewing videos.  It may be an issue with the browser or flash.  Found a possible fix here (http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/fix-mouse-clicks-not-working-in-flash.html) to try.

Roku box arrived


Cabling is dead simple.  Setup needs to go to internet and register with Roku.  Also registered my Pandora account.  Created a Roksbox account.  Downloaded nowhereman extension.  Added Pandora extension.  All looks good.  This is a VERY cool device and will doubtless play a significant role in the Fire ComcastTV effort.

Tivo Slide Keyboard arrived


The Tivo Slide remote arrived.  It's a very cool device.  Plugged in to the Ubuntu box.  No joy.  There seem to be issues.  Started search to see how to configure.

• Checked for installable support.  No joy.
• There's a discussion here: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/452369?do=post_view_threaded#452369.  I'll read it to see if there are any clues.
• http://www.bluetooth.org/tpg/listings.cfm reports Tivo Slide supported Aug 2010.  I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 (April 2010 I think).  There may well be issues.
• http://www.bluez.org/download/ appears to be the place for Linux blue tooth.  Ubuntu is here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup.
• Package manager shows bluetooth support installed but there are MANY packages not installed.
• Found an apparently good clue here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=79616&page=3
  Hi there,
  
  I'm a longtime user and lurker. Since I've been hacking Linux for around 15 years, I thought I'd see if I could get this remote working...
  
  Well, the kernel patch failed as the kernel I have (Ubuntu Lucid) is different enough from the patch kernel, so before hacking up kernel code, I thought I'd see what can be done in userspace. After all, the bluetooth stack does run partially in userspace...
  
  For a start, I followed the PS3 remote instructions here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title..._PS3_BD_Remote to expand bluez beyond standard keycode recognition. After several reboots and reinstalling all the bluetooth support software from synaptics, the Tivo remote was recognized. I would note that you need to use code 0000, not the standard randomly generated code.
  
  It looks like I'm going to do some key mapping as only part of the keys work. The keyboard seems to work fine, but only up/down works on the nav pad. Left-right and select are non-functional. On the remote bit, volume, play, pause, ff, rev work.
  
  I haven't yet looked at debugging bluez to discover what other codes are being send, the only thing I saw was dmesg complaining about not being able to emulate raw mode for keycode 240.
  
  I don't know if anyone has gone down this route, but I'm hoping I can just modify the bluetooth input keymap without having to mod the kernel. It would seem logical that BT captures all the keycodes at some level, regardless of what USB HID does with it afterwords...
  
  Chris.
  
• We'll see where that leads.
• Turns out the key is to use code 0000 and be patient while the device negotiates a connection.  Keyboard generally works.  Curiously, the number keys on the keyboard don't work while the number keys on the remote face do.  Most of the other keys on the remote face don't work out of the box but hopefully some mapping will make them functional.
• XBMC support is reasonable from the keyboard tray.  Need to work out keymaps.
• Some useful background here (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO_Setup_PS3_BD_Remote) on modifing /etc/bluetooth/input.conf to support a different device.
• Need to get mappings for tivo remote face.
• Mapped TV power, volume, and mute IR functions.  It appears that the channel up/down functions are bluetooth only as are most keys.
• Found some clues re XBMC here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap.xml.
• It turns out that at the current time a kernel patch is required to fully support this device.

To DO

• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup