The Sky+HD Picasso DNLA control server protocol

Aug 21, 2012

—

Tonight, I released my first ever open source code that wasn’t a wordpress plugin, SkyRemote. It’s a python based IP remote control for Sky+HD boxes with the new Picasso EPG. This is currently the DRX980 and the DRX985 boxes.

It’s free as in beer, and licensed under the GPLv3. It’s based on a piece of software called “Miranda” which lets you browse UPnP endpoints.

Full information is on github but I wanted to document the DNLA endpoints available for people to find. That documentation is after the break

So, there are 5 endpoints. 3 exposed by the description0.xml file, 2 by the description2.xml file. SkyRemote only supports any of the first 3 endpoints, because the other 2 are seriously complicated, and I have no idea what format and type the arguments should be.

The full endpoint definitions, and the associated service actions, are available on pastebin: http://pastebin.com/7FkFf2m3

Comments

106 responses to “The Sky+HD Picasso DNLA control server protocol”

BruH5200
August 22, 2012
Nice work, I’m hacking away at this too !
I was using “Poster” in firefox and have managed to quickly Pause and resume the live TV.
Am going to download your tool and have a play.
Ultimate aim is to integrate this into “iRule” which is a remote control I run on my iPad.
Have you managed to retrieve currently playing program info?
Reply
1. lgladdy
  August 23, 2012
  @BruH5200 That seems pretty cool! I’m sure it’s possible. This sort of thing could also be put into apps like MythTV to let linux users have their boxes turn over channels automatically.
  
  Currently playing program info is interesting. Yes, you can get it, but in the case of watching TV, channels seem to be returned as a 3 digit HEX code, which doesn’t directly relate to the channel number.
  
  I’ll try and figure this out some more this weekend.
  Reply
BruH5200
August 24, 2012
It looks like the bare minimum you can send is…

POST /SkyPlay2 HTTP/1.1
SOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#Pause”
Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8Content-Length: 299

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
<s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”>
<s:Body>
<u:Pause xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″>
<InstanceID>0</InstanceID>
</u:Pause>
</s:Body>
</s:Envelope>

The User-Agent header is not required.
Having trouble getting iRule to send that though !!!
Reply
BruH5200
August 25, 2012
Bit of a brain dump as I’m figuring this out………….

SOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#SetAVTransportURI”
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?><s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”><s:Body><u:SetAVTransportURI xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″><InstanceID>0</InstanceID><CurrentURI>xsi://ff0</CurrentURI><CurrentURIMetaData>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</CurrentURIMetaData></u:SetAVTransportURI></s:Body></s:Envelope>

Switches to channel 113.

Like you I haven’t figured out the relation between channel numbers and xsi values.

Also there is a description7.xml
if you haven’t spotted it.

Hex = Sky Channel (might be subject to regional variation)

656 = 104
178E = 103
7D6 = 102
867 = 101

Notify information is sent to the iPad on port 51000
this occurs when a channel change occurs and sends the ID of the current channel.

The initial “Browse” command when the iPad is trying to get all it’s inital data is:

<s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”> <s:Body> <u:Browse xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBrowse:2″> <ObjectID>0</ObjectID> <BrowseFlag>BrowseDirectChildren</BrowseFlag> <Filter>*</Filter> <StartingIndex>0</StartingIndex> <RequestedCount>25</RequestedCount> <SortCriteria></SortCriteria> </u:Browse> </s:Body></s:Envelope>

Then the same but with ObjectID = 3 (This seems to return the Sky Planner data, program synopsis included)
It then repeats the ObjectID=3 but starting at startingindex = 25 to get the rest,

I think the channel guide must be coming from the internet, not from the box and that must include the channel IDs,

655 = 974
Reply
BruH5200
August 25, 2012
I’ve found the channel data…

http://tv.sky.com/channel/index

{“init”:{“channels”:[{“c”:[2002,101,12,0],”pt”:”F”,”t”:”BBC 1 London”},{“c”:[2006,102,12,0],”pt”:”F”,”t”:”BBC 2 England”},{“c”:[6000,103,12,0],”pt”:”F”,”t”:”ITV1 London”},{“c”:[1621,104,12,0],”pt”:”F”,”t”:”Channel 4″},{“c”:[1801,105,12,0],”pt”:”F”,”t”:”Channel 5″},{“c”:[4061,106,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Sky1 HD”},{“c”:[4066,107,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Sky Living HD”},{“c”:[4053,108,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Sky Atlantic HD”},{“c”:[3810,109,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Watch HD”},{“c”:[2304,110,12,0],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”GOLD”},{“c”:[3809,111,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Dave HD”},{“c”:[4056,112,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Comedy Cen HD”},{“c”:[4080,113,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Universal HD”},{“c”:[4074,114,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Syfy HD”},{“c”

so channel 113 from the example below is shown as:
{“c”:[4080,113,12,1],”pt”:”P”,”t”:”Universal HD”}

4080 Decimal = ff0 hex
and ff0 is what the iPad sends to change to that channel !!

Reply
BruH5200
August 25, 2012
Channel change is done by sending a channel ID: I’ve found the “hidden” IDs from the sky TV guide website:
They are a hex version of the long ID shown on: http://tv.sky.com/channel/index

I’ve arranged them into a nice table for you… http://pastebin.com/mxJNMHv5

Channel Change
————————

POST /SkyPlay2 HTTP/1.1 SOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#SetAVTransportURI” Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: xxx <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?> <s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encod…” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envel…; <s:Body> <u:SetAVTransportURI xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″> <InstanceID>0</InstanceID> <CurrentURI>xsi://ff0</CurrentURI> <CurrentURIMetaData>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</CurrentURIMetaData> </u:SetAVTransportURI> </s:Body> </s:Envelope> Switches to channel “ff0” which is actually channel 113 !
Reply
NeilWingfield
August 26, 2012
Hi There,

I’m also tinkering about with this. Could someone please let me know the URL that i should be using in Firefox Poster.

I have tried putting http:// followed by the Sky box IP address, followed by the port :49153. Poster is returning the following in the server field ‘ Linux/2.6.18.8 UPnP/1.0 SKY DLNADOC/1.50’ but I am getting a status ‘401’ Unauthorized’

If someone could please point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

Thanks,

Neil.
Reply
1. BruH5200
  August 26, 2012
  @NeilWingfield
  http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xx:49153/SkyPlay2
  For pause, play etc.
  Reply
  1. NeilWingfield
    August 27, 2012
    @BruH5200 @NeilWingfield Thanks, I’ve tried that, but still getting the ‘401 Unauthorized’ error.
    Do I need to complete the ‘USER AUTH’ to allow this to work?
    Reply
    1. BruH5200
      August 27, 2012
      @NeilWingfield
      
      using firefox poster….
      
      http://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:49153/SkyPlay2
      
      headers:
      
      SOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#Pause”
      Content-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8Content-Length: 299
      
      body:
      
      <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
      <s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”>
      <s:Body>
      <u:pause xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″>
      <InstanceID>0</InstanceID>
      </u:Pause>
      </s:Body>
      </s:Envelope>
      
      Reply
    2. BruH5200
      August 27, 2012
      @NeilWingfield ignore the content length bit that shouldn’t have been there.
      Poster will add it.
      Reply
    3. sea2wright
      August 27, 2012
      @NeilWingfield @BruH5200 Neil. If you are still having problems with Firefox poster try using telnet http://pastebin.com/zgetqZcN and see if that works. Remember to copy from “raw data” at bottom of page.
      Reply
    4. NeilWingfield
      August 27, 2012
      @sea2wright @BruH5200 Thanks guys, it’s working now. Took a while to get the headers correct, but got there in the end.
      Reply
sea2wright
August 26, 2012
You need to set your User Agent to “SKY_skyplus” check at: http://whatsmyuseragent.com/ How you do this depends on what web browser you use.
Reply
sea2wright
August 26, 2012
re: I’ve found the “hidden” IDs from the sky TV guide website:

Whats the (hidden) URL?
Reply
1. BruH5200
  August 26, 2012
  @sea2wright
  As shown in th original post:
  http://tv.sky.com/channel/index
  Reply
  1. sea2wright
    August 26, 2012
    @BruH5200 @sea2wright Misunderstood you. I thought you had found a page where channel number was already in HEX
    Reply
    1. BruH5200
      August 26, 2012
      @sea2wright the page has the “hidden ids” but they are decimal.
      If you convert them to hex they are what the iPad sends.
      Reply
sea2wright
August 28, 2012
Hi Bruce
Using poster I can change channel, pause, resume play (at various speeds) & browse my planner.
What I can’t do is play an item from my planner. Any ideas?
I have tried to SetAVTransportURI to “file://pvr/290007DC” resulting in ACTION FAILED & “xsi://57A;231” resulting in RESOURCE NOT FOUND.
Reply
1. BruH5200
  August 28, 2012
  @sea2wright I just did:
  Headers:
  SOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#SetAVTransportURI”
  
  Body:
  <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?><s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”><s:Body><u:SetAVTransportURI xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″><InstanceID>0</InstanceID><CurrentURI>file://pvr/290002DC?position=1&speed=30</CurrentURI><CurrentURIMetaData>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</CurrentURIMetaData></u:SetAVTransportURI></s:Body></s:Envelope>
  
  and that worked a treat !
  Reply
  1. BruH5200
    August 28, 2012
    @sea2wright An item from the Sky Planner looks like this…
    
    <item id=”BOOK:687866529″ restricted=”0″ parentID=”3″><upnp:class>object.item.videoItem</upnp:class><dc:title>Hardcore Pawn 5</dc:title><upnp:programID type=”nds.com_URI”>xsi://FFE;11B</upnp:programID><res protocolInfo=”internal:192.168.2.70:*:*” duration=”0:29:13″ size=”571279172″>file://pvr/290002A1</res><vx:X_genre id=”nds.com_internal” extended=”11,2828″>11</vx:X_genre><upnp:rating type=”nds.com_internal”>0</upnp:rating><upnp:scheduledStartTime>2012-08-24T12:04:10Z</upnp:scheduledStartTime><upnp:scheduledEndTime>2012-08-24T12:32:40Z</upnp:scheduledEndTime><upnp:scheduledDuration>P0D00:28:30</upnp:scheduledDuration><dc:description>Final Decision: Les reveals what he plans to do about the new pawn shop. Meanwhile, Ashley gets caught in the crossfire when a fight breaks out in the middle of the store. (S5, ep 2) </dc:description><upnp:channelNr>65535</upnp:channelNr><upnp:channelName>Bio</upnp:channelName><upnp:channelID type=”nds.com_URI”>xsi://FFE</upnp:channelID><vx:X_serviceType>5</vx:X_serviceType><vx:X_cgmsa>0</vx:X_cgmsa><vx:X_audioType>2</vx:X_audioType><vx:X_marketingMsg>Meet the Gold family and their crazy customers; every Friday from 9pm only on Bio.</vx:X_marketingMsg><vx:X_flags hasForeignSubtitles=”0″ hd=”0″ hasAudioDesc=”0″ widescreen=”1″ copyProtected=”0″ isLinked=”0″ allowAnalogTaping=”1″ currentSeries=”0″ ippv=”0″ oppv=”0″/><vx:X_baseType>2</vx:X_baseType><vx:X_bookingTime>2012-08-24T11:28:45Z</vx:X_bookingTime><vx:X_bookingType>2</vx:X_bookingType><vx:X_bookingDiskQuotaName>system</vx:X_bookingDiskQuotaName><vx:X_guardStartDur>0</vx:X_guardStartDur><vx:X_guardEndDur>0</vx:X_guardEndDur><vx:X_bookedAsOPPV>0</vx:X_bookedAsOPPV><vx:X_extensionStartDur>0</vx:X_extensionStartDur><vx:X_bookingActive>1</vx:X_bookingActive><vx:X_bookingKeep>0</vx:X_bookingKeep><vx:X_bookingLock>0</vx:X_bookingLock><upnp:recordedStartDateTime>2012-08-24T12:04:10Z</upnp:recordedStartDateTime><upnp:recordedDuration>P0D00:29:13</upnp:recordedDuration><vx:X_recStatus failed=”0″ contentStatus=”3″ exception=”100″ recState=”7″>5</vx:X_recStatus><vx:X_lastPlaybackPosition>0</vx:X_lastPlaybackPosition><vx:X_isViewed>0</vx:X_isViewed><vx:X_reminderStatus isVcrTimer=”0″>1</vx:X_reminderStatus><vx:X_isSeriesLinked>0</vx:X_isSeriesLinked><vx:X_pdlPlaybackAvailable>0</vx:X_pdlPlaybackAvailable><vx:X_pushPublishTime>2012-08-26T05:29:00Z</vx:X_pushPublishTime><vx:X_pushExpiryStart>2012-08-29T00:00:00Z</vx:X_pushExpiryStart><vx:X_pushExpiryEnd>2012-09-01T00:00:00Z</vx:X_pushExpiryEnd><vx:X_pdlDownloadStatus>0</vx:X_pdlDownloadStatus><upnp:srsRecordTaskID>RT:290002A1</upnp:srsRecordTaskID></item>
    Reply
BruH5200
August 28, 2012
The description0.xml file seems to randomly change it’s name.
Tonight I noticed that the iPad was download description37.xml

It seems that it changes and the relevant XML filesname is broadcast in the SSDP broadcasts the box makes.
I guess this is normal UPNP behaviour, but I’m not really familiar with it.
Reply
1. sea2wright
  August 28, 2012
  @BruH5200 Hadn’t tried description37.xml until now. Just gives a 404 error although did try 0 > 15 on one occasion when description2.xml wasn’t working and found SkyServe:2 in description1.xml. Usually there is only desc0 & desc2 present. It appears to be a feature (bug??) of the Sky box.
  
  Thanks for the SkyPlay info.
  Reply
Jon889
October 28, 2012
My box has just updated to the new guide, and it seems there are differences, SkyPlay is no longer exposed in the descriptionN.xml file. There is only SkyBook2 and SkyBrowse2
Reply
Jon
November 7, 2012
@lgladdy Hi, how are you getting current playing? Does this also mean you can return what the current channel is?
Reply
1. sea2wright
  November 15, 2012
  Current playing or current channel is returned by:
  SkyControl SkyPlay GetMediaInfo
  Set InstanceID value to: 0
  CurrentURI : xsi://17FC
  This indicates channel ITV1 Meridian South
  or
  CurrentURI : file://pvr/29004438
  in the case of a recording.
  Reply
2. lgladdy
  January 1, 2013
  Has anyone figured out how we can get the full program name currently being played, along with the info box content for the program?
  
  I’d love to write a way to push playing data to trakt.tv or getglue.
  Reply
Jon889
November 18, 2012
Sky follows UPnP specs quite well, except for the planner items, where they include some fields in the videoItem class, that are specified to be part of it. Mainly I’ve been writing a Mac app to control it, I’ve gotten the basic control and ability to view and start playing planner items. btw:
The X_recStatus for planner items is whether it’s recored/ing/viewable, it’s inner possible values are:
0 shows when downloading (possibly/probably other times)
1 to be recorded
3 recording
5 on PVR
Reply
1. Jon
  November 19, 2012
  @Jon889
  Reply
2. Jon
  November 19, 2012
  @Jon889 I’ve been doing something similar…. Are you getting the tv guide information from the box?
  Reply
  1. BruH5200
    November 20, 2012
    @Jon889 I think TV Guide info comes from the web, not from the box. I believe the TV channel mapping information (channel names and numbers and channel IDs) also comes from the web.
    Reply
    1. Jon
      November 21, 2012
      @BruH5200 @Jon889 Yes, i thought this was the only route. I’m trying to write a web interface and currently i’m downloading xmltv and i thought if i could get it from the box directly that this would be better. Thanks.
      Reply
BruH5200
November 20, 2012
I have integrated these commands into iRule in the iPad / iPhone now.
So I can do channel changes and fast forward rewinds, play pause etc.
It’s a shame that you can’t do emulation of the entire remote control through this interface.
Up down left right, select etc.
Reply
Gb160
November 27, 2012
@BruH5200
Just about got my head round this…I can change channels ,pause ,but for the life of me can’t work out how to resume after pausing…..could you show me the XML of the play/resume command please…it’s doing my head in!!
Reply
1. BruH5200
  November 28, 2012
  @Gb160
  I posted various commands at
  https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDMQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgetsatisfaction.com%2Firule%2Ftopics%2Fsony_bdp_s590_ip_codes&ei=NbK1UMKQBJGN0wXKpYDgDA&usg=AFQjCNHdPqJYX8oc8em_TarOyplQURYm5A&sig2=2ki0gSl9CWVrbCkdlln0Ww
  Reply
2. Gb160
  November 28, 2012
  Thanks mate….exactly what I was looking for.
  Reply
dave1628
December 13, 2012
@lgladdy @BruH5200 I’ve had success at using firefox poster to change channels on my Sky+HD Box and would now like to set up a script to change the channels from MythTV, this will, for me, be far more reliable than sending commands via an IR Transmitter through a repeater to another room. Unfortunately I’m having problems getting the channel to change from this command line:

curl –verbose –header “content-type: text/xml; charset=utf-8” –header “SOAPACTION: urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#SetAVTransportURI” –data “<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?><s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”><s:Body><u:SetAVTransportURI xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″><InstanceID>0</InstanceID><CurrentURI>xsi://9c7</CurrentURI><CurrentURIMetaData>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</CurrentURIMetaData></u:SetAVTransportURI></s:Body></s:Envelope>” POST http://192.168.1.202:49153/SkyPlay2

the response I get is:

<s:Fault>
<faultcode>s:Client</faultcode>
<faultstring>UPnPError</faultstring>
<detail> <UPnPError xmlns=”urn:schemas-upnp-org:control-1-0″>
<errorCode>-111</errorCode>
<errorDescription>Invalid Action</errorDescription>
</UPnPError>
Reply
1. sea2wright
  February 23, 2013
  @lgladdy @BruH5200 Try:
  
  curl –verbose –header “content-type: text/xml; charset=utf-8” –header “SOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#SetAVTransportURI”” –data “<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?><s:Envelope xmlns:n=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″ s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”><s:Body><n:SetAVTransportURI><InstanceID>0</InstanceID><CurrentURI>xsi://9c7</CurrentURI><CurrentURIMetaData>NOT_IMPLEMENTED</CurrentURIMetaData></n:SetAVTransportURI></s:Body></s:Envelope>” POST http://192.168.1.202:49153/SkyPlay2
  
  the response I get is:
  
  < HTTP/1.1 200 OK < CONTENT-LENGTH: 244 < CONTENT-TYPE: text/xml; charset=”utf-8″ < DATE: Sat, 01 Jan 2000 04:34:23 GMT < EXT: < SERVER: Linux/2.6.18.8 UPnP/1.0 SKY DLNADOC/1.50 < X-User-Agent: redsonic < <s:Envelope xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/” s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/”><s:Body> <u:SetAVTransportURIResponse xmlns:u=”nds-comSkyPlay:2″></u:SetAVTransportURIResponse>
  Reply
mwrf
December 29, 2012
@BruH5200 @NeilWingfield
<u:pause should be <u:Pause – Causes an XML parsing error otherwise
Reply
mwrf
December 29, 2012
Thanks to the comments on this page, I’ve implemented a quick and dirty web server for controlling a sky box in the browser.

Vid here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjOvBWtoy1M

Project here:
https://github.com/mwrf/skyplus.js
Feel free to fork!
Reply
1. lgladdy
  January 1, 2013
  @mwrf I’m looking to build a way to push live viewing data to services like trakt.tv, which would need some kind of running server. Do you have any code that gets the currently playing program? (I understand this requires talking to sky’s servers to get, as the upnp data won’t contain the actual program name and info)
  Reply
  1. mwrf
    January 1, 2013
    @lgladdy
    I have it figured out, just need to code it!
    I can get the data from the Sky servers for any given channel ID no problem.
    
    E.g for RTE One (Channel ID 1251):
    http://tv.sky.com/programme/channel/1251/2013-01-01/3.json
    You can iterate over a day be requesting 0-4.json
    
    There’s a UNIX timestamp against every entry, so what I’m going to do is:
    — Poll the Sky box for current Channel
    — Pull down the listings for that channel from Sky
    — Look up what is currently scheduled to be on.
    
    It should be accurate. I won’t be able to work on it until the weekend though.
    Reply
    1. lgladdy
      January 1, 2013
      @mwrf This is great news – I’ve forked and can happily make a start if i get more time than you before the weekend. Finally, I notice your channel list is irish (presumably)? Any idea if we can get the sky box’s region? Or at least a complete list of all the channels.json so we can make it better supported through the UK?
      Reply
    2. lgladdy
      January 1, 2013
      @mwrf So, a quick scan of that data leads to a json string of something along the lines of
      
      {“d”:”The One With The Worst Best Man Ever: After Joey almost loses Ross’ wedding ring, Ross asks both Joey and Chandler to be his best man. Meanwhile, the girls host a baby shower for Phoebe.”,”m”:[863,1800,1,0,”–“],”rr”:”S”,”s”:1357070400,”sid”:14504,”t”:”Friends”,”url”:”http://sky.tv/pzdjsx”}
      
      We could then use something like thetvdb.com to lookup the show title from the description. In a very similar way to sickbeard works, it’s able to know if a programme is “air by date” (daily things, such as soaps, Eastenders in the case of whats on right now), or if its a series…
      
      We could then write a nice little parser for the description to get the show title and scan through the thetvdb to get that series and episode number and push to the third party service.
      
      Do we have any idea what $data[m] is? Presumably $data[sid] is some kind of show ID internal to sky? (I guess for Series Link?)
      Reply
    3. lgladdy
      January 1, 2013
      @mwrf And a bit more info, you might not even need TheTVDB. If you take the channel number, and the first value of m and build that into the URL:
      
      http://tv.sky.com/programme/detail/3705/863
      
      You get a scrapable html element that’s loaded by AJAX usually which contains the series and episode number 🙂
      Reply
    4. mwrf
      January 3, 2013
      @lgladdy data[m] is the length of the program in seconds, sid must be Some Show ID like you say.
      Reply
    5. zenAV
      February 8, 2013
      @mwrf @lgladdy No need to iterate through the guide… see http://epgservices.sky.com/5.1.1/api/2.0/channel/json/%5Bchannel number]/now/nn/1 and for more detailed current programme info change the last 1 to a 4.
      Reply
Georgelock
March 24, 2013
I have a DRX780UK box sitting unused. Can use this with DNLA to interface with my Twonkymedia NAS drives?

Thanks

George
Reply
1. BruH5200
  March 25, 2013
  @Georgelock Unfortunately not. The Sky box is not a standard UPNP display or player.
  Reply
Georgelock
March 25, 2013
Thanks for the response. Can I make my Virgin TIVO box do the job whilst using it to access Virgin Media?
Reply
ChrisWest
May 15, 2013
Hi, I don’t know if anyone is still watching this thread but I thought it was worth a try.
This particular post has been invaluable to me in getting my setup working. So first, thanks.
This morning however, it seems to have stopped working. My TB Amstrad box received an update in the night and I can only assume Sky have either changed something or blocked me/us. The app still works but all of my commands don’t work. Even the basic Pause command using Poster does nothing.
I’m not clever enough to work out if it’s a big thing or if something simple has changed. I guess I’m posting in the hope that someone will be able to work it out and get me going again!!
Thanks
Reply
1. lgladdy
  May 15, 2013
  ChrisWest The SkyPlay2 DNLA endpoint has changed to SkyPlay in the newest update.
  You’ll need to update any apps that call /SkyPlay2 to now call /SkyPlay!
  Reply
  1. ChrisWest
    May 15, 2013
    lgladdy ChrisWest YES!! Thank you!! One little number nearly ruined it all!! Thank you very much – it’s all working again.
    Reply
    1. lgladdy
      May 15, 2013
      ChrisWest lgladdy It’s probably a good lesson that we should parse the description<int>.xml file. Presumably that’s how the Sky apps and some people here haven’t had problems!
      Reply
    2. brianilland
      May 15, 2013
      lgladdy ChrisWest Yeh, you need to do an SSDP request to find out the correct description URLs, then parse the xml files and store the URLs. I wrote the app TV Planner Remote in the iOS app store, and had to make this change last week, so as to make sure it would work on both old and new Sky firmwares. Apart from that minor change, everything else I am using works per the previous firmware.
      Reply
entropic
May 15, 2013
Does the iOS app still work?What is the new firmware version?
Reply
ringspun
May 15, 2013
Something has definitely changed – I just SSH’d in to my box at home to test. I wrote some code a while ago which still finds the box, but now it craps out trying to get information about whats’ on.
The code for anyone who’s interested is at https://github.com/dalhundal/sky-plus-hd
I might get a chance to look at it this week.
Reply
1. entropic
  May 15, 2013
  ringspun I have implemented a similar system, and I am now worried it will stop working. If I can get the update, I can sniff the traffic with Wireshark and hopefully see what has changed.
  Reply
  1. ringspun
    May 15, 2013
    @entropicI’ll try to remember to check what the sky version is tonight. I never made a note of what it was previously.I’d imagine the change is probably minor, and no harder to figure out than it was before – they seem to be sticking with the DLNA spec fairly well.
    Reply
2. ChrisWest
  May 15, 2013
  ringspun Your code is great! It’s what inspired me to do my current setup.
  Basically I have an android app which I put together to control the tv, sky, xbmc etc. I was using this protocol to get the “now playing” data. It *was* working a dream!
  I can’t speak for iOS but the Android App IS still working.
  The sky version number is 4f3151. I just phoned sky who confirmed that I and many others got an update last night.
  Reply
  1. ringspun
    May 15, 2013
    ChrisWest ringspun Thanks – however, it was the ‘now playing’ part of it that I wasn’t really happy with – and to be honest, was probably what frustrated me enough to make me not look at the code for a while.
    Basically, what I’d thought of as “now playing” is just in fact “what’s being broadcast now”. If you consider that I might be watching Sky time-shifted (paused for half hour, or rewound) then what it thinks I’m watching doesn’t necessarily match what is on screen. I should not abandon it though, and just accept that that will be an issue.
    I dreamt up some ridiculous solutions, none of which I even attempted to implement. Foremost amongst those was to monitor how long the box is paused, how long it spends in rewind etc to try and figure out how far the box is time shifted from real time – but I don’t have high hopes for that being any where near accurate.
    Reply
    1. ChrisWest
      May 15, 2013
      ringspun ChrisWest I see exactly what you mean. I hadn’t really ran into that problem as I seldom watch ‘live’ tv – it’s nearly always from the planner.
      I was using your script to output the ‘live’ data to a file which I was then calling from the Android app.
      If you get a few minutes to find out what’s changed and how to fix it then I and other, I’m sure will be in your debt!! Thanks.
      Reply
3. lgladdy
  May 15, 2013
  ringspunThe SkyPlay2 DNLA endpoint has changed to SkyPlay in the newest update.
  You’ll need to update any apps that call /SkyPlay2 to now call /SkyPlay!
  Reply
  1. ringspun
    May 15, 2013
    lgladdy ringspun Strange. I tried my code again, and it works with no changes. Perhaps I haven’t had the update yet and there was just another problem earlier.
    Reply
Jon889
May 15, 2013
im on 4F3001, and have the latest ios app update. it still works. also the mac app i wrote still works too.
Reply
entropic
May 16, 2013
My Sky box for testing is reporting version 4f3153
My code has stopped working. Subscribing to the /SkyBrowse2 and /SkyPlay2 services results in a 404 Not Found.
Calling SkyPlay with pause or play etc gives a 500 Internal Server Error.
I will upadte my iPad app and look at what it’s doing with wireshark.
Reply
entropic
May 16, 2013
I fixed my code by removing the “2” from the POST endpoint:
e.g. This used to work:
POST /SkyPlay2 HTTP/1.1
NOw it has to be:
POST /SkyPlay HTTP/1.1
the rest is the same.
Reply
1. ChrisWest
  May 16, 2013
  @entropic I can confirm this worked. Just removed to 2’s and it all works again.
  Reply
2. entropic
  May 16, 2013
  I’ve updated my code to actually get these endpoints from the description<n>.xml files, to try to avoid this in the future. One other thing that changed in this update was that in the planner items, the format of the StartDate changed slightly.
  Reply
  1. Jon889
    May 26, 2013
    How exactly are you knowing which endpoints to use then? Surely you have to hardcode the name somewhere? What if sky changes the names radically, how do you know which is the remote, and which is the planner info?
    Reply
    1. entropic
      May 29, 2013
      Jon889 You can get them from the description<N>.xml file, the location of which is broadcast over SSDP by the sky box.
      Reply
    2. Jon889
      May 29, 2013
      Yes, but once you get then from the descriptions XML how do you know which is for remote and which is for planner (seeing as your not using the name to identify which is which)
      Reply
    3. brianilland
      May 29, 2013
      Jon889 In ther servicelist node in the descriptionX.xml files, loop through the serviceList node and look for the service types :
      urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBook:2 – for record requests
      urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2 – for play requests
      urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBrowse:2 – for browse requests
      When you find these, get the value for the controlURL node and append it to the box IP and port you already have.
      For example, the old firmware looks like this. The new firmware has the same values for serviceType, but a different control URL. This way, you should hopefully be Firmware-update-proof.
      <serviceList>
      <service>
      <serviceType>urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBook:2</serviceType>
      <serviceId>urn:nds-com:serviceId:SkyBook2</serviceId>
      <SCPDURL>/scm_srs.xml</SCPDURL>
      <controlURL>/SkyBook2</controlURL>
      <eventSubURL>/SkyBook2</eventSubURL>
      </service>
      <service>
      <serviceType>urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBrowse:2</serviceType>
      <serviceId>urn:nds-com:serviceId:SkyBrowse2</serviceId>
      <SCPDURL>/scm_hn_cds.xml</SCPDURL>
      <controlURL>/SkyBrowse2</controlURL>
      <eventSubURL>/SkyBrowse2</eventSubURL>
      </service>
      </serviceList>
      Reply
    4. Jon889
      August 7, 2013
      So we just have to hope they don’t change the service type?
      Reply
ChrisWest
May 17, 2013
Anyone know how I get the planner details for a specific recording?
I’ve got the file://pvr/xxxx but can’t work out how to get the data for just that entry. I can get the whole planner. I see there’s a ‘filter’ option but can’t work out how to use it.
Thanks
Reply
1. zenAV
  May 18, 2013
  ChrisWest The filter option is there for filtering the returned set of results by tag, e.g. dc:title – not for search of data within the tags. There is a Search action, which I’ve tried posting various queries to, but no joy. Using GetSearchCapabilities returns:
  <SearchCaps>vx:X_bookingType,vx:X_recStatus,vx:X_recStatus@failed,vx:X_reminderStatus</SearchCaps>
  … so it looks like those are the only search capabilities currently. Probably why the official iPad app syncs planner items at startup, and then presumably stores the whole XML for query later. You can play with search via a SOAPACTION header of “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBrowse:2#Search”, and then the following body data:
  <?xml version=”1.0″?><s:Envelope xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/” s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/”><s:Body><u:Search xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBrowse:2″><ContainerID>3</ContainerID><Filter>*</Filter><RequestedCount>5</RequestedCount><StartingIndex>0</StartingIndex><SearchCriteria>[insert search criteria from SearchCaps above]</SearchCriteria><SortCriteria></SortCriteria></u:Search></s:Body></s:Envelope>
  Again it keeps returning an error, so not sure of the format of SearchCriteria – I’ve tried the normal uPnP format of ([tag name] contains “[search criteria]”), i.e. (vx:X_bookingType contains “2”), but I’m obviously missing something.
  Reply
ChrisB196
May 19, 2013
Hi, I hope you don’t all become instantly fed up with the following question only I am very much a newbie but I’ve been following the various posts in response to what appears to be amazing work by Liam! 🙂 Basically, I’m delving into the world of Linux having recently got a Raspberry Pi, primarily running XBMC so I can access my music library through Demopad on my iPad – can’t do this with Apple TV3 for obvious reasons!? Anyway, I’ve also been trying to set up some code in Demopad to control and pull information from Sky+HD box (Samsung with the ?picasso epg) via IP using a download that includes commands for play, pause, ff and rw at different speeds. What I’d really like to do is have the same capabilities in Demopad as you can with the Sky+ app, in particular accessing and navigating my Sky planner. Despite way too many hours trying to find something on the net, it seems Sky are not releasing the information for this. Liam, or anyone, do you have any suggestions of how this could be done please? The following is an example that works in Demopad for ‘play’;
POST /SkyPlay2 HTTP/1.1x0Dx0AHost: 192.168.1.16:49153x0Dx0AUser-Agent: SKY_skyplusx0Dx0AContent-Length: 367x0Dx0AAccept: */*x0Dx0AContent-Type: text/xml; charset=utf-8x0Dx0ASOAPACTION: “urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2#Play”x0Dx0AAccept-Language: en-usx0Dx0AAccept-Encoding: gzip, deflatex0Dx0AConnection: keep-alivex0Dx0Ax0Dx0A<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>x0Dx0A<s:Envelope s:encodingStyle=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/” xmlns:s=”http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/”>x0Dx0A <s:Body>x0Dx0A <u:Play xmlns:u=”urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2″>x0Dx0A <InstanceID>0</InstanceID>x0Dx0A <Speed>1</Speed>x0Dx0A </u:Play>x0Dx0A </s:Body>x0Dx0A</s:Envelope>x0Dx0A
Hope you can help and sorry if this is a stupid question… Thanks, Chris 🙂
Reply
Brian Collins
July 7, 2013
A question and an offering …
The question is whether anyone knows of the equivalent to JSOn web service at http://tv.sky.com/channel/index – but which returns information about Sky *radio* channels? I can manually build my own mapping list for a few standard favourites. But I would need to maintain it as and when Sky rename or move channels. So a Sky-sourced data feed would be great.
The offering is for those who would like to have a fairly complete network control of the Sky box implemented as a C# .Net class. Even if you don’t use Windows or C#, the source code may be helpful as a worked example for others on the same path as myself.
The class forms part of my integrated smartphone/tablet HTTP-based control system for all my TV/Video/Radio/Music/DVD/Spotify/iPlayer/Photos. I have recently integrated Sky control using reverse engineering pointers from this thread.
The class can:
Enumerate all TV channels, with Now+Next info and programme descriptions.
Change to watch a specified live channel.
Enumerate all planner recordings, with original broadcast channel and date/time info and programme descriptions.
Start watching a planner recording.
Delete a planner recording.
Play / Pause / FF / Rewind the playing channel or recording.
It has no means to set or otherwise control the recording *schedule* – I use a “proper” app for that. And it cannot emulate all the buttons on the IR remote control – I use an IR transmitter for that. But it has all the capabilities I need for a remote control.
Eventually I will write up the complete project and make it all available under an MIT license. And I will tidy-up and comment the code for wider use. But for now, you can help yourselves to the source of this one class at http://brianavid.co.uk/Xfer/sky.zip.
Enjoy
Brian
Reply
1. AdamDawes
  June 1, 2015
  Hi Brian,
  Any chance you still have your C# Sky+ remote code available anywhere? The link you posted no longer seems to work. Assuming this technique still works (these articles are all fairly old now) I’d very much like to see if I can get something along these lines working myself, but I’m more than happy to take a look at existing code if anyone has any to offer!
  Many thanks and I look forward to hearing from you,
  Adam.
  Reply
Brian Collins
August 6, 2013
[I’m posting here as it seems to be the most useful source of information on the Sky HTTP access]
Aaargh!
Today’s Sky STB update broke everything again – including for a few hours the SkyPlus IOS app.
WireShark shows me that where I previously posted to /SkyBrowse, I must post to /444D5376-3253-6B79-5365-0019fbb99592SkyBrowse. Similarly /SkyPlay becomes /444D5276-3253-6B79-436F-0019fbb99592SkyPlay. But the posted XML appears to work unchanged.
I have no idea what these GUIDs mean. Are they keyed to my STB? Are they persistent, and will survive a STB restart? Are they discoverable?
So – beware of this breaking change to the Web protocol.
Brian
Reply
1. lgladdy
  August 6, 2013
  @Brian Collins Hey! Yeh – my blog post from the last time they updated the endpoints has talk about this change. Basically, they’ve put the Sky Box UUID into the end points. The url’s wont change, but are unique per box now.
  Presumably this is part of their plans to let boxes share planner programming over the network.
  Reply
2. brianilland
  August 6, 2013
  @Brian Collins Darn. Can you confirm what box and firmware you are on from http://www.skyepginfo.co.uk/skyhd/skyhd.html. I wrote an app which is still working on R007.061.49.00P drx890, but I’ve not checked my code, I’m hoping I had the foresight to code this properly(!).
  Reply
3. brianilland
  August 6, 2013
  @Brian Collins Brian – just checked. See my earlier post below to @jon889 about the servicelist nodes in the descriptionX.xml files. luckily my code has survived this update and still works, so you should take this approach to survive future updates.
  Reply
  1. Brian Collins
    August 7, 2013
    brianilland Thanks for this. I am not currently using the descriptionX files, and I now see that I need to be for future proofing. At the moment I simply hard-wire the URLs. But a STB firmware update can occur at any time, and I want to avoid yesterday’s hassle of coming home from work to immediately need to re-wireshark the box and change the code!! That is the problem with a unified centralized control system.
    So I shall be adopting your approach quite soon.
    PS: Interestingly, the UUID on the SkyBrowse and SkyPlay are different – so it is not simply an encoding for the STB. But hopefully the descriptionX files will give both appropriate values.
    Reply
    1. brianilland
      August 7, 2013
      @Brian Collins brianilland Yes, also note that the numeric suffix of the descriptionX.xml files change over time, so you need to fire off a multicast SSDP request to get the correct description URLs. If you want to get all 3 control URLs, you’ll need to retrieve both description files.
      I do something like this :
      var nodeList1 = GetServicesNode(url1); // Get service nodes from URL1
      var nodeList2 = GetServicesNode(url2); // Get service nodes from URL2
      var nodeListMerge = nodeList1.Cast<XmlNode>().Concat(nodeList2.Cast<XmlNode>()); // Merge them
      // Loop through each service node.
      foreach (XmlNode no in nodeListMerge)
      {
      var serviceTypeElement = no[“serviceType”];
      if (serviceTypeElement != null)
      {
      if (serviceTypeElement.InnerXml.Contains(“urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBook:2”))
      {
      var controlUrlElement = no[“controlURL”];
      if (controlUrlElement != null) bookUrl = controlUrlElement.InnerXml;
      }
      if (serviceTypeElement.InnerXml.Contains(“urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyPlay:2”))
      {
      var controlUrlElement = no[“controlURL”];
      if (controlUrlElement != null) playUrl = controlUrlElement.InnerXml;
      }
      if (serviceTypeElement.InnerXml.Contains(“urn:schemas-nds-com:service:SkyBrowse:2”))
      {
      var controlUrlElement = no[“controlURL”];
      if (controlUrlElement != null) browseUrl = controlUrlElement.InnerXml;
      }
      }
      }
      Reply
    2. Brian Collins
      August 7, 2013
      brianilland Thanks for this. I hadn’t bothered (till now) with SSDP as I know the IP address of the STB and all I needed was HTTP to that. But I now see the need for a more fuller discovery mechanism. It will make it more generic when I come to share the code anyway.
      Reply
tombpain
August 8, 2013
Right! Fixed my last issue which ive deleted. My next question is:
Is there a command I can send to the sky box to get its status, e.g. if its on or in standby?
I am trying to integrate control into DemoPad and although im aware I cant switch the sky box on using IP commands I want to be able to set a flag for its power status in DemoPad so I can keep the remote and the box in sync and use an IR blaster to switch the box on and off.
Once again any helps greatly appreciated!
Cheers,
Tom.
Reply
1. Brian Collins
  August 28, 2013
  tombpain I have not found a way of doing this. But I turn the STB on with IR using the “TV” IR code. And then, since I know it is on, the “Power” IR code will then turn it off. This is reliable for me.
  Brian
  Reply
Brian Collins
August 31, 2013
One further question on discovering Sky STBs. A basically have this working now in my .Net code, but wonder if I can do better.
The question is how to identify and filter SSDP responses from the Sky box(es). I currently broadcast an M-SEARCH for “ST: ssdp:all” on the local network. I then filter the responses to identify the Sky boxes. Options for this filtering are:
1) “server:” header contains the sub-string ” SKY “.
2) “location:” port is 49153.
3) There is a value of the broadcast “ST:” header that requests responses only from Sky STBs .
4) Something I haven’t thought of yet.
Any opinions on the best approach to this?
Thanks, Brian
Reply
1. entropic
  October 1, 2013
  @Brian CollinsIn my code I look at the userAgent, and assume it’s a Sky Box if it has the value “redsonic”.
  Reply
Trevor Daniel
September 24, 2013
Is it possible to make a call to tell the STB to record a particular programme please?
Thanks
Trev
Reply
Skyepginfo
October 2, 2013
Along with the initial release of new
firmware today (R008.063.49.04P) for DRX 890 & 895 and the
previous release of new Sky+HD boxes with built in Wi-Fi, we’ve updated the
Skyepginfo.co.uk website by splitting Sky HD box Firmware and Sky+HD Box
Firmware into separate pages.
Firmware versions for all Sky+HD boxes have moved to: http://www.skyepginfo.co.uk/skyhd/skyplushd.html
While the SkyHD box (DRX595) remains at: http://www.skyepginfo.co.uk/skyhd/skyhd.html
Reply
Andrew hunt
November 7, 2013
R008.063.49.08P is now available for forced update on DRX 890 & 895 boxes, do you guys know if any things changed with the remote commands for this version.
Reply
BruH5200
December 7, 2013
@Brian Collins brianilland I’m back looking at this. I seem to have forgotten how to do it……
I’m using the “simple rest client” to try and get the description0.xml file.
what user agent or other string do i need to prevent the “unauthorised” error?
I need to get the UUIDs from the files so I can put them in my URLS for iRule on the iPad.
Thanks
Reply
ChrisB
December 13, 2013
BruH5200 Hi, I’ve been trying to get my head round this for AGES and just when I thought I was getting somewhere, the code now requires the UUIDs!!! I use Demopad (don’t swear, I see you use iRule 🙂 ) and had IP controls for basic transport thanks to Liam et al. I never managed to get change channel working but I’m still on it. Do you have any pointers on how to get the UUIDs (I have Wireshark) and an example of your iRule URLs would be very much appreciated?
Cheers, Chris
Reply
ChrisB75
December 13, 2013
BruH5200 brianilland Thanks to Liam’s work and others since, I’ve managed basic transport controls on the Sky HD box until the latest update!? I understand UUIDs for each service are now needed but how do you find them? I think I’ve got 1 for SkyPlay through Wireshark but adding this as #####-####-####-SkyPlay after POST doesn;t work!? http://www.livefyre.com/profile/5492003/ I saw your recent post on here, have you or anyone had any success getting the description0.xml file? Any pointers to the format of your URLs for iRule would be appreciated….. 🙂
Thanks
Chris
Reply
bachoo786
December 31, 2013
Hello there,
I have been trying to use sky plus.js on my raspberry pi and on my macbook pro I get the server running on port 5555 and have update the channels.json for my area but on the web server when I try to change the channels nothing happens, in the command line I get “changing to channel ID ….” but nothing changes 🙁
At times I get errors like “Error in Comms with SKY Box connect ETIMEDOUT” or even “Error in Comms with SKY Box connect ECONNREFUSED” :S
Can anyone please help?
Thanks.
Reply
bachoo786
December 31, 2013
Hello there,
I have been trying to use sky plus.js on my raspberry pi and on my macbook pro I get the server running on port 5555 and have update the channels.json for my area but on the web server when I try to change the channels nothing happens, in the command line I get “changing to channel ID ….” but nothing changes 🙁
At times I get errors like “Error in Comms with SKY Box connect ETIMEDOUT” or even “Error in Comms with SKY Box connect ECONNREFUSED” :S
Can anyone please help?
Thanks.
Reply
robinantony94
March 31, 2014
lgladdy mwrf
I am Robin . You have done good work. i want to know how can i control the sky box through a Controller. I can send any string in Hex or any format to a specific IP with the Port number which you will tell me.
Pls reply on robinantony94@mail.com
Reply
Kevin Wilson
May 1, 2014
The latest versions of the EPG and app allow you to send the standby, select, backup and keypad buttons to the box. I’m trying to send standby commands, but in my Wireshark captures the app doesn’t seem to send any SOAP requests when you click the standby button, unlike for the transport controls. Perhaps it sends some sort of magic packet instead? Does anybody know how the standby button is implemented?
Reply
1. Clive
  September 7, 2015
  From what I can tell these commands are sent via the vnc protocol via remoteserverui
  Reply
  1. Brian Illand
    January 4, 2016
    Clive, any more info on this – how did you ascertain this? I’m trying to see how these are sent here too so I can test myself (C#).
    Reply
  2. Prakash Rola
    December 21, 2016
    Did you manage to find out how to send this command?
    Reply
2. dal
  January 31, 2016
  Hey – the standby button isn’t sent to the DLNA endpoints at all – it uses a different protocol, sending keycodes. In fact – we can send any key from a Sky remote (not tv, mute, volume for obvious reasons), including standby, up / down / left / right, red / blue etc. Checkout http://github.com/dalhundal/sky-remote
  Reply
Andy
May 6, 2014
R009.066.77.08P is on the DR stream for the DRX 890 & 895 Sky+HD box.
R009.066.79.00P is on the DR stream for the DRX 595 SkyHD box (home screen not included).
So you can force update your box now if you have one of those boxes.
Reply
Mitchell Mann
August 19, 2015
I know I’m late to the party here, but after using the Sky+ app recently to show off some photos on my iPhone to guests we had round I wondered if there was a Mac (or PC) app that allowed photos to be shared from a computer to the TV via the Sky+ box as I’ve many more on my Mac than I have on my iPhone. I used Wireshark to intercept the traffic to see how it worked and it *seemed* rather simple:-
1. The app on the iPhone (or iPad/iPodTouch) opens a local port that acts as a web server, 51178 in my case although I’m sure this is randomly assigned.
2. After initiating a TCP connection to the Sky+ box the app sends this: GET /photo-viewing/start?uri=http://192.168.0.5:51178/photo1763828098 HTTP/1.1 to port 49159 of the Sky+ box (192.168.0.5) being the IP of my iPhone and photo1763828098 being the jpg photo file on my iPhone.
3. The photo is streamed from the iPhone to the Sky+ box and displayed.
Quite simple. I thought I could initiate a TCP connection with netcat to port 49159 of the Sky+ box and substitute the IP of my iPhone for the IP of a local web server and specify port 80 and replace photo1763828098 with whatever photo file was stored in the home/root directory of the web server, but nothing happened. So I did some searching and came across this old blog and upon reviewing Liam’s excellent skyRemote.py I realise there are probably a few more steps required to make this work but my Python skills aren’t even noob level and as it already seems a pretty capable script I thought maybe adding this extra functionality would be quicker/easier than for me to code something from the ground up in a language I’m more familiar with.
I hope this sparks some renewed interest and apologies for the spam as I notice there are a couple of related threads on this blog which I shall be copying and pasting this post to verbatim..
Reply

The Sky+HD Picasso DNLA control server protocol

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