Schedule recordings remotely?

[watts3000]

Guys I would like to know what are you all using to schedule recordings remotely? I ask because we used to have Directtv and that was one of the features I liked being able to schedule recording via a smart phone or there website. From doing a little Googling I've listed below a few programs I came across please let me know what you think of them.


Remote Potaote
Big Screen EPG

[foxwood]

Ceton's My Media Center app does the job nicely, and is available for iStuff, Android/Kindle and Windows8/WindowsPhone8.

[barnabas1969]

I agree with Foxwood. Nothing is easier than My Media Center from Ceton.

[staknhalo]

I agree with Foxwood. Nothing is easier than My Media Center from Ceton.

[watts3000]

So does this have a web interface that I can pull up on my laptop or is this just all phone?

[barnabas1969]

My cable provider (Brighthouse Networks) has an online tool to schedule stuff if you have one of their DVR's. To my knowledge, they don't have a smartphone app... but I haven't used their crappy DVR for more than two years... so they might have come up with a crappy smartphone app since then.

But... when I tried their awful website to schedule recordings on my crappy 2-tuner DVR (with a whopping 20 hours of recording storage)... it was hit or miss, and took FOREVER even when it worked.

When I say "forever", I'm talking 5 minutes to schedule a single recording. It was amazingly awful. I couldn't believe they were advertising the piece of crap!

The Ceton "My Media Center" app, on the other hand, is quick and easy to use... once you get your router setup to allow it to connect from the WAN side of the router. For the networking novice (or those with really crappy routers), this might be a difficult task. But, for those with some experience with "port forwarding" this should be fairly easy.

[barnabas1969]

So does this have a web interface that I can pull up on my laptop or is this just all phone?

There is no web interface... unless you use software that emulates a smartphone on your PC. One such software is Blue Iris. I played with Blue Iris before "My Media Center" was released, and it looks like it would probably work with most Android apps... but I never actually tried it.

There are other emulators out there. I guess you'd have to try them to see if they work with My Media Center.

[foxwood]

So does this have a web interface that I can pull up on my laptop or is this just all phone?

They're giving the server away free, and charging for the clients. There's no equivalent to an app store for web clients so right now the only laptop access available is for Win8 laptops with the "metro" client. (Or possibly emulators such as Blue Iris mentioned above, but I haven't seen any feedback on that, one way or the other).

There's no technical barrier to a standalone client, there just isn't a simple and reliable infrastructure for making money off it, as there is with the app stores.

And I should also point out that you don't have to have a Ceton Tuner to user the My Media Center app and service - the service will install on any Win7/8 machine that has Windows Media Center installed.

[watts3000]

Thanks for the info I'm actually getting ready to start looking seriously at Windows 8

[foxwood]

Thanks for the info I'm actually getting ready to start looking seriously at Windows 8

Just be warned that the Win8 app can't control Media Center on the same box - loop-back issues with "metro" apps.

It's not that much of a limitation - you can always use the native WMC GUI in that case, but it has caused some frustration for people trying to test the Win8 app.

[staknhalo]

If your laptop has Win8 there is a Metro app for My Media Center. I use it on my main rig.

[watts3000]

So we have no Remote Potaote or Big Screen EPG users here?

[mdavej]

I've used potato and it works fine, although a little slow loading. Never heard of that other one.

[.Nico]

I'm using click2record, a schedule service I wrote myself and works with C2R files to programme the EPG to record a TV show.
My site is currently limited to the Dutch language but if someone is interested to get the technique to create an English website, just PM me.
For an impression of how it works (in Dutch) see: www.click2record.nl

kind regards,

.Nico