UK Sky Digibox protocol...

["Ian Lowe" <ianlowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks - saw a discussion over on the main ukha_d list about the Sky
Digibox: it has a serial port, which didn't seem to do a whole hellish lot
of anything... Joe Heenan (who makes this little gem:
http://www.heenan.me.uk/control-sky-from-pc/
) pointed out that the digibox
sends out a data packet every now and then..

I dug out my serial cable and had a wee capture - sure enough, there's a
pretty simple data protocol at play here.

I have been able to figure out a whole chunk of it, I'm just wondering if
anyone fancies giving me a hand?

The digibox sends data at 57600,8,n,1 every ten seconds or so, in roughly
this format:

Sky Digital Serial Port Data Packet

LF				1 byte Line Feed	chr 10 dec
xxx				3 Bytes			Numeric Code
SSCNxxx			SSCN + 3 Bytes		Channel Number Header
xxx				3 Bytes			Channel Number
SSCAxxx			SSCA + 3 Bytes		Channel Alias Header
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa		14 Bytes		Channel Alias Text
SSDTxxx			SSDT + 3 Bytes		Date Time Header
hh.mmpm_day_dd_mmm (or)	18 Bytes		Date Time Stamp
hh.mmam_day_dd_mmm
SST0xxx			SST0 + 3 Bytes		Start Time Header
h.mmpm			6 Bytes			Program Start Time
SSNxxxx			SSN + 4 Bytes		Season Name Header
aaa				Variable Length		Season Name
SSExxxx			SSE + 4 Bytes		Episode Details Header
aaa				Variable Length		Episode Details
(unterminated)

I think this could be useful both for "what's on" alerts, but
also to
confirm that channel change commands have actually been successful!

Ian.