Cinemar

The MLFootball plugin has been refreshed for the 2010 NFL Season. Subscriptions are available on our products page.

Here is a new plugin for the NFL football fans out there. MLFootball will provide you with a one stop overview of the current season's NFL games. All of the game schedules are available along with a host of supporting information. MLFootball is a subscription based plugin. When you purchase the plugin is will work for the current NFL season from the preseason games to the Superbowl.

Two versions of the plugin are avaiable and the features are controlled by the license key you are given.

The "Rookie" version is priced at $29.99 per season. For that price you get the following
1) All NFL Game schedules. Games times are automatically adjusted to your local time zone.
2) Automatic updating of scores whenever a game is playing (updates occur at 5 minute intervals)
3) The ability to review past game scores and future game schedules.

The "Pro" version is priced at $199.99 per season. For that price you get the following
1) Everything in the Rookie version
2) Game updates happen every minute instead of every 5.
3) You get the current points spread and the favored team. A red arrow points to the favored team in the sample scene. Points spread is shown just above the game time.
4) You get programming information to assist in automating channel switching and game viewing.

Download and test out the plugin and let us know what you think. The plugin will work in "Pro" mode for 14 days.

Dave and Mario,

This looks great and I hope to get it set up to use tomorrow. I have a few comments, suggestions and questions.

1. If you click on the DIRECTV button above each game it sends a command like this:

Code: Select all

NFL.Watch.DirecTV.{{nfl_game9_directv_channel}}

All the server variables for the DirecTV channels only reference the SD channels. For instance, nfl_game9_directv_channel = 712. Tuning to this channel will access the SD channel not the HD channel on 712-1. I know I could modify my command map to always add a "-1" to the directv_channel variable, but it would be nice if both the SD and HD channels were available as MLServer variables. You could add a button to the top of the screen to toggle between HD or SD games that the user could select that would set another MLServer variable to indicate whether the user wanted to see HD or SD games, maybe something like TV_RES that would toggle between SD and HD. Then finally your command would look something like this:

Code: Select all

NFL.Watch.DirecTV.{{{{nfl_game9_directv_channel}}_TV_RES}}

which would then reference either the SD or HD channel. I know I could work around this by always adding a "-1" to the direcTV channel number, but it would be nice if it was built in.

2. For DirecTV boxes, either using IR or Serial control, you need to enter 1 number at a time. So to enter 712-1 it requires 5 keys. Do you have an example of the macro or script you are using to send the individual keys? If you already have something, I would rather leverage off of your work than create it from scratch. This is how I would handle it (let me know if this makes sense or if you have an easier way).
o Determine the length of the channel number
o Send the first, second, third, fourth and fiith character of the channel string to the DirecTV box then send and enter command with an appropriate
length pause in between each of the characters that are sent.

3. It would be nice for the user to be able to configure which games are local on CBS and FOX and thus blacked out on the DirecTV channels. I know it
might not be that difficult, but that way the user doesn't have to remember to select the DIRECTV label for one game and the CBS or FOX label to
tune to another game that is carried locally.

4. I am going to be using this on am 800x480 tablet and hitting the DIRECTV or CBS button for a game is going to be difficult to do with my fingers...I'll
definitely need to do it with a stylus. This would be my preference.
o Use the DIRECTV or CBS (FOX, NBC, ESPN) buttons to indicate the user's preference of how he wants to tune to that channel and use the states
property of that button to indicate which one the user selected. The default would be DIRECTV channel numbers for the Sunday afternoon games
and the network channels for the Thursday, Saturday (later in the season), Sunday night and Monday night games.
o This way it would only require someone to access 3 of the little DIRECTV or network buttons at the beginning of the day 1 time to set the
preferences.
o Then put an invisible button over the large graphic that would contain the command to switch channels to that game and the command would include
the users preferences on HD or SD and DIRECTV channel or local channel.

5. There is no reason to have a DIRECTV button for the Monday night game. It should be like the Sunday night game where only NBC is listed. Same type of logic would work when there are Thursday night, Saturday or Playoff games.

I hope this didn't come across as being ungrateful for the work you have done on this plugin. It looks great as is, but in my opinion and the way I will be using it, the suggestions above would make it easier on the user.

thanks,
Murray

Two more very minor things I noticed.

1. Starting in Week 4 when teams start having byes, the quarter numbers are still showing up in the blank boxes. It would be nice to use that space to list the teams that have the byes.
2. There are no scores for the two Monday night games from week 1.

Murray

i used this yesterday as a score tracker and it was a nice way to keep up on the scores of ongoing games. I didn't use it to switch channels. I didn't do any macro or script building to tune to my channels...I was waiting for Dave's reply to my previous post before doing a lot of work that might be unnecessary.

My son took a look at it and said, "That looks cool! What website is that?"

thanks,
Murray

Murray,

Here's a script Dave built for the last commercial tavern project we did that works awesome. It was designed to allow a customizable delay but send a complete number.
It was designed for IR but could be modified for serial via the MLDirecTV plugin.

For example, let's say you want to change to change to channel 704.

MLScript|GCSend~Send~Cable1~704

This will parse 704 and insert the delay specified in the script. It will also allow you to specify sending ENTER at the end of the command if necessary. This is also configured in the MLSCRIPT.

mcascio wrote:Murray,

Here's a script Dave built for the last commercial tavern project we did that works awesome. It was designed to allow a customizable delay but send a complete number.
It was designed for IR but could be modified for serial via the MLDirecTV plugin.

For example, let's say you want to change to change to channel 704.

MLScript|GCSend~Send~Cable1~704

This will parse 704 and insert the delay specified in the script. It will also allow you to specify sending ENTER at the end of the command if necessary. This is also configured in the MLSCRIPT.

Mario (and Dave), Once again it proves that procrastinating is good! This was exactly how I thought I would set up my own script, but now I don't have to do all the work, then spend time figuring out why it doesn't work as it is supposed to do only to discover I had a typo or something like that!

I'll give it a try this weekend.

thanks,
Murray

Version 3.75.18 of the MLFootball plugin is available for download. This version fixes the missing server variables for tonight's game along with adding information about bye teams. Both the plugin and client components should be downloaded since the Mainlobby scene was updated to reflect the new server variables.

Nice work. Any plans to add other pro sports?

Go Phillys!!!