Pace DSL4000

Does anyone know anything about the Pace DSL4000 set top box? (how to get into the configuration settings, how to brodcast your own video to it, etc) My digital tv provider uses these boxes and I wanna get the most out of it. Any information someone who has one of these might know would be usefull.

I suppose you didn't type in "Pace DSL4000 into Google? In case you can't I did. I don't know how to stream video to it although I looked into it. You would have to some how get the MAC address of the box if you connect it to your network. That is the first step as far as I know. Using a program like VideoLAN (vlc) would allow you to stream across your network. This is all I know.

By any chance are you in Saskatchewan, Canada? Sasktel in Saskatchewan uses that set-top box for their Max interactive digital service. Its awesome.

i as well am from sask and have Max service from sasktel. I've successfully gotten to config settings, I had the white paper for the box in the past so it is available online somewhere. I was also able to get my boxes mac addy using ethereal. I then spoofed that mac got a dhcp lease for that mac and was able to stream the channels to my computer using VLC, all the channels are multicasts on different ip's and ports. So if you know the ip/port then you just connect to it using VLC and streaming begins, you can gain access to any channel no matter what you actually subscribe to, or at least you could.

So once you got all of that were you able to gain access to all of the channels through your set-top box? I would think that Sasktel would find out that you are accessing un-paid channels and cut you off or contact you and give you hell.

Were you able to stream video from your PC to the Pace box? Thats what I want to know.

hi, sorry for not responding to my own thread i've been a bit busy. anyway, yes i am getting the service from sasktel .

anyway, in the past few days i have looked into using vlc for streaming to the box with no sucsess (although it may just be my ignorance of the whole video streaming thing). so basicly i' still working on that.

Stinn, could i by any chance get a copy of that white paper? i'd relly like to screw around with this

rygy, i dont know if i'd really consider it stealing. i have 2 set top boxes, and i would have a third for my computer if it werent for the bandwidth limits of the dsl line (stupid sasktel wont run another one for me, lol)

Edit: oh yeah, and i have seen the easter egg site....but either i really suck or those instructions leave something out...i cant get in

So once you got all of that were you able to gain access to all of the channels through your set-top box? I would think that Sasktel would find out that you are accessing un-paid channels and cut you off or contact you and give you hell.

Were you able to stream video from your PC to the Pace box? Thats what I want to know.

I could not access them through my set-top box but I could access them on my computer. Technically Sasktel's TOS say that as long as what you are doing does not interfere with others service then you can do it.
I'm actually with a couple other guys who have gone farther than me and one confirmed a theory I had. You can tell your computer to be one of the channels ip and then broadcast the video stream, using the pace box you just connect to that channel(but you have to unplug the pace box from the outside network).

Stinn, could i by any chance get a copy of that white paper? i'd relly like to screw around with this

I don't still have the white paper but a buddy of mine found it online so it should still be findable.

Originally Posted by Stinn

I'm actually with a couple other guys who have gone farther than me and one confirmed a theory I had. You can tell your computer to be one of the channels ip and then broadcast the video stream, using the pace box you just connect to that channel(but you have to unplug the pace box from the outside network).


I don't still have the white paper but a buddy of mine found it online so it should still be findable.

do you and your friends have a website or something documenting these, uh, "tests"? i'm really interested in these things your doing. (none of my friends would wanna do this with me, exept one, his dad even used to work as a network admin at sasktel, but unfortunatly they moved to guatemalla)

actually i've told the guy who has more experience in the streaming to a pace box about this thread, so hopefully he will post soon

sweet

Howdy. I'm the guy Stinn was referencing. I've got a few rough perl scripts for doing some of this stuff. I've managed to acquire the Guide information and parse it. Also, I suspect that it's possible to broadcast to the box, although I've never tried it personally, but another friend of mine has succeeded in watching DVDs on the Pace box. I'll go through the stuff I have and try to clean it up and make it presentable.

Summary:
Watching the Max streams on a PC - definately.
Sending a video to the Max boxes - 99% sure.
Collecting all the data from the Guide information (gives about a week worth of shows) - definately.

wow, if you wanna put togeter a small website to document this stuff i could supply free web hosting and help make or maintain or whatever the site. i wanted to put a site up if i was able to do anything with the box and if you (or any other people) wanna do this with me just pm me or post here or something.

oh and i guess i wanna say something else. stinn was making it sound like he was basicly taking over a channel and broadcasting using iptv (or udp or whatever, i dunno). the approach i've been trying is to send the stream via rtsp. this would allow the ability to pause rewind and fastforward the video as desired. and best of all the stream could easily be acessed by typing an address into the browser. the only problem i've had (and its a big one) is finding a rtsp server that can do mpeg 1 or 2 (which is all the dsl4000 can accept). and i' pretty sure that vlc cant do rtsp.

Hey fat-tony, what are u taking at the U of S?

I used to have Max and it was awesome. Me and my roomates never really got into receiving the channels on our PC's because what we really wanted to do was stream video TO the Pace box. We never figured it out so we just gave up after a few months. If there is a website made sometime about this I think I may consider switching back to Sasktel for TV service.

Mindstormguy: rtsp eh? I'll have to look into that. That sounds pretty damn cool.

rygy: I'm going into my 3rd year of Electrical Engineering / Computer Science PDSC.

After some basic research, it seems that there isn't a good, freely available RTSP server. From what I understand though, Sasktel has a new thing with Max using Video-on-Demand, so they must be using some kind of RTSP.

Hmmm the good news is there is a fair bit of free content available on the "Front Row" menu, so analysis will be possible without spending any money.

I'll keep you guys posted, and go through the code I wrote a few months ago and see if it still makes any sense .

yeah, i imagine that front row has to use rtsp, of you look at the specs for the pace (http://www.pacemicro.com/products/ma...cification.pdf ). so sasktel must have some sort of rtsp server. if my friends dad still worked at sasktel he may be able to tell me what they use, to bad he moved.

Originally Posted by mindstormsguy

if my friends dad still worked at sasktel he may be able to tell me what they use, to bad he moved.

Server: Kasenna MediaBase version 7.0.1

I've been doing stuff with this all morning, and am starting to make some progress. I don't know why I didn't think about FrontRow before! It looks like it will be way easier to do, s'long as we can find a decent RTSP server to use for the streaming (assuming that pause/FF/REW is a necessary feature, which I think it is)

thats what they (sasktel) use? because i came across that software before and wanted to try it, but, uh, i couldn't find it (if you know what i mean)

about the web site idea, what do you think? would you be interested? i could start working on a design if you were.

Sure, that'd be great. I have to sort through all the crap I have here and actually do some writeups. All I really have is some hackish source code that works enough to be a "Proof of Concept" for me.

The only problem is that I will only have Max for two more weeks, and then its off to school again, where I'm too poor/busy to have it.