So my tv broadband and phone package is due for renewal in a couple of months and it is clear i only actually watch a couple of subscription channels and mainly Discovery. I don’t have sports or movies packages as have no need for them as not into football and 99% of the films are repeats. During my search I came across tv player which looked a good deal as it has exactly the channels I wanted for sensible monthly price meaning all I would need to pay for is broadband from another supplier and there is currently various deals on at the moment. As TV Player is a streaming service I thought I would check the subtitles situation. A quick Google found this post http://support.tvplayer.com/forums/229619-ideas-and-suggestions/suggestions/5458900-subtitles-for-live-channels-as-this-is-the-best-ap the top post by ‘TVP Admin’ from 3 years ago said they are “currently working on it, they also said the same thing in 2015.

Due to the length of time I assumed that subtitles would now be available so dropped them an email and this was their response.

So after 3 years of working on it they still can’t provide subtitles? With live tv via other providers Discovery programs have subtitles so unsure why it can not be done via a streaming service (if anyone can shed any light on this please comment below). In this technological age we shouldn’t still need to be begging for accessible tv services!

22/08/17
I have gone into full keyboard warrior mode and dropped and email to the Discovery channel for their feedback.

“Good evening

As an avid viewer i have been looking for other tv packages that can supply your channel as i’m paying too much for chnnels I don’t watch and during my search I came across https://tvplayer.com/ being deaf I contacted them re subtitle availability and I was told “We don’t offer subtitles at the moment but we hope to have this feature available soon.” apparently they have been “working on it” since 2014!. I know live tv shows have subtitles but where do the limitations come in as BBC iplayer etc have subtitles? Is tvplayers delay due to changes needing to be made by yourselves?. It’s very saddening that some providers are dragging their heels with accessible tv services.”

I got a reply from discovery

“Thank you for contacting Discovery.

Our channels are available through Freeview.

Kind regards,

Sheena | Discovery Viewer Services | discoveryuk.com”

My reply

“Good morning thanks for your reply however it doesn’t answer my question re streaming service tvplayer offering subtitles.

Also Discovery channel is not shown on the freeview channel guide https://www.freeview.co.uk/why-freeview/channels#K02KVJU0jI0qsEYj.97”

their reply

“While we are included in these channels, unfortunately we have no say in their production or subtitling facility.

You would need to contact them.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Adam
Discovery Customer Support”

So there you have it looks like its a TVPlayer issue rather than Discovery.

So I decided to look for a new theme for TOP as the current one isn’t responsive and an increasing number of people view the site on mobile devices. After goinf through many 100’s I decided on the Olsen Light theme. It fits in well with my minimalist look and will be making some tweaks to make it fit better.

Old theme

New theme

As you can probably see i’m not big on change and know what I like.

Over the years i’ve used various server monitors with varying degrees of success, the ones I did like are now paid for and over bloated with premium features I don’t need. So couple of weeks ago I thought about doing my own!.

Requirements
1, Simple clean interface
2, Ping only monitoring (for now)
3, Use remote nodes
4, All self written software

I began customizing an opensource firmware for a spare device I had and is still a work in progress as there is much to do. I have been writing scripts to interact between a single worker node and a master node. Currently I have the worker able to ping an ip address and report back to the master the return status i.e pass or fail at which point it then updates a simple webpage. To reduce the risk of false positives if the worker reports a fail the master will re check to verify it’s actually down.

Now my webdesign skills are limited to say the least (hell I use WP) i’ve had a ‘play’ around before so this was the first version I cam up with.

Yes its ok you can stop laughing now!

I decided to google bootstrap as previous sites built round this give the ‘clean’ look I want. This is v2, as you can see the entire row colour reflects the status i.e up or down.

Bit more googling and playing and I came up with v3. This differs from v2 in the fact that the status is only shown as a single button.

Currently i’m hard coding the test ips into a file, it would be nice to have the ability to add new monitors via the webpage but i need to figure out a) how to add working buttons b) how the master then updates the worker with the new ip’s. I sense much pain and coffee in my future….

16/07/17
This morning i’ve added buttons (don’t do anything yet) to my v3 layout. Personally I think v4 has too many colours so it would be hard to tell if a node was down with just a quick glance.

20/07/17
Done a bit more today. The worker/master interaction is going well. So far ive tested a list of 10 ips containing a mix of real and fake and they have all been reported to the master correctly and it telling the worker what it should be. If they dont agree the master has overall say. In the future it would be nice to have two workers so they can decided between them then tell the master who will do final verification. The trouble is going beyond 121 messaging things can get messey with messages lost/delayed/sent twice etc so is a fair amount more work. Ive decided im sticking with the v2 layout as its easy to tell the status and looks cleaner.