STV Import: NetFlix for SageMC (v2.1) 28-Feb-09

[codacoda]

Morgan,

I'm sure you know, but a Vista Media Center developer has release VMCNetFlix, that allows watch now to work on all VMC Extenders, it also allows for the downloading of watch now movies.

VMCNetFlix is free, so I'm sure the developer would share his work around with you.

Anyway to get this feature to work with Sage?

Great work. Thank you for the plugin.

Brett

[Morgan111]

Brett, thanks for that info. I passed a request on to him about that, so we shall see if there is some useful advice he can provide. It is possible that all or some of that functionality is not transferable since Win Media Center is centered around the WMP, but hopefully he can provide some valuable info.

Morgan

[bburns]

I must be doing something wrong. I do not get the "Netflix" menu item on the main menu. I have gone through the Netflix setup under SageMC->extras page.
Any clues?

[bburns]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Don't forget to set the menu icon to "hover_my netflix.png"!

How do I set the menu icon? The file is located in that directory.

[codacoda]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Brett, thanks for that info. I passed a request on to him about that, so we shall see if there is some useful advice he can provide. It is possible that all or some of that functionality is not transferable since Win Media Center is centered around the WMP, but hopefully he can provide some valuable info.

Morgan

Morgan,

I guess timing is everything. The code went open source yesterday...

Good luck, let's hope there is something there for you to work with.

Here is the post and info on the repository...

vmcNetFlix goes Open Source

One of the Windows Media Center NetFlix addins vmcNetFlix has gone open source. While I can't take advantage of (no Netflix in the UK) I do think Windows Media Center is ideally situated to be the central point for download services like Netflix, why have multiple set top boxes when you can have one platform with a SDK. Developing a Media Center application is a challenging and time consuming task so it's great to see the project going open source and getting the help of the community. Checkout the thread on TheGreenButton.com

For various reasons, I've decided to open source the vmcNetFlix project. This was my first VMC project, I learned alot, and it's now gotten to the point where I think it would benefit having others involved. There already were a few offering their services and I figured this was the best way to get it going. Due to alot of late night coding, some of the code could probably be written better ... but I wanted to provide a starting point ASAP. I've uploaded the project source based on the Beta 1.0.27R2 release, so the open source development will start there.
The open source project is on google at http://code.google.com/p/vmcnetflix/
If you feel like helping, send me an email on what you'd like to help contribute to. Besides development, there is also other things like bug reporting and providing usefull wiki pages that would be useful.

The Green Button - vmcNetFlix Open Source Project

Published 02 June 2008 13:44 by Ian Dixon

[Morgan111]

That's interesting. I will have to take a look. I did get some feedback form him and there isn't any special thing there that could help us with Sage Extenders, same DRM problem. There is the possibility of downloading movies for later viewing if that would be of interest to users here. Not a technical challenge, but still a bit of work to incorporate.

I had been working on a way to interactively control playback of Watch Now movies from Sage and the standard remote interface but had gotten bogged down by technical challenges controlling WMP from a dll to Sage. I want to give that a bit more work in hopes of getting that approach working. (still does not help with the extender though!).

[rabbitslayer]

I tried scanning through all the post but, I didn't see one that answered this (I might have missed it). Since this plays thru WMP (Watch now Service) Does it do multi-channel sound?

Also has anyone tinkered with different decoders on the movie (if it is even possible?)?

[rp1790]

Ok, I setup this up yesterday but do not see anything when browsing watch now or browsing DVD's. If I do a search I'll get results but if I choose watch now I get a "Page not found" error.

I can search and see results and I do see items in My Queue so the login details must be correct.

Anybody have any ideas...?

I'm using Win XP, Sage 6.4.3, SageMCE 6.3.7a and Netflix Jar from 5/19.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by rp1790

Ok, I setup this up yesterday but do not see anything when browsing watch now or browsing DVD's. If I do a search I'll get results but if I choose watch now I get a "Page not found" error.

I can search and see results and I do see items in My Queue so the login details must be correct.

Anybody have any ideas...?

I'm using Win XP, Sage 6.4.3, SageMCE 6.3.7a and Netflix Jar from 5/19.

You probably have a problem in the username (email) or password as configured on the SageMC - NetFlix Configuration page. If you make an update to that you will have to shut down sage and restart in order for the Sage NetFlix cookies to be cleared.

The queue list and the channel lists use the RSS feed, with your customer id (Pxxxxxxxxxx), used to read the queue. That does not use the standard login info.

[glparker4]

Originally Posted by venkman781

Has anyone else noticed problems when searching for a movie by title and having the Watch It Now menu item appear? I've searched for a few titles which are relatively obscure (ie. Godzilla vs. Hedorah) and the Show Trailer menu item changes to a Watch it Now menu item. When I click on it, the Netflix IE window pops up and says:

The requested page /WatchNowPlayer does not exist. We will try to
automatically redirect you to our home page in 10 seconds.

After checking the Netflix site itself, the movie above is not a Watch it Now title, so it makes sense that it doesn't load. I'm just wondering why SageMC thinks that it is.

I did update to the latest netflix.jar this week and I have not noticed any loss of functionality when browsing DVDs or Browsing Watch it Now titles.

I had the exact same problem when I did a search for Mr. Mom, Godzill vs. Hedorah, and a few obscure titles. None of these are Watch It Now titles. I have updated to the latest netflix.jar. I tried clearing the cache with IE and Java. Thanks!

[lovingHDTV]

Originally Posted by glparker4

I had the exact same problem when I did a search for Mr. Mom, Godzill vs. Hedorah, and a few obscure titles. None of these are Watch It Now titles. I have updated to the latest netflix.jar. I tried clearing the cache with IE and Java. Thanks!

I see the same issue. Just don't use it anymore as I have a mouse and keyboard to use instead. My kids were really excited with Evan Almighty showed as a watch it now

[EmuZombie]

I installed the latest netflix.jar but cannot view titles by browsing anymore. Did they change the layout again?

[Bandit]

I installed this and have the latest jar installed. I see nothing when browsing DVD titles or Watch Now. My username and password are set correctly and I have exited and relaunched sage a number of times.

My email address is rather long, is the app by chance limited in email address length? It is the onyl thing I can think of as I am sure it is configured properly. My email address also has a few "-" in it as well.

Thanks!

[ctv]

On Vista, any one have trouble browsing queue and other items? Is there a way to set the URL for the netflix RSS? When I look at the debug log it says that it is trying to retrieve from http://www.netflix.com/QueueRSS?id=xxx, but when I look at the links on the netflix site for RSS it says to hit http://rss.netflix.com/QueueRSS?id=xxx

Any ideas?

I also see errors like those below when I look at the log...


retrieving channel from:http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=302
org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSException: RSSParser::setXmlResource fails: http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=2442
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.setXmlResource(RSSParser.java:75)
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.parseXmlFile(RSSParser.java:112)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelManager.refreshChannel(ChannelManager.java:82)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.Channel.handleExpiration(Channel.java:133)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelDaemon.run(ChannelDaemon.java:41)
org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.ChannelException: org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSException: RSSParser::setXmlResource fails: http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=2442
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelManager.refreshChannel(ChannelManager.java:86)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.Channel.handleExpiration(Channel.java:133)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelDaemon.run(ChannelDaemon.java:41)
Caused by: org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSException: RSSParser::setXmlResource fails: http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=2442
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.setXmlResource(RSSParser.java:75)
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.parseXmlFile(RSSParser.java:112)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelManager.refreshChannel(ChannelManager.java:82)
... 2 more
ChannelDaemon:2442 completed
org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSException: RSSParser::setXmlResource fails: http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=2442
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.setXmlResource(RSSParser.java:75)
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.parseXmlFile(RSSParser.java:112)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelManager.refreshChannel(ChannelManager.java:82)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.Channel.handleExpiration(Channel.java:133)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelDaemon.run(ChannelDaemon.java:41)
org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.ChannelException: org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSException: RSSParser::setXmlResource fails: http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=2442
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelManager.refreshChannel(ChannelManager.java:86)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.Channel.handleExpiration(Channel.java:133)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelDaemon.run(ChannelDaemon.java:41)
Caused by: org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSException: RSSParser::setXmlResource fails: http://www.netflix.com/Top25RSS?gid=2442
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.setXmlResource(RSSParser.java:75)
at org.gnu.stealthp.rsslib.RSSParser.parseXmlFile(RSSParser.java:112)
at org.gnu.dwarf.sage.netflix.channel.ChannelManager.refreshChannel(ChannelManager.java:82)
... 2 more

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by Bandit

I installed this and have the latest jar installed. I see nothing when browsing DVD titles or Watch Now. My username and password are set correctly and I have exited and relaunched sage a number of times.

My email address is rather long, is the app by chance limited in email address length? It is the onyl thing I can think of as I am sure it is configured properly. My email address also has a few "-" in it as well.

Thanks!

here is the part of the log after I tried to browse Watch Now:

setBrowseWatchNow:true
In getTopLevelGenres 507  useFilter:true
Size before sort: 20
Size after sort: 20
In getShows 296
clearing jump table... 296,
WatchNow ShowBrowseHTMLParser().getShows(296,1)
BrowseInstantRemote recieved processRequest
ShowBrowseHTMLParser 1
1 start not found:id="wnGalleryPage"
ShowBrowseHTMLParser 2
ShowBrowseHTMLParser 3   -1   86552

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by ctv

On Vista, any one have trouble browsing queue and other items? Is there a way to set the URL for the netflix RSS? When I look at the debug log it says that it is trying to retrieve from http://www.netflix.com/QueueRSS?id=xxx, but when I look at the links on the netflix site for RSS it says to hit http://rss.netflix.com/QueueRSS?id=xxx

Any ideas?

I also see errors like those below when I look at the log...
... 2 more

I have one client on Vista and just checked it to make sure there were no changes that may have broken something. Not having your NetFlix ID (the long numeric code that starts with a "P") will cause problems reading your queue. What other imports do you have installed? Maybe there could be a conflict with Jars files on some new or updated import.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by Bandit

I installed this and have the latest jar installed. I see nothing when browsing DVD titles or Watch Now. My username and password are set correctly and I have exited and relaunched sage a number of times.

My email address is rather long, is the app by chance limited in email address length? It is the onyl thing I can think of as I am sure it is configured properly. My email address also has a few "-" in it as well.

Thanks!

There is not a fixed size on the email string parameter, so that should not be a problem, or the dashes. Let me know what other imports you have as well and we'll see if there is some conflict there.

Morgan

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

There is not a fixed size on the email string parameter, so that should not be a problem, or the dashes. Let me know what other imports you have as well and we'll see if there is some conflict there.

Morgan

SageWebserver(installed after your stvi wasnt working, so shouldn't be issue)
MovieTimes
SageMC Video Tools
SageMC_AMG

Thanks!

[EmuZombie]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

There is not a fixed size on the email string parameter, so that should not be a problem, or the dashes. Let me know what other imports you have as well and we'll see if there is some conflict there.

Morgan

I have the same problem, everything set correctly, only other import I have is webserver. I also tried importing it alone without the webserver and have the same issuie.

[ctv]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

I have one client on Vista and just checked it to make sure there were no changes that may have broken something. Not having your NetFlix ID (the long numeric code that starts with a "P") will cause problems reading your queue. What other imports do you have installed? Maybe there could be a conflict with Jars files on some new or updated import.

Thank you for checking. My full netflix ID is in sagetv.properties, I just didn't post it to the forum. I do not have any other imports installed so I don't think there is a conflict . Please let me know what you find.