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

[SamSlade]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

One thought is that you may have imported NetFlix when it was already loaded.
Did you Load the original SageMC STV or go back to an STV load before importing the NetFlix plugin?

Actually, it was a restore of a full sage directory tree backup done before I tried the previous version netflix plugin [I had restored that backup after I lost browsing, and was waiting for this fix]. I'll try again though.

[update] -- just tried it again -- did a full restore of a backup before netflix was ever loaded, loaded the stvi, and the extras screen doesn't show the setup page. I have done this about 6 times over the past few months, and I don't think I'm doing anything different....

[update2] -- third time a charm. [no, I don't know why the first two attempts didn't work...]

[mkanet]

Morgan, under "Browse Watch Now" all the catagories have movies in them except for Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I know you said you removed hd-dvd from the selection.. did you do the same for blu-ray?

Do I need to reload the STVI in order for those two catagories to not show up in the Browse Watch Now area?

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Morgan, under "Browse Watch Now" all the catagories have movies in them except for Blu-ray and HD-DVD. I know you said you removed hd-dvd from the selection.. did you do the same for blu-ray?

Do I need to reload the STVI in order for those two catagories to not show up in the Browse Watch Now area?

The HD-DVD removal was for the list of channels. For the Watch Now, NetFlix can now generate a list for any sub-genre. I am providing the browsing function the global list of genres for both types of listings. However for Watch Now it looks like they do not list any movies under the Blu-ray genre, probably since it is a format and not relevant to the Watch Now catalog.

[ma22xx]

After upgrading to the newer version Sagetv now crashes when picking a watch now. Everything else seems to be working from the stvi, I have the sub catagories and can choose to sort by title etc. It just doesn't like when I try to actually pick a show. Anyone else running into this?

[mkanet]

Morgan, you're not going to believe this, whatever you did, caused my FF and REW to start working.

The only minor problem I have is when FFing or REWing, instead of the OSD staying active while buffering, it turns off after a second. Is there any way to fix this? Is there anything I can change to make this work?

All other bugs are fixed except for not being able to make any changes to the queue (changing the order or deleting).

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by ma22xx

After upgrading to the newer version Sagetv now crashes when picking a watch now. Everything else seems to be working from the stvi, I have the sub catagories and can choose to sort by title etc. It just doesn't like when I try to actually pick a show. Anyone else running into this?

Hmmm, I did see some of this before but had not today. But after try different things right now I see that my default was 1600, which works fine. When setting it to 2200 I am seeing Sage disappear and never start the movie. Looks like I am pulling up an invalid URL for the movie in those cases which should not be happening. Try a bitrate of 1600 and see if that works for now. I will see why the movie path is getting lost.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Morgan, you're not going to believe this, whatever you did, caused my FF and REW to start working.

The only minor problem I have is when FFing or REWing, instead of the OSD staying active while buffering, it turns off after a second. Is there any way to fix this? Is there anything I can change to make this work?

All other bugs are fixed except for not being able to make any changes to the queue (changing the order or deleting).

Well I made some tweaks in the OSD management and timing that may have made a difference. The OSD stays visible for 4 seconds after pressing a key. I had thought about keeping it up while it is buffering and waiting to play. I will see about that.

[mkanet]

Morgan, just a little feature request.. as you might know, one of the problems with Watch Now movies is they are pretty old usually, it would be great to find a way to sort the by newest to oldest.. maybe displaying new Watch Now releases?

Thanks for looking into keeping the OSD to show while buffering. Its hard to tell what its doing and how long when its buffering with nothing visible except for a still picture.

[ma22xx]

Ahh, okay. Apparently it's specific to certain titles. I've been using Weeds S2 Episode - Crush Girl Love Panic as my test since that's the last thing I watched before upgrading. It worked on the old setup, but fails to launch the player on 2.03. I checked the different bitrates and all fail. I tested Young Guns 2 though and that works like a champ on all bitrates. Maybe picking episodes individually is the problem. I'll play around with it some more and see how it goes.

Morgan111 - I just wanted to say that this plugin is awesome! Thanks for all the hard work!

[Bandit]

Morgan,

Don't take this the wrong way....but....I love you!
That is all now, go to the next post.

Seriously though, whatever you did to fix the browsing has finally given me full functionality and I thank you.

[Morgan111]

Got the Sage crashing problem fixed. It also fixed a problem when getting the resume playback position. (although I still need to figure how to get the position to be saved when stopping the viewer).

Michael, got your suggestion incorporated in the player. Simple addition.

Get the update here. Just install the files with Sage shut down. No need to import the xml file again, there were only changes to the netflix.jar and NetFlixViewer.exe files.

Bandit, I'll forget you said that as long as you just send me a Whitman Sampler on Valentines Day (the big box).

Update 2.03b

• Correct parsing of Watch Now data that caused a crash of SageTV when playing every other episode. Also correct "resume" position. (2.03b)
• Force display of OSD info when waiting for stream data to buffer. (2.03)

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Got the Sage crashing problem fixed. It also fixed a problem when getting the resume playback position. (although I still need to figure how to get the position to be saved when stopping the viewer).

Michael, got your suggestion incorporated in the player. Simple addition.

Get the update here. Just install the files with Sage shut down. No need to import the xml file again, there were only changes to the netflix.jar and NetFlixViewer.exe files.

Bandit, I'll forget you said that as long as you just send me a Whitman Sampler on Valentines Day (the big box).

Update 2.03b

• Correct parsing of Watch Now data that caused a crash of SageTV when playing every other episode. Also correct "resume" position. (2.03b)
• Force display of OSD info when waiting for stream data to buffer. (2.03)

Did you also fix the issue when selecting the 2200 kbps bitrate?

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Did you also fix the issue when selecting the 2200 kbps bitrate?

I have not been seeing that anymore. I think what I was seeing there was related to the Watch Now data parsing.

[ma22xx]

Awesome! 2.03b looks to have fixed my crashing issues. Thanks Morgan111...you rock!

[sjrx0213]

Thanks a million, Morgan. Things are working great now. This is just a flat-out bad-@ss plug-in. Now, if NetFlix would only catch up to its greatness with some better Watch It Now content.

I've got a question, if you'll indulge a QA guy's curiosity...

Is there a reason you're putting the NetFlix channel data in the client properties file? I'm used to properties files holding configuration data specific to the application and/or interface, and usually, this stuff doesn't get tweaked often. Stuff like the netflix plug-in setup information.

But the channel data seems more dynamic, like database information. It seems like it ought to be written to its own independent file. This would safeguard the properties file from possible corruption due to constant editing and would make it easy to delete and recreate the channel data in the event it gets corrupted.

Anyway, this is not delivered as a criticism, and I sincerely hope you don't receive it as such.

And again, thanks for the awesome, awesome plugin.

--Steve

[mikesm]

Morgan, I went directly to 2.03b, and skipped 2.03. Watchitnow works fine, but I can't browse dvd's or watch it now. I can see the queue fine, and channels fine, but browsing doesn't work.

Is there a chance that the 2.03b stuff missed some fixes that were in 2.03 itself or the creation of the download had problems?

thx
mike

[sjrx0213]

Mike,

I installed 2.0.3b over 2.0.3, which pretty much overwrote all the 2.0.3 components, and I'm still able to browse successfully.

I stopped the Sage service, did the install, then restarted the service and everything was fine. I did NOT reload the nexflix xml file, since Morgan said that would be unnecessary if the 2.0.3 version was loaded. I'm on Windows XP Pro SP3.

In your case, you would've need to import the xml file. Did you remember to start with a vanilla SageMC xml file, and then import the netflix xml? (That step took me a couple times to get right when I updated to 2.0.3. )

Does your login information and RSS ID still appear in the Setup screen? I think I might have had to re-enter my information after the 2.0.3 update. Not having the RSS ID entered would definitely cause the same result.

--Steve

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by sjrx0213

Mike,

I installed 2.0.3b over 2.0.3, which pretty much overwrote all the 2.0.3 components, and I'm still able to browse successfully.

I stopped the Sage service, did the install, then restarted the service and everything was fine. I did NOT reload the nexflix xml file, since Morgan said that would be unnecessary if the 2.0.3 version was loaded. I'm on Windows XP Pro SP3.

In your case, you would've need to import the xml file. Did you remember to start with a vanilla SageMC xml file, and then import the netflix xml? (That step took me a couple times to get right when I updated to 2.0.3. )

Does your login information and RSS ID still appear in the Setup screen? I think I might have had to re-enter my information after the 2.0.3 update. Not having the RSS ID entered would definitely cause the same result.

--Steve

I thought I did that, but will try that again. The RSS info is there and correct, else I would not be able to pick up my queue, which also works fine.

thx
mike

[SWKerr]

Got it intalled and working. I have watch two TV shows and everything seems to work great. The only thing that seems to be and issue is that the screen saver will come on while it is playing. A way to supress the windows screen saver would be great.

Setup screen bug: the first screen on the setup page just goes to a black screen with one empty menu box. I had this same issue on the first version. If you just hit enter you get to the real setup screen but it is not obvious the first time you install.

This is a great plug-in. I was thinking of using the Vista\Xbox360 setup befre this release but I can't imagine what it would give me that is not in this plugin.

[skyeclad]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Got the Sage crashing problem fixed. It also fixed a problem when getting the resume playback position. (although I still need to figure how to get the position to be saved when stopping the viewer).

Does resume only work with IE viewer and not the new Sage viewer? When I stop, the show always begins at the start of the movie again.