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

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

Very nice, I like seen the watch now icons.

How do I remove a move from the instatn queue? I don't see the instant queue under My Queue, am I missing something?

thanks,

Glad you like it!
That is a good point about the instant queue. It is a little different than the standard queue, and I just list it like any channel list. There are some other changes I want to get in soon and I will plan on that.

[mbowling]

Hi, I just downloaded and installed the new version of the plugin but I am unable to view Watch It Now titles. I can see my Watch Now queue. When I select Watch It Now the Play Stream box is displayed. I select 1000 bps but nothing happens.

I can watch movies using IE7 and the Silverlight player outside of Sage. What should I check?

[brainbone]

Couple questions:

What SageTV remote events do you have linked to previous/next episode? DVD Next/Prev Chapter seems to map to FF/RW, as does Page Right/Left, where I would expect them to trigger next/prev episode.

Also, focus seems to stay on the IE window. Some of my remote keystrokes (^b for example) trigger actions in IE. What window title would you recommend having netflix control try to shift focus to after it finishes executing a command?

EDIT:
Setting UseFocusWindow=true in settings.ini seems to have resolved the window focus issue, however I'm still trying to figure out how to change episodes.

EDIT2:
Setting UseFocusWindow=true actually fails miserably after pressing "stop". Looks like the SageTV Client window is never properly restored.

[mikesm]

BTW, I notice now with the silverlight version it plays (standalone, not through sage) in firefix just as well as in IE.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mbowling

Hi, I just downloaded and installed the new version of the plugin but I am unable to view Watch It Now titles. I can see my Watch Now queue. When I select Watch It Now the Play Stream box is displayed. I select 1000 bps but nothing happens.

I can watch movies using IE7 and the Silverlight player outside of Sage. What should I check?

On the Options menu on the Movie details page, change the viewer from Custom to SilverLight. The bitrate selection will have no effect when silverlight is selected. See if that fixes it for you.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by brainbone

Couple questions:

What SageTV remote events do you have linked to previous/next episode? DVD Next/Prev Chapter seems to map to FF/RW, as does Page Right/Left, where I would expect them to trigger next/prev episode.

Also, focus seems to stay on the IE window. Some of my remote keystrokes (^b for example) trigger actions in IE. What window title would you recommend having netflix control try to shift focus to after it finishes executing a command?

EDIT:
Setting UseFocusWindow=true in settings.ini seems to have resolved the window focus issue, however I'm still trying to figure out how to change episodes.

EDIT2:
Setting UseFocusWindow=true actually fails miserably after pressing "stop". Looks like the SageTV Client window is never properly restored.

I use the prev and next events to signal messages 103 and 104. That is what I used for the custom player. I use skip fwd and skip bkwd for FF and Rew. I'm not sure how those events go to those listeners, but I can add those listeners and map them specifically to clear that up.

I haven't had any focus issues with my MCE remote, and the extender isn't subject to the same focus issues. It seems like I could use the keyboard before for naviation but it seems a little flaky now. I'm not sure if that could be from an earlier test version of your program or from some window handling that I may have changed. I'll try to check on that later.

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

On the Options menu on the Movie details page, change the viewer from Custom to SilverLight.

Thank you. The player is now working in IE from Sage.

A couple issues:
1. There is a white scroll bar on the right side of the screen when a movie is playing.

2. Remote control commands such as Stop or Pause do not work.

[brainbone]

It looks like DVD Prev/Next also trigger Skip Forward #2 and Skip Back #2, that seem to map to FF/RW (101/102) in Netflix Control. Any way you could change Skip Forward #2 and Skip Back #2, to PREV/NEXT (103/104)?

I think I've fixed the focus issue I was having by modifying Netflix Control to minimize then restore the SageTV window when closing the netflix player window, and using UseFocusWindow=true and HideFocusWindow=true in settings.ini. I'll post a new version of Netflix Control with these changes after I do some more testing.

And for those looking for more information on the Netflix Silverlight Player, here are some commands you can use on the player directly (Netflix Control may get in the way):

CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-B = Bandwidth History
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-D = Stats
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-F = Frame Rate Histogram
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-L = Logging
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-M = Menu
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-P = Player Information
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-S = Bitrate Selection
CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-V = Buffer Level History

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by mbowling

Thank you. The player is now working in IE from Sage.

A couple issues:
1. There is a white scroll bar on the right side of the screen when a movie is playing.

Sounds like Netflix Control isn't kicking in. A few things to check:

In "viewer selection", are you using "Silverlight" (not "Internet Explorer")? (if not, change it to "Silverlight")

If "Silverlight", try replacing the NetflixViewer.exe with the one from this post.

If that doesn't work, while the netflix player is open, go into task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and make sure "netflix_silverlight_control.exe" is running under Processes.

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by brainbone

In "viewer selection", are you using "Silverlight" (not "Internet Explorer")? (if not, change it to "Silverlight")

I had Internet Explorer selected in "viewer selection". I changed it to Silverlight and everything is working great now.

Thank you both, Morgan and Brainbone, for your time and effort on this project. This is a great addition to SageTV for users like me who are locked into the Silverlight player.

Have a great day!

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

2/28/09 Update 2.1

• Add SilverLight player support (includes Brainbones NetFlix Silverlight control v2 test 6).
• Fix missing year info due to website changes.
• Fix actor movies search from actor list on details page due to website chanes.
• Add button to add video to Instant Queue from movie details page.
• Add 3 new channels for Watch Instantly to channel list.
• Add Watch Now icons to search results.
• Remove Download for Later command button when the selected player option is SilverLight player.

DOWNLOAD HERE

To use the silverlight player, select SilverLight as the player type on the options pop-up box in the movie details page.

You must be able to play a silverlight video directly from the netflix website before attempting to use it from Sage.

You must have Internet Explorer 7 or later installed.

The NetFlix plugin should be capable of playing a silverlight video from a server, client or extender (with loopback hack).

Silverlight player controls available through remote:
Pause
Play
FF
REW
Vol up dn
Channel up dn (for changing episodes)
Stop (close player and return to Sage)

I just loaded this on a system running 6.5.11 with no other plugins loaded. I get black and white only colors on my extenders with really squashed large text on this screen only. After loading it, the extenders responsiveness really gets bad, but only after accessing one of the netflix screens that creates the weird visual image. If I reload the default sagemc xml, everything is fine.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Channel up dn (for changing episodes)

Doh! I was so stuck on using the prev/next track buttons on my remote for changing episodes, I missed Channel up dn.

A few other minor issues:

- When on a watch now title page, there is a very long pause each time you scroll over Add to Queue or Add to Instant Q (not selecting them, just scrolling over them to get to buttons below them).

- The "watch now" button can take a long time to appear (not sure if anything can be done about this).

- Doesn't seem to be a way to remove titles from the Instant Queue.

And in case I neglected to say so before, thank you for investing so much time into getting this working. I know it's been a pain.

[mbowling]

I have a video quality question. This is not directly related to the plugin but when I am watching netflix shows I sometimes have video quality issues. If the scene is still, no left or right movement of people on the screen, the video quality is very good. But sometimes when there is left to right or right to left movement of people on the screen I will see a flash of a horizontal line.

When I check my bandwidth it is typically 7 mbps down and 1 mbps up.

The configuration of the client is in my signature.

Anyone have an idea of what might cause this?

[mkanet]

Okay, I loaded a clean version of the new netflix import and all it's respective files.

However, something appears to be not working right... I have to manually press the "full screen" button every single time I start a movie for it to take up the whole screen. How can I make the movie start up in full screen mode.

I dont see any difference between the "Internet Explorer" mode and "Silverlight" mode; except it looks like silverlight mode, it starts Internet Explorer in kiosk mode (same as just pressing F11 keyboard key in IE)

Also, the pause/play buttons work, but FF/REW/STOP do not work for me. EDIT: Actually none of the remote control keys work. Pause/play works because I had it set in Girder. However, without any help from girder, I cant use my sageTV remote control all all. Do I need to manually do this in Girder?

PS: All trailers' colors look messed up (see attached). Watch now playback looks great.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by mkanet

How can I make the movie start up in full screen mode.

This should be automatic if set to "Silverlight" mode. Make sure you are not running any previous versions of Netflix Control. If the netflix player is still waiting to be stretched to full screen and netflix_silverlight_control.exe is running in Task Manager, please provide a 24bit BMP or PNG (non lossy compression is what I'm after) screenshot of the netflix player as launched by the Netflix STVi in Silverlight mode, with the full screen button showing.

Note that you will need to update to Internet Explorer 7. IE6 will not work.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by mbowling

there is left to right or right to left movement of people on the screen I will see a flash of a horizontal line.

Sounds like screen tearing. Not sure what your configuration is, but I noticed that, when using ATI video cards, I was only able to get rid of tearing in Silverlight by switching to Vista with Aero. Flash players (HULU, etc.) didn't seem to have this problem.

[mkanet]

It's definitely siliverlight. But, it looks like its no different than IE (after pressing F11 to get kiosk mode). Im using IE7 with latest respective hotfixes. See attachment...

PS: Needless to say, I have already selected silverlight as the player in the sageTV Netflix options.

Originally Posted by brainbone

This should be automatic if set to "Silverlight" mode. Make sure you are not running any previous versions of Netflix Control. If the netflix player is still waiting to be stretched to full screen and netflix_silverlight_control.exe is running in Task Manager, please provide a 24bit BMP or PNG (non lossy compression is what I'm after) screenshot of the netflix player as launched by the Netflix STVi in Silverlight mode, with the full screen button showing.

Note that you will need to update to Internet Explorer 7. IE6 will not work.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by mkanet

It's definitely siliverlight. But, it looks like its no different than IE (after pressing F11 to get kiosk mode). Im using IE7 with latest respective hotfixes. See attachment...

PS: Needless to say, I have already selected silverlight as the player in the sageTV Netflix options.

F11 and kiosk mode are different, but kiosk is the mode it needs to be in, and from the screenshot, you are in kiosk mode.

If you could re-take that screen shot, and not let the image ever be converted to jpeg or other lossy formats, please do. 24bit BMP or PNG. Jpeg will alter the image slightly making it useless for testing.

Make sure the NetflixViewer.exe you have is the one from this post.

In the settings.ini file, change UseDebug to true. Right click the green H in your systray (netflix_silverlight_control.exe) and select "Exit". Let the netflix STVi make another attempt at loading the silverlight player, then, post the "DebugLog.txt" file along with a 24bit BMP or PNG screenshot of the player with fullscreen button showing.

[mkanet]

EDIT: Maybe, I'm supposed to always keep
netflix_silverlight_control.exe app in memory at all times even when I'm not playing back a watch now movie? My understanding was that it gets launched when needed automatically. If so, that's not happening.

Remote control functions still dont work, even when I load netflix_silverlight_control.exe into memory manually during movie playback. See attached debug files.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Brainbone, I replaced the NeflixViewer.exe with the one from this post. I found out what's wrong:

netflix_silverlight_control.exe doesnt get launched when I start a watch now movie. If I manually start it after a movie is playing, the window goes into a true kiosk mode; and, full screen. I also see the green H.

What's the trick to get netflix_silverlight_control.exe to load automatically? As far as I know the only thing I need to do is extract the contents of NetFlix_SageMC___2.1.zip into the appropriate place (including the updated netflixviewer.exe), load the original and latest sageMC STV, and reload all my imports; including the new stvi for netflix. I even took it a step further and took out all the old entries from my properties file and configured this addon via the menus.

PS: Does anyone know why all the trailers look messed up? Silverlight playback looks really good; in my opinion, even better than WMP... but that might be because I do have a lot of bandwidth... 16mbps download sustained data rate.

Originally Posted by brainbone

F11 and kiosk mode are different, but kiosk is the mode it needs to be in, and from the screenshot, you are in kiosk mode.

If you could re-take that screen shot, and not let the image ever be converted to jpeg or other lossy formats, please do. 24bit BMP or PNG. Jpeg will alter the image slightly making it useless for testing.

Make sure the NetflixViewer.exe you have is the one from this post.

In the settings.ini file, change UseDebug to true. Right click the green H in your systray (netflix_silverlight_control.exe) and select "Exit". Let the netflix STVi make another attempt at loading the silverlight player, then, post the "DebugLog.txt" file along with a 24bit BMP or PNG screenshot of the player with fullscreen button showing.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by mkanet

netflix_silverlight_control.exe doesnt get launched when I start a watch now movie. If I manually start it after a movie is playing, the window goes into a true kiosk mode; and, full screen. I also see the green H.

What's the trick to get netflix_silverlight_control.exe to load automatically?

NetflixViewer.exe should do it automatically.

Are you certain that your Viewer Selection is set to SilverLight in SageMC Netlifx (right-click/option menu in a netflix movie title page, change Viewer Selection to "SilverLight")? What you are describing is exactly what happens when you have the viewer selection set to "Internet Explorer".