Plugin: PlayOn in Online Services (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon VOD, etc.)

[pjpjpjpj]

Just to clarify - do you need an external piece of hardware to run PlayOn (such as those suggested on their site front page) or is this just a piece of software and your SageTV server is the "hardware"? I thought the latter, but I just read something that made it sound like you needed some other hardware?

Not that it really matters - it appears that my server is woefully short, on the processing side, of using PlayOn. See my sig.

Now I have to ask the wife, "how much would this functionality be worth to you?" (i.e., the cost of a new server PC along with buying PlayOn, plus the time required to move everything over and get the new system up and running, etc.). I have a feeling I already know the answer...

[bialio]

You don't need any extra hardware.

Playon is $30 right now - that should be all the cost - assuming you have a beefier PC somewhere to install it on. If not then you are looking at needing a new server of some sort to serve up Playon. Note that it doesn't have to be the Sage Server.

btl.

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by nyplayer

I have playon running on a another PC other than the Sage Server and it works perfectly no need to change any settings.

Excellent!

Does anyone have Playon running on a WHS Sage Server? If so I am wondering if you are just letting Playon default to C drive or using a symlink to your pool. I am hoping someone with better experience is using a symlink and can walk me through this.

Directions for symlink are about half way down this page with the heading of "How do I install on a different drive"?

http://www.themediamall.com/faq

[matt91]

Originally Posted by wrems

Any ideas of how I can get this to work properly? What am I doing wrong?

do you have a hd200? can you connect to the playon server in standalone mode?

[disco340]

Is it possible to get the seasons to show up in the netflix queue? I have a number of seasons added to my queue but the only thing that shows up are the movies that I added.

[wrems]

I do have an HD200 and have not tested it in standalone mode yet. At one point a while back I had playon installed (trial) and used the standalone mode but it never floated my boat all that much. My interest is renewed since this new solution offers compatibility with my extender.

I'll test that out again and let you know. Good call. I was just focused on trying to get it work from my server that I hadn't thought that far down the road.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

Have you seen this chicken? He rocks.

It's actually a penguin, evil one, but yes, he DOES rock!

I haven't actually tried this plugin yet, but can't wait. Buying PlayOn now and will test it tonight.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by disco340

Is it possible to get the seasons to show up in the netflix queue? I have a number of seasons added to my queue but the only thing that shows up are the movies that I added.

Getting TV shows to show up in Netflix is actually kind of difficult. Sage only allows you have to format your Online Service feed like

Category -> Sub Category -> Content

And of those item's Category and Sub Category have to be hardcoded into your customOnlineServices feed and then Content is pulled out of an RSS feed.

Right now the only way i'd be able to do it would be to dump all of the episodes individually into the list with movies which, if you have a lot of TV show's in your Queue like I do, could flood it and make it a pain to navigate.

Ideally, to really get things working in a usable way, i'd need the ability to dynamically generate N levels of subcategories.

For example...

Netflix -> Queue TV Shows

Would download an RSS feed that, rather than having content, contained additional subcategories and their RSS feed links. Then i'd be able to organize like

Netflix -> Queue TV Shows -> Shows -> Episodes

And i'd also be able to do neat things like...

ABC -> Lost -> Seasons -> Episodes

[tmiranda]

So far this is a no go for me. I downloaded and installed the PlayOn trial. I can navigate to each Category and subcategory and I get a list of episides but when I click on the epsode I get an error message that the file is no longer available. After a few attempts I started receiving an error that the file was no longer available but it seemed to be looking in the temp directory of my computer..

There seems to be nothing to configure in PlayOn once it's installed? I do have a HuLu user ID and password so I entered that.

I am just trying HuLu content, I do not use Netflix.

I'm testing on a SageClient PC.

[wrems]

It works!!

My problem was fixed once I was able to get WMP 11 installed. It was kind of a series of problems; WMP 11 wouldn’t install without Update Rollup 2…Update rollup 2 wouldn’t install without .net framework 1.1 and the sp1 for 1.1. Once those 3 pieces were installed everything just worked.

[wrems]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

So far this is a no go for me. I downloaded and installed the PlayOn trial. I can navigate to each Category and subcategory and I get a list of episides but when I click on the epsode I get an error message that the file is no longer available. After a few attempts I started receiving an error that the file was no longer available but it seemed to be looking in the temp directory of my computer..

There seems to be nothing to configure in PlayOn once it's installed? I do have a HuLu user ID and password so I entered that.

I am just trying HuLu content, I do not use Netflix.

I'm testing on a SageClient PC.

Is your error the same as what I was experiencing for Hulu:
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/show...6&postcount=39

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by wrems

It works!!

My problem was fixed once I was able to get WMP 11 installed. It was kind of a series of problems; WMP 11 wouldn’t install without Update Rollup 2…Update rollup 2 wouldn’t install without .net framework 1.1 and the sp1 for 1.1. Once those 3 pieces were installed everything just worked.

I didn't know WMP 11 was a requirement, thanks for the heads up I'll add it to the list.

[wrems]

Not sure that it is a requirement...

At the same time, some combination of WMP 11, .net framework 1.1 and .net framework 1.1 SP1 was the solution for my problems... Oh, and Update Rollup 2... I'm using XP Media Center 2005.

[wrems]

BTW, AWESOME work!

[matt91]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I didn't know WMP 11 was a requirement, thanks for the heads up I'll add it to the list.

WMP9+ is a requirement (but I too had to update to 11 for one of the dlls). I think another user went to WMP10 and was OK.

running regsvr32 on the ct.dll file in the playon directory will let you know if you have a dll error that could be solved by upgrading WMP and/or downgrading IE8.

[gplasky]

Also remember on WHS or Windows 2003 Server:

From their FAQ:

PlayOn for Windows Home Server and Windows Server 2003
PlayOn generally works great on WHS and Windows Server 2003. You may, however, need to disable "Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration". See below for specific instructions.
Disabling "Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration"

1. Click Start > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs.
2. Click Add/Remove Windows Components.
3. After a few seconds a window will pop-up. Click the check mark next to Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (to make it unchecked). If you'd like to only disable it for Administrators or only for Users you can click Details and do so.
4. Press Next, let it finish, and it's complete. Verify that it's disabled by opening Internet Explorer. You should see a message: "Caution: Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration is not enabled".

Gerry

[Zippster]

Playon told me I needed wmp 11 before it would install.

Nothing is showing up in my hulu que even though I have stuff in it. I'll keep looking.

[simonen]

In regards to the subcategory issue, I did notice that sometimes netflix movies are dropped into subfolders in the playon structure. I added bladerunner a few days ago and it never showed up in my rss feed, but it was in the online queue. When I used UPnP inspector to see what was going on, I found out that PlayOn was adding subfolders in the netflix queue (at least for this particular film).

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by mayamaniac

It's actually a penguin, evil one, but yes, he DOES rock!

You need to watch "The Wrong Trousers"... Hysterical, especially the "Have you seen this chicken" part.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

You need to watch "The Wrong Trousers"... Hysterical, especially the "Have you seen this chicken" part.

Confusion: solved