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

[sic0048]

Anyone getting good results with Amazon VOD? It was working for me at some point because I watched a few of the free shorts they have available. Now I just got the When We Left Earth series for free, but I don't get any feeds from the UPnP. Any ideas?

I did check and I am running the lastest Playon Server, version 1.6 of this plugin, and the latest STV (no updated available).

[lotusvball]

Originally Posted by Vettenstein

Add these .Properties files to the OnlineVideos folder. Medium will now show in CBS. I used this technique to include Star Trek in mine.

Thank you. Worked great.

[tsitalon1]

Has anyone found a way to stream live NBA games?

I know the playon guys had a Justin TV plugin, but JustinTv added an authentication routine to their stream which broke the plugin.

Any other way to stream live NBA games?

[JetreL]

EP thanks for the GREAT plugin... I *just* switched back to the Linux client and wanted to know if you have an internal timeframe for this plugin to work in linux. I did some searching and saw some ideas to use but wanted to see if you had a more robust version in the works?

Thanks again!

[evilpenguin]

There's actual a win32 tool that will let me compile my scripts for windows and Linux that I've been meaning to look at.

Things are fairly stable at this point so it'd be a good time to do that. I'll prolly be doing a v1.7 soon with some more feed updating changes so i'll shoot for that a combo linux/windows release (sorry mac ).

[mkanet]

Wow EvilPenguin, I got this plugin up and running in literally 5 minutes, including the time it took to download, install and configure Playon and this addon.

Just a few issues/questions:

- I just tried NBC/30 Rock, I got the thumbnail message "No videos found for UPn...". I know there are several "30 Rock" shows available on my Hulu Desktop. Is this issue reproducible? I dont have any issues with any other TV shows, they all seem to show up; at least the ones that I have tried so far.

- All the videos proxied through Playon under Online videos are letterboxed. My SageTV client/theme is already correctly set for a 16x9 desktop/TV; and, all other Online Videos display HD 16:9 videos correctly on a 16x9 screen.. filling the whole screen perfectly without black bars; unless of course the content itself is not 16:9. I tried overriding the aspect radio setting from Source to "16x9" or "Fill" for these videos, but still had an undesirable effect. Is there a properties settings somewhere to get videos that go through this addon to display correctly? It seems that only 4:3 videos display correctly.

- Will this addon eventually support extenders or do we have to wait for native sageTV Hulu support? Also, after SageTV native Hulu support is in place (after upgrading SageTV), how would this affect people who have this plugin installed? What are your plans with this plugin after full Hulu support is available from SageTV?

Thanks for your time to create this addon!
-Michael

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by mkanet

- Will this addon eventually support extenders or do we have to wait for native sageTV Hulu support? Also, after SageTV native Hulu support is in place (after upgrading SageTV), how would this affect people who have this plugin installed? What are your plans with this plugin after full Hulu support is available from SageTV?

I use this on my extenders now. What support are you talking about?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by mkanet

- I just tried NBC/30 Rock, I got the thumbnail message "No videos found for UPn...". I know there are several "30 Rock" shows available on my Hulu Desktop. Is this issue reproducible? I dont have any issues with any other TV shows, they all seem to show up; at least the ones that I have tried so far.

That's a bug, apparently all shows that start with a number are broken, nice catch

Originally Posted by mkanet

- All the videos proxied through Playon under Online videos are letterboxed.

People report all kinds of crazy issue's with Sage Clients with aspect ratios, and honestly there's not much you can do right now. I'm hoping Sage can fix those issues in the next beta. I can say it works perfectly on the HD200.

Originally Posted by mkanet

Will this addon eventually support extenders or do we have to wait for native sageTV Hulu support?

Way ahead of you, like I said above, it works perfectly on the HD200.

[mkanet]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, I hadnt tried it on my extenders yet. One advantage this solution would have over sageTV's upcoming Hulu solution is Netflix and other online based VOD services OnPlay works on.

I'm guessing that from your response, it means that the aspect ratio issue is reproducible; and, nothing configurable on the sageTV client end. If its something that configurable on my PC clients, I'd definitely love to find out how. If its a reproducible bug, I'm sure sageTV support would at least attempt to reproduce it and make a fix for it *IF* this addon has support for other online VOD systems that sageTV wont support. I'm pretty motivated to get this fixed since not all of my clients are HD-200's.

EvilPenguin, you should be VERY proud of this addon. Depending on what sageTV ends up supporting in the near future, this addon could be a "must have" addon for everyone. <--Not too many addons get MKANET to do that

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

That's a bug, apparently all shows that start with a number are broken, nice catch

People report all kinds of crazy issue's with Sage Clients with aspect ratios, and honestly there's not much you can do right now. I'm hoping Sage can fix those issues in the next beta. I can say it works perfectly on the HD200.

Way ahead of you, like I said above, it works perfectly on the HD200.

[cncb]

Originally Posted by mkanet

What are your plans with this plugin after full Hulu support is available from SageTV?

Last I heard this wasn't going to happen. Did I miss an announcement?

[mkanet]

Yes, you did. That's supposedly one of the reasons why sageTV development has stopped putting out public betas for a while. It's already working in private betas for some time now:

http://www.geektonic.com/2009/01/sag...ting-hulu.html

Originally Posted by cncb

Last I heard this wasn't going to happen. Did I miss an announcement?

[Zippster]

That article is almost a year old and after the legal issues boxee had and having to drop Hulu, I thought I also heard that Sage had no plans to go down that same road.

[mkanet]

That article was updated recently. This Playon addon didnt exist almost a year ago... Is there an anouncement/interview that says sageTV will remove the support they have for Hulu?

Originally Posted by Zippster

That article is almost a year old and after the legal issues boxee had and having to drop Hulu, I thought I also heard that Sage had no plans to go down that same road.

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Yes, you did. That's supposedly one of the reasons why sageTV development has stopped putting out public betas for a while. It's already working in private betas for some time now:

http://www.geektonic.com/2009/01/sag...ting-hulu.html

You're a little behind the times. You missed the interview Brent did with Jeff (Narflex) for geektonic.com back in July:

http://www.geektonic.com/2009/07/int...to-and_07.html

Originally Posted by Geektonic.com

Brent: I know you demo'd Hulu playback within SageTV earlier this year at CES. Has the built-in Hulu playback been shelved for SageTV since the Boxee/Hulu war broke out?

Jeff: "We are hoping there is some way to deliver Hulu content but we haven’t found a way to do it reliably and are not sure Hulu would support that."

[mkanet]

Oh cool, thanks for the link. Yes, I'm definitely behind the times. That's great news.

That means that sageTV support will be more motivated to support the PlayOn addon if/when necessary. Most things work very nicely with this addon for my HD-200; and, is definitely not "painful" for me as Brent put it.

Since I do a lot of TV watching on PC based clients, I'm eager to get the aspect radio display issue resolved. That's the biggest issue for me right now.

Originally Posted by robogeek

You're a little behind the times. You missed the interview Brent did with Jeff (Narflex) for geektonic.com back in July:

http://www.geektonic.com/2009/07/int...to-and_07.html

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by mkanet

- All the videos proxied through Playon under Online videos are letterboxed.

I also use a SageTV client to watch online content through this excellent plugin . All of the shows I have watched fill the 16:9 screen with no letterbox. There is a splash screen at the beginning of each Hulu show that states the show will be seen with limited commercial interruption. This splash screen does have the letterbox black bars. When the actual show begins the video is full 16:9. I'm using Sage client 6.6.2.218 with SageMC 6.3.9a, Aspect Ratio Mode set to 16x9 and version 1.6 of the plugin. I'd be happy to check other settings on my client if it will help.

[mkanet]

Thanks I appreciate the help, at least I know its something that can be fixed by me (hopefully). I'm using SageTV 6.6.2.218 and SageMC 6.3.9a with the latest clean install of this addon, 1.6. My default "aspect radio mode" Detailed Setup\Multimedia\Aspect Ratio Mode for all videos is "Source"; which makes it letter boxed, and with 16x9 or Fill, the video stretches where there are no black borders on the left/right, but unecessary black borders still show on the top and bottom no matter what. This only happens with the videos coming from this addon. All other videos, no matter what aspect radio are handled correctly on my 16:9 screen.

I also have my Detailed Setup\Multimedia\Display Aspect Ratio Settings=16x9

Lastly, I have my Detailed Setup\Advanced\Select User Interface Theme=Standard HD 1080

Edit: An important thing to note, you shouldnt have to override the aspect ratio setting to 16:9. Leaving it on source is the correct setting, unless there's something wrong with the source's aspect ratio setting. What happens when you put your aspect ratio to "Source"? Do all the Online Videos look correct except for these being letterboxed? I'm guessing that's why you had yours set to 16:9 for these videos right?

Lastly, (and most importantly), what video decoder is being used for these videos? Is it whatever is used for H.264?


If the above mentioned are all the same for us; yet, for the videos coming from this plugin only are letterboxed (see attached screenshots), it's a setting that we haven't talked about yet (probably not in sageTV). The thing to note is that all my settings are set correctly; which cause my Online Videos to all show correctly. However, just for these streamed videos they dont.

Maybe, the setting I'm looking for isnt in sageTV at all; and is somehow in PlayOn? If so, why would they show correctly on my HD200? My HD200 uses the same settings and themes I do on my PC.

Thanks for your help. Any further help would greatly be appreciated!

Originally Posted by mbowling

I also use a SageTV client to watch online content through this excellent plugin . All of the shows I have watched fill the 16:9 screen with no letterbox. There is a splash screen at the beginning of each Hulu show that states the show will be seen with limited commercial interruption. This splash screen does have the letterbox black bars. When the actual show begins the video is full 16:9. I'm using Sage client 6.6.2.218 with SageMC 6.3.9a, Aspect Ratio Mode set to 16x9 and version 1.6 of the plugin. I'd be happy to check other settings on my client if it will help.

[Qualmic]

EP - Thank You for your hard and very much appreciated work on this. It's pretty much the reason I jumped on the STV bandwagon.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

To get TV shows to work in Netflix i'll need Sage implement a feature request I put in for generating dynamic sub menus in the Online Service menu. Right now I can only display a pre-determined, hardcoded, menu structure which only works if I know in advance that a certain folder is going to be there.

Netflix -> Queue -> Videos List = Good
Netflix -> Queue -> The Office Season 1 -> Episodes List = Bad

Sage seemed to indicate that it would be possible to add, but since they're hard at work on their own features right now I wouldn't expect anything in the next beta cycle.

Making this possible would be the icing on the cake. Sage, if you're listening make this happen please!

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by tsitalon1

...JustinTv added an authentication routine to their stream which broke the plugin.

Along with all the posters on the PlayOn Plugin thread for justin.tv, I'm sorta feeling like I don't really have much of a use anymore.

Don't get me wrong, this is probably one of the best plug-ins for Sage, period. But I was finding that my personal use of it was mostly watching a lot of justin.tv content (ESPN, other sports feeds). Maybe someone can get the non-justin.tv streams on channelsurfing.net working (they're some sort of proprietary Silverlight stream or something)...

[matterw]

I installed the PlayOn Server, WMP 11, and refreshed my STVs. When I try to play Hulu, I can see the videos, but when I go to play them I get an error.

Attached is my debug log file when I run: UPnP2Podcast.exe "PlayOn:Hulu:+2" debug

Any suggestions? I really would like to get Hulu rocking and rolling!

Thanks,
Matt