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

[dinki]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I'll help you debug, but you need to run exactly the tests I ask and post a log file for everyone.

First off, when I say PlayON Server I mean the machine you're currently running PlayON and when I say SageTV Server I mean the machine you're currently running SageTV on. I've color coded everything to make it clear what machine i'm talking about for each step.

1. • Install/start PlayON on SageTV server machine
   • Disable PlayON on PlayOn server machine
   • Delete all upnp2podcast*.cache files
   • Double click UPnP2Podcast and let it re-generte server .cache files
   • Look up NBC->Chuck.
   
   
2. • Install SageTV on PlayON server machine (no need to setup tuners or anything, just run through the setup wizard)
   • Disable PlayON on SageTV server machine
   • Install this plug-in
   • Use the test executable
   • Double click UPnP2Podcast and let it generate new server .cache files
   • Look up NBC->Chuck.
   
   
3. • Disable PlayON on PlayOn server
   • Enable PlayON on SageTV server
   • Delete all upnp2podcast*.cache files
   • Double click UPnP2Podcast and let it generate new server .cache files
   • Look up NBC->Chuck.

Here are the logs. Thanks!

[Doubledose]

I started looking and reading from the 1st post and trying to decide what I need to do. On the first page it says:

Installation:
From detailed settings (Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Check for STV Update), update yourself to the lastest default STV (20091011301 or later). The updates don't all install at once so you may need to do this 5+ times. 
Download the plug-in and unzip it into "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" 
DONE! Navigate to the Online Services menu and start enjoying your new content!

But as I have been reading from the begining, people are talking about playon and it does not say anything about it in these directions. So is playon needed? If so what actually does playon do?
And as I continue reading in the first post or 2 I find this also:

Windows:
Download and install ActivePerl 5.10. 
Open Perl Package Manager 
Add Bribes repository 
Find PAR-Packer and install 
Open a Command Prompt and run this command...

Code:
pp -c -M PerlIO.pm -o ./script.exe ./script.pl

So do I also need active perl? I am running sage tv in service mode with 2 clients and 3 hd 200 extenders and running win XP as my server. Just trying to figure this out. Maybe I am reading to far into it. Also are the video's free or do you have to subscribe or buy a subscription to see these?
Thanks
Wayne

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by Doubledose

I started looking and reading from the 1st post and trying to decide what I need to do. On the first page it says:

Installation:
From detailed settings (Detailed Setup -> Advanced -> Check for STV Update), update yourself to the lastest default STV (20091011301 or later). The updates don't all install at once so you may need to do this 5+ times. 
Download the plug-in and unzip it into "C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV" 
DONE! Navigate to the Online Services menu and start enjoying your new content!

But as I have been reading from the begining, people are talking about playon and it does not say anything about it in these directions. So is playon needed? If so what actually does playon do?

Download and install PlayOn from The Media Mall web site, then follow the installation steps you quoted above (update the STV and install the UPnP2Podcast plugin). That should get you up and running with PlayOn content available from the SageTV Online Services menu.

And as I continue reading in the first post or 2 I find this also:

Windows:
Download and install ActivePerl 5.10. 
Open Perl Package Manager 
Add Bribes repository 
Find PAR-Packer and install 
Open a Command Prompt and run this command...

Code:
pp -c -M PerlIO.pm -o ./script.exe ./script.pl

So do I also need active perl? I am running sage tv in service mode with 2 clients and 3 hd 200 extenders and running win XP as my server. Just trying to figure this out. Maybe I am reading to far into it. Also are the video's free or do you have to subscribe or buy a subscription to see these?
Thanks
Wayne

ActivePerl isn't required. I'm pretty sure that Perl stuff is only for people that want to modify the UPnP2Podcast plugin source code or compile it to run on other non-Windows platforms. The content available through PlayOn is free. However, you may need to subscribe to additional services like NetFlix if you want to access stuff like that through PlayOn.

[spike5884]

Originally Posted by mbowling

I was excited to see the new Pandora Radio selection but it doesn't seem to work from my HD-200. Two songs will play successfully but when the second song ends and the Pandora slider display starts to move to the third song, Pandora locks up and stops playing. I uninstalled and reinstalled the flash player on the server but it didn't help. Pandora does work normally from the server console. Anyone know how to fix this?

This happens to me too when using a MediaMVP. Since the PlayOn Pandora stuff is in beta, I just tossed it up to being a beta bug.

[mbowling]

Originally Posted by spike5884

This happens to me too when using a MediaMVP. Since the PlayOn Pandora stuff is in beta, I just tossed it up to being a beta bug.

I have always had problems getting internet radio to work through the various SageTV plug-ins. Sometimes they have worked and sometimes they have not. I've been very happy with how the HD-200 performs when playing TV shows. This is what it is designed to do. So, I decided to get a device specifically designed to play internet radio. Yesterday I ordered a Squeezebox Classic. I looked at the Duet but it seemed too expensive at $325. The Classic was $230 and will do everything I need. Hopefully, the Squeezebox will deliver internet radio as well as the HD-200 delivers TV.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Doubledose

I started looking and reading from the 1st post and trying to decide what I need to do. On the first page it says:

But as I have been reading from the begining, people are talking about playon and it does not say anything about it in these directions. So is playon needed? If so what actually does playon do?

PlayON is #3 on the list of requirements and is hyper linked to plenty of info what it is/does. Not sure I can make it clearer than that

Originally Posted by Doubledose

So do I also need active perl?

Nah, don't worry about that, I snuck it in on Thursday but didn't label it well. It's just for dev's who want to tinker with my code and i've edited the post to make that clearer.

Originally Posted by Doubledose

Also are the video's free or do you have to subscribe or buy a subscription to see these?

Once you buy/install PlayON you'll have access to all of Hulu's content for free, but I also recommend getting a 1-disc Netflix subscription so you can use their online streaming as well. With all that extra content available at your finger tips, you'll enjoy Sage on a whole new level.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by dinki

Here are the logs. Thanks!

Thanks for the logs...

1. Log #1 looks fine, 3 second execution time is what I expect

    + executionTime (00:00:03)

2. Hmm, this one takes 11 seconds to execute. Certainly not terrible, but long enough to make me think there's a problem on that Office PC

    + executionTime (00:00:11)

3. 40 second execution time is pretty bad. Again, this makes me suspect that there are some issues with that Office PC.

   + executionTime (00:00:40)

So one more test you can run to really narrow it down...

• Install/start PlayON on a 3rd machine (not SageTV or PlayON)
• Disable all other PlayON's
• Delete all upnp2podcast*.cache files
• Double click UPnP2Podcast and let it re-generte server .cache files
• Look up NBC->Chuck.

If we see ~3-4 second execution time here, then the Office PC is definitely the problem.

[dinki]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

So one more test you can run to really narrow it down...

• Install/start PlayON on a 3rd machine (not SageTV or PlayON)
• Disable all other PlayON's
• Delete all upnp2podcast*.cache files
• Double click UPnP2Podcast and let it re-generte server .cache files
• Look up NBC->Chuck.

If we see ~3-4 second execution time here, then the Office PC is definitely the problem.

This test will have to wait as I'm a two PC household right now. I ordered a new netbook today that I can try, but it won't have much power (1.6ghz) and will be wireless.

Everything seems to working mostly with my current set up with the exception of some oddities. Can you tell me if all of your feeds should have videos in them? I've come across some 'No videos' but I'm not certain if videos for these really do exist. I guess I should have checked using UPNP-Inspector but that idea just came to me.

Thanks again for your help.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by dinki

Everything seems to working mostly with my current set up with the exception of some oddities. Can you tell me if all of your feeds should have videos in them? I've come across some 'No videos' but I'm not certain if videos for these really do exist. I guess I should have checked using UPNP-Inspector but that idea just came to me.

Thanks again for your help.

The available videos do change regularly. For example, the major networks tend to only have the last couple of shows available to watch and most disappear after a set period of time. I guess if there haven't been any additions, it is quite possible to not have any shows available to watch as the older shows "fall off".

[Doubledose]

I might as well ask another dumb question while I am at it with this plugin. I have this working ok, But what I don't understand is I setup an account with netflix for a free trial period. I read on hear somewhere in these 68 pages that I had to put movies into the your queue, So I went to the watch online section and added 5 movies to my queue and then they showed up under netflix on the extender and was able to watch one of them last night. This is the way to do it as I understand. Today I get an e-mail from netflix saying they shipped me out a cd to watch. So can someone tell me how not to get the cd's shipped. I went in and cleared out my queue untill I know for sure how to do this.
Wayne

[mbowling]

The list of networks is growing in Online Services. This is good and bad. The list is becoming too long and I really don't need some of these networks. I tried to delete a few like MLB.tv and Netflix but they keep coming back. How I do permanently remove a network to cleanup the Online Services menu?

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by mbowling

The list of networks is growing in Online Services. This is good and bad. The list is becoming too long and I really don't need some of these networks. I tried to delete a few like MLB.tv and Netflix but they keep coming back. How I do permanently remove a network to cleanup the Online Services menu?

Open the files you don't want, delete all the content, and paste in this line.

# Version=20200318

That'll make it think you've got a newer version from the future so it won't try and update them anymore (at least until 2020 )

[alfi33]

Originally Posted by Doubledose

I might as well ask another dumb question while I am at it with this plugin. I have this working ok, But what I don't understand is I setup an account with netflix for a free trial period. I read on hear somewhere in these 68 pages that I had to put movies into the your queue, So I went to the watch online section and added 5 movies to my queue and then they showed up under netflix on the extender and was able to watch one of them last night. This is the way to do it as I understand. Today I get an e-mail from netflix saying they shipped me out a cd to watch. So can someone tell me how not to get the cd's shipped. I went in and cleared out my queue untill I know for sure how to do this.
Wayne

You should have a two queues... A 'DVD' and an 'Instant' queue. If it's in 'Instant' you won't get sent the disc.

[Doubledose]

I don't have an instant queue showing. Do I have to install there player to get this to show up? I have a watch instantly tab and when I click on the movie play it wants me to install there player. Also under the watch instantly tab there is a instant to your tv tab and when I click on that it wants to know what device I am using. Do I select something under this tab? When I click on a movie it takes me to the movie page and my only options is to play now or add to dvd queue
Thanks
Wayne

[Bikeman]

Doubledose,

Did you enter your Netflix username and password into PlayOn? Click on the PlayOn icon in the Status bar or through All Programs. Then go to the Channels tab and enter your Netflix info as well as Hulu, Amazon VOD, etc.

Then log into Netflix and add your movies/show you want to watch to your Instant Queue.

Now look in the Instant Queue in th eOn-line Services and your Netflix Instant Queue show be there.

Jeff

[Doubledose]

Did you enter your Netflix username and password into PlayOn? Click on the PlayOn icon in the Status bar or through All Programs. 
Then go to the Channels tab and enter your Netflix info as well as Hulu, Amazon VOD, etc.

Yes I have done that.

Then log into Netflix and add your movies/show 
you want to watch to your Instant Queue

Yes I can log into netflix and when I select a movie, All I can do is hit play and when I do that it wants me to install a player or the only other option I have is to save to dvd queue. That is what I am asking is how do I get to the instant queue or add the movie to the instant queue in netflix. Here is a picture of my netflix home page. See attachment. netflex.jpg
Also see attached picture of when I click on a movie
Netflix 2.jpg

Wayne

[evilpenguin]

If you hover over the "Play" button it should pop-up an option to just add to Instant Queue. Also, in the "Your Queue" page there should be a tab label "Instant" where just your Instant stuff goes.

Edit: Also, Netflix has extensive documentation of their own, if you're new you should really check it out.

[dinki]

This may be impossible, but is there any way to be able to continue watching a netflix movie where you left off? If not, is there a way to fast forward to a specific time in the movie?

I do have 'Process entire file' turned off in PlayOn. Does that affect things when you come back to watch the same movie days later?

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by dinki

This may be impossible, but is there any way to be able to continue watching a netflix movie where you left off? If not, is there a way to fast forward to a specific time in the movie?

I do have 'Process entire file' turned off in PlayOn. Does that affect things when you come back to watch the same movie days later?

Actually I find this is the case. In fact, I cannot start to playback a movie from the beginning once I start watching it and stop it at some point. It starts loading again at the place I stopped, and it won't let me rewind it past that point (to something earlier). It's clear that the download starts at the place I stopped rather than the beginning of the movie.

[Doubledose]

I called netfixand asked why I was not seeing an instant queue tab in the netflix page. The lady told me that I had to enable a netflix device in order to get that tab to show up. So how do I do that, is there a device that I need to select from the netflix site that sage uses. I told her under the netflix devices that it had a number already for the device. But she said it had to be a recognized device and then the instant tab would show up. Then when I click on activate device it wants a device number.
Thanks
Wayne