Gauging Interest in Native Netflix support for Client PC

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

SD no thanks mise well use playon for that and then you still have the limitation of only one room at a time for netflix. With kids that is hard to do.

Quality would likely be better than Playon, since it would be using the HD stream -- just capturing it as SD -- so more like DVD quality.

Yes, only one per server, but still better than nothing, and without the monthly fee and CPU use of Playon.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by brainbone

No Roku, no Collussus:

Render the Netflix silverlight player on the SageTV server (assuming the server is windows), pass the video output of the server back through an analog capture card.

Since most navigation will be done with the Netflix Plugin, some lag in waiting for the video stream shouldn't be a huge issue.

The bigger issue is that most modern graphics card don't have s-video out to make use the of the s-video in on your capture card -- though I've got to think there's an easy way around this.

This is what is know as loopback - but you can do this in HD if you have a video card with component out and an HD-PVR or a Colossus. The issue is that an encoder introduces a delay of about 5 seconds so when you push a button on your remote you won't get feedback for about 5 seconds. That makes it almost unusable.

[Audacity]

BTW, I voted that I'd need to see the product before paying for it, but then read your message that if no product is delivered that money is refunded. In that case I'd pre-pay.

I think from a software developers point of view it would be best to serve a smaller but still significant portion of the market (Windows-based clients) very well than to serve everyone poorly, which is what you would get by the laggy Roku --> Collosus --> extender implementation.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

I've had zero issues with my Colossus.

Regarding lag, as I mentioned in the other thread, you don't really need to navigate the Roku interactively. You just need some way to kick off playback of a specific movie. After that the UI experience while watching a movie is exactly like we have now with the PlayOn plugin, but with better video quality.

But hey, if that's not the project you want to work on, then don't. But like many others, I have no interest in a solution that works on software clients only.

Yeah but then the issue comes you still need a UI in sagetv to drive that.

You are one of the lucky few who doesn't have collusus issues

and you still have another $50 to $100 for a roku to be fair.

I also don't know if there is anyone to remotely via ip control a roku box and kick of a video that I am aware of especially to specify a certian netflix movie that would be even harder.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Audacity

BTW, I voted that I'd need to see the product before paying for it, but then read your message that if no product is delivered that money is refunded. In that case I'd pre-pay.

Yes I would gladly refund the money for no product. Like I stated not wanting to make money on this just replace some of my extenders with client pcs. I saw a need/want for this in the other thread looked into it and decided I would gauge interest

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by wayner

The issue is that an encoder introduces a delay of about 5 seconds so when you push a button on your remote you won't get feedback for about 5 seconds. That makes it almost unusable.

If the movie selection is via the Netflix Plugin/Sage UI, then this is much less of an issue.

We used to do it this way back with SageTV v6 and the old Netflix add-on -- worked well for the people that used it.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

and you still have another $50 to $100 for a roku to be fair.

I also don't know if there is anyone to remotely via ip control a roku box and kick of a video that I am aware of especially to specify a certian netflix movie that would be even harder.

Why use a Roku - couldn't you use an additional video card in your server that has component outputs? Then you initiate the Netflix movie on a PC and just feed the PC output to a HD-PVR or Colossus. All that is required is a fairly basic discrete video card - but this would likely not work if your server is WHS.

Using a $20 IR controlled component video switch from Monoprice you could even share this tuning device with a cable box so that you weren't tying up a HD-PVR or Colossus all the time.

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by wayner

Why use a Roku - couldn't you use an additional video card in your server that has component outputs? Then you initiate the Netflix movie on a PC and just feed the PC output to a HD-PVR or Colossus. All that is required is a fairly basic discrete video card - but this would likely not work if your server is WHS.

Using a $20 IR controlled component video switch from Monoprice you could even share this tuning device with a cable box so that you weren't tying up a HD-PVR or Colossus all the time.

Yeah that is not something I want to support in any way shape or form to many could go wrongs there. Hack job at best.

[a_puty]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

go mini You only need motherboard/ram/cpu/drive/harddrive

I was looking at this one myself.

And don't buy yet I haven't commited yet

I've been looking at this one http://www.zotacusa.com/products/mini-pcs

Price isn't too bad and I think the specs should suffice. Haven't taken the plunge yet. Let me know what you all think.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Yeah that is not something I want to support in any way shape or form to many could go wrongs there. Hack job at best.

Totally true but this does open up a whole world of possibilities for what you can do an an extender including any online streaming, web browsing, webcam viewing, etc.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by a_puty

I've been looking at this one http://www.zotacusa.com/products/mini-pcs

Price isn't too bad and I think the specs should suffice. Haven't taken the plunge yet. Let me know what you all think.

But those are all pretty low powered systems in terms of CPU - mostly Atom or Celeron CPUs. They don't seem to offer a pre-built PC with their LGA1155 mobo. That would be ideal paired with something like an i3-2100T or other Sandy Bridge CPU.

[panteragstk]

Well then. I guess you made your decision.

Why vote for no? Other than this taking away from your other projects?

Back to clients? Interesting. Since all I have are clients this would negate my use of boxee.

I just hope you aren't wasting effort and sage is going to surprise us with official support soon.

[Fuzzy]

I think the best you could do right now would be to make a decent netflix browsing/queue management UI, and then launch the video with PlayOn on extenders, or SilverLight on clients. Would be seamlessly different between locations, but at least get you the better quality if doing it on a client.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by wayner

That's far bigger than I want since I don't think I need an optical drive and I would just use a single SSD - 60GB should be plenty. Therefore assuming you could get a heatsink of the CPU something half as high would work for me.

On that note - why do SSDs have to be the size of 2.5" hard drives? Couldn't they be around the size of SD or CF cards?

That unit also seems to have an interior PS - I would think that using an external brick would be better to keep heat out of the case.

This is what I've got. hec 8K01

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I think the best you could do right now would be to make a decent netflix browsing/queue management UI, and then launch the video with PlayOn on extenders, or SilverLight on clients. Would be seamlessly different between locations, but at least get you the better quality if doing it on a client.

I have no interest in playon sorry. Plus it only supports que playing. Playon browsing already works through diamond and the default. I want a real solution

[tmiranda]

I'm not a NetFlix user, but I'm interested in buying one or two of your HD300's so that can be my contribution to the cause

[Fuzzy]

Oh, I'm well aware. I just meant perhaps add the hook in to your fabled future netflix UI to offer PlayOn playback, that way it's not completely client only. Trust me, i don't care one way or the other, as I've been using Silverlight-Netflix for years.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

I have no interest in playon sorry. Plus it only supports que playing. Playon browsing already works through diamond and the default. I want a real solution

This may be a dumb question, but how difficult do you think this will be? We had the exact thing you are proposing in v6 (until netflix "updated" it out of existance). Is there a chance you could use ANY of that code? It seemed that launching the external silverlight player and controlling it with brainbone's autohotkey script worked really well. No reason it couldn't function the same...unless you've got something interesting up your sleeve

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

This may be a dumb question, but how difficult do you think this will be? We had the exact thing you are proposing in v6 (until netflix "updated" it out of existance). Is there a chance you could use ANY of that code? It seemed that launching the external silverlight player and controlling it with brainbone's autohotkey script worked really well. No reason it couldn't function the same...unless you've got something interesting up your sleeve

If he I am not mistaken his was made before Netflix API and he scraped the content manually.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

If he I am not mistaken his was made before Netflix API and he scraped the content manually.

Correct.

Also, the majority of my old autohotkey script has been obsoleted by Netflix finally adding, albeit obscure, keyboard shortcuts for most operations (sans volume and episode selection) in the silverlight player.