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

[mikesm]

Morgan, this is great... I installed it on my pc client and had watch it now running really well last night. The only issue appears to be the color expansion on playback that doesn't happen with normal SageTV playback. I saw quite a bit of banding in some scenes, so something weird is going on. I am going to have open up that whole can of worms again where the desktop and video playback do different things with expansion. This reminds me why I hate windows.

Also, for the life of me, I can't get the plugin to work on extenders. I know I can't do watchit now, but it doesn't look like it's talking to netflix at all - no dvds show up, no channels, nothing even in the genre filter window.

It was a problem on the server but got it to work there, but not for some reason on the extenders, even though I am loading the same xml file that the server was using.

I assume I had to start with the original SageMC base, then load the stvi's again. Was I supposed to have removed the old netflix plugin files from the SageTV directory before installing the new ones, or is an overwrite ok?

Thanks again!

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by TobyG

The new version generally works great, but I'm having one strange problem with the custom Netflix Viewer. As soon as the video starts playing (after the buffering stage), the Windows focus switches back to SageTV. The video continues to play in the background, and I can control the video with the remote (pause, etc.) If I alt-tab the focus back to the viewer, the focus immediately reverts back to Sage. This happens every time, and only with the custom viewer. (The IE viewer works fine.)

Anybody else having this issue? Any idea what's causing it?

Actually that is by design. When the viewer starts it forces Sage to be the topmost window to ensure it receives the remote and keyboard input (which forwards valid commands to the viewer) and positions it out of view to the lower right. I leave one or two pixels in view in case something happens and you need to manually drag it back in view with the mouse. I force it every second in case the screen is clicked or someone presses Alt-Tab. I would have preferred not to do that, but one of my attempts was running the WMP object from the dll in the Sage process, but I had too many obstacles to get that working.

Is Sage showing in front and not just a tiny line on the lower right screen edge?

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Also, for the life of me, I can't get the plugin to work on extenders. I know I can't do watchit now, but it doesn't look like it's talking to netflix at all - no dvds show up, no channels, nothing even in the genre filter window.

It was a problem on the server but got it to work there, but not for some reason on the extenders, even though I am loading the same xml file that the server was using.

I assume I had to start with the original SageMC base, then load the stvi's again. Was I supposed to have removed the old netflix plugin files from the SageTV directory before installing the new ones, or is an overwrite ok?

Thanks again!

You should just be able to overwrite the files (with Sage shut down). I can't remember the correct import procedure on the extender. (The kids lost the remote this weekend and we haven't found that yet Wish I could use one of my many unused Hauppauge remotes).

Addict had a problem a while back, maybe this will help you.
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...&postcount=162

[boognish]

Im loving this plugin!! Thanks for al the work on it!! I had it setup a while ago and just started to use the watch it now. Ive upgraded to the latest build and am having troubles with the watch now movies. I believe they are not fully downloading and erroring out partially through. A little box pops up that says "netflix veiwer error" and i have no control over he newtflix window anymore. Im assuming the video does not finish downloading.
Does anyone else have this problem? Anyone know how I may be able to fix this?

thanks in advance!

[Morgan111]

boognish, does that look like an error window produces from NetFlix? After having a problem playing a movie, try playing it from the NetFlix website to see if there is a error playing it from there (or just select Internet Explorer instead of internal view from the Option menu on the Movie Details screen).

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

You should just be able to overwrite the files (with Sage shut down). I can't remember the correct import procedure on the extender. (The kids lost the remote this weekend and we haven't found that yet Wish I could use one of my many unused Hauppauge remotes).

Addict had a problem a while back, maybe this will help you.
http://forums.freytechnologies.com/f...&postcount=162

I'll try it again tonight.

BTW, any chance we could set the bitrate for streaming and downloads in preferences and then just have the playback start immediately when selecting play watchitnow? My broadband connection is 16 Mbps, so I always pick 2200 bps, and in any case, most folks broadband connections don't change speeds on them, so it would seem to make sense to have it be a preference...

thx again for a GREAT plugin!

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mikesm

BTW, any chance we could set the bitrate for streaming and downloads in preferences and then just have the playback start immediately when selecting play watchitnow? My broadband connection is 16 Mbps, so I always pick 2200 bps, and in any case, most folks broadband connections don't change speeds on them, so it would seem to make sense to have it be a preference...

Selection options button or Cntrl-O key when on Movie Details screen and pick a default rate.

[wbarber69]

Morgan I wonder if it may be possible to launch the netflix viewer in a sage screen so that sage doesn't have to be moved around and it may even help if there were errors we could just return to the home menu instead of having scratch everything and start it all back up I know that some errors will be unavoidable since you cant keep the netflix site running the way you would like

[Morgan111]

My point was that I could not get something like that to work, so I had to take a different approach. I do have some attempts for recovery if the player dies or sage dies, but I do need better error detection, logging, and recovery. That will be getting added in.

[boognish]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

boognish, does that look like an error window produces from NetFlix? After having a problem playing a movie, try playing it from the NetFlix website to see if there is a error playing it from there (or just select Internet Explorer instead of internal view from the Option menu on the Movie Details screen).

ok after playing with it some more. it seems to happen when the video stops playing because it didnt fully download (when i press play i can see the % downloaded) I press play again hoping it would try to buffer from that spot and thats when the error pops up. i can try to take a screen shot if needed..but it seems it may be on my end, like my connection farting and it not resuming to finish download.
does that make sense

[mkanet]

Morgan, is there any way to launch IE in full screen mode? I have to press the "Full Screen" button every time IE launches. Maybe there's a full screen switch?

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Selection options button or Cntrl-O key when on Movie Details screen and pick a default rate.

Wonderful. Will try it out. After repeating my steps everything is working on the extenders too. Dunno what my problem was but it seems to be fine now.

Thanks again!

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Morgan, is there any way to launch IE in full screen mode? I have to press the "Full Screen" button every time IE launches. Maybe there's a full screen switch?

Michael, looks like I must have accidentally spilled a letter in one of the lines that reads a property. For now you will need to modify your sage[client].properties file and add a "-k" to the line as follows:

plugins/NetFlix/ie_arg2=-k

[TobyG]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Actually that is by design. When the viewer starts it forces Sage to be the topmost window to ensure it receives the remote and keyboard input (which forwards valid commands to the viewer) and positions it out of view to the lower right. I leave one or two pixels in view in case something happens and you need to manually drag it back in view with the mouse. I force it every second in case the screen is clicked or someone presses Alt-Tab. I would have preferred not to do that, but one of my attempts was running the WMP object from the dll in the Sage process, but I had too many obstacles to get that working.

Is Sage showing in front and not just a tiny line on the lower right screen edge?

Thanks for the response, Morgan. That certainly explains the focus switching. On my system, however, Sage is showing in full (i.e., it is not moving off the screen to the lower, right corner.) This happens both if Sage is in full screen mode and window mode. What technique do you use to move the Sage window? Perhaps something on my system is blocking it?

[Morgan111]

I use the win32 API SetWindowPos(). What is your OS, and is there anything installed our your PC that may be beyond what most of us would use? Is this on a client or server?

[TobyG]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

I use the win32 API SetWindowPos(). What is your OS, and is there anything installed our your PC that may be beyond what most of us would use? Is this on a client or server?

I see, and I think I've solved the problem. On my system (Windows XP, SP2, by the way) I had pulled the Windows taskbar up, to 4 times the standard height, to deal with some overscan issues. This seems to be the problem that was causing the conflict. (Perhaps the SetWindowPos() function was attempting to move the Sage window to overlap with the taskbar, both causing the taskbar to disappear, and causing the window move to fail.) Once I put the taskbar down to 3 times the normal height or less, everything started working fine.

Thanks for your help, and congrats on creating such an extraordinary plugin!

[boognish]

hello again.. I have gotten it all working correctly now!! this is such a great plugin! Thanks again1

Im hoping to be able to access my instant queue on here. Imonly using it for watch it now and would love to browse in firefox and add items to my instant queue and browse that inside sage... is this possible?
thanks for any input

[Morgan111]

boognish, that was one thought I had was to use that as a way to create a list of movies that you want to watch later. One other though was to make my own list to keep track of, but that would not help someone like you who may be browsing for things on the website. One more reason just to go ahead with using the Queue Instant list.

[boognish]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

boognish, that was one thought I had was to use that as a way to create a list of movies that you want to watch later. One other though was to make my own list to keep track of, but that would not help someone like you who may be browsing for things on the website. One more reason just to go ahead with using the Queue Instant list.

sorry im a little confused, is this allready available in the plugin?

[Morgan111]

What I meant to say was a good reason for me to go ahead with incorporating it. Hopefully before too long.