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

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by tinycorkscrew

I've downloaded about 15 different full-length movies from Netflix: The Host, Unforgiven, King of Kong, Phantasm, Eraserhead, Team America World Police, 9 1/2 Weeks, etc.

None of these downloaded movies will FF or REW with my MCE remote.

On the other hand, every downloaded program I've tried that's under 60 minutes works perfectly: episodes of Dexter, The Office, 30 Rock, etc.

Also, when I stop playback on a movie that's longer than 60 minutes, the movie starts at the beginning when I play it again.

When I stop playback on a program of less than 60 minutes, the program resumes where I left off.

The above has been true for me with downloaded videos of any bitrate.

Any ideas? Is anyone else experiencing this, or is it just me?

The reposition method is not responding in those cases. Sounds different than the typical cases reported so far, but check and see if this fix for the other case may be applicable to you...

Originally Posted by Morgan111

Well I found what may be causing the problem of FF/REW not responding while a Watch Now movie is streaming (for sum WMP installations).

I found some information about a pin not connected in the graph of some decoders that affect the specific seek request made by WMP in this streaming situation. I ran deccheck on my server that has the same problem and found that I only have the sage decoder and the ArcSoft decoder. I downloaded a trial of WinDVD and used deccheck to make it the preferred decoder. I noticed that it is also the only one in the installed list that indicates WMP 10 compatability. After making this change there was no longer a problem with FF/REW while the video was still streaming down. I would like to hear if someone else can confirm this solution.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by Mitch G

Yet another feature request ...
It would be nice if the downloaded netflix movies files had a name related to the title of the movie or tv show.
The reason I ask is because I sometimes go straight to the download directory and delete movies and it's hard to tell which file is for what movie.
Once again, this is not a critical feature, but if it's pretty straight forward ....


Mitch

I will think about that. Originally I decided against it to keep it simple and protect against invalid filenames or excessively long names, but I'll look at it again.

[tinycorkscrew]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

The reposition method is not responding in those cases. Sounds different than the typical cases reported so far, but check and see if this fix for the other case may be applicable to you...

Thanks, Morgan.

I did try setting the Intervideo Codec as preferred in WMP, but it has made no difference in the exhibited behavior. I'm stumped.

I love what you've done with Netflix for SageMC, and I appreciate your help.

[tommax]

Hi,
I installed this as instructed, setup the account info as instructed and placed the menu item as instructed and all went well, except no titles show up for watch instantly and some of the other categories. I can see my queue which tells me it's not a setting. Also when I do a title search the program freezes.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Tom

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by Morgan111

I will think about that. Originally I decided against it to keep it simple and protect against invalid filenames or excessively long names, but I'll look at it again.

Maybe just write function to create the filename that removes "invalid" characters and potentially cuts off the filename after x number of characters. Would be very helpful.

[spook]

Hiya Morg,

Haven't used watch it now for awhile, and came back to it today. Downloaded the new 2.05a patch...

Everything works up to the actual viewing of the video... Im getting full screen, with the line, and dash at the top, but no download or video.

re-imported, and still nothing.

checked the login credentials, and they are fine (although now there are 2x netflix setups, both are correct)

Tried on IE, and it works fine, but not through sage.

Thanks
Spook

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by spook

Hiya Morg,

Haven't used watch it now for awhile, and came back to it today. Downloaded the new 2.05a patch...

Everything works up to the actual viewing of the video... Im getting full screen, with the line, and dash at the top, but no download or video.

re-imported, and still nothing.

checked the login credentials, and they are fine (although now there are 2x netflix setups, both are correct)

Tried on IE, and it works fine, but not through sage.

Thanks
Spook

Same thing happened to me tonight. I hadn't upgraded to 2.05 before, but did so tonight and see exactly the same behavior you are.

[lovingHDTV]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Same thing happened to me tonight. I hadn't upgraded to 2.05 before, but did so tonight and see exactly the same behavior you are.

I had this happen to me once. I had to re-load my non-imported STV file, verified that I could not go to my netflix menu, then reload the netflix STVi. It then worked for me.

Maybe it will work for you also?

dave

[spook]

Originally Posted by lovingHDTV

I had this happen to me once. I had to re-load my non-imported STV file, verified that I could not go to my netflix menu, then reload the netflix STVi. It then worked for me.

Maybe it will work for you also?

dave

ok, tried this, and still a no go.

[mkanet]

Edit: The Netflix plugin works perfect after I upgraded to the latest full release of SageTV and reimported all my sageTV addons

[dadein]

This GREAT plugin was all working until I install the latest version of Sage (6.4.8.184) on my server. Prior to that 6.4.5.179 was installed... and it is still working fine on my client which still has 6.4.5.179. The formating on the screen seems to be the biggest problem I notice. On the client the words "Netflix Main Menu" are on the screen about 4 lines down and shifted to the right where it has always been. On the server the words "Netflix Main Menu" start on the first line and not shifted to the right. The rest of the screen seems alright (all the words are there and the formating seems correct) and clicking on any of the options takes you to the correct next screen but it has even more formating problems(and can't get much to work from that point). Have tried reinstalling from scratch (SageTV3.xml) several times with no luck. BTW, I have Netfilx plugin 2.05a install on both machines and have been using it since the first 0.9 release.

Edit: The previous edited post by mkanet now has me scratching my head again...

[spook]

Well, I got it working again with a completely reload as above... 6.4.8, SageMC, and the 2.05a netflix mod... It wouldn't work with a simple install over the current version either, had to completely delete the sagetv install directory, and reinstall 6.4.8.

Spook

[dadein]

I too have gotten this to work! What I did was to download a new SageTV3.xml from the website, copied it into the sage dir and then reloaded the SageMC file and the Netflix plugin. Works GREAT again!! Something must have corrupted the file?

[SWKerr]

I had the same issue mentioned above where after the upgrade it would get to the viewer and freeze. Had to kill Sage to get it to shut down. Reinstalling the plug-in and reloading STV did not work. I needed to unload the Netflix plug-in (reload basic SageMC STV) and then physically delete the Netflix files and then reload the plug-in. After that everything worked fine. I did not have to reload Sage just delete the files. I did not even need to key may settings back in. (Don’t know were they are stored but they were kept)

Other Plug-in issue:
I believe this is the same thing that has been noted before but the way the plug-in quits seems to leave the connection open with Netflix. I have the server and the client installed with the plug-in and both work fine. (I can even share the downloaded directory) What seems to be the problem is that if I watch something on one it will leave the connection open and it takes about two hours for it to time out so I can use it on the other. (This even happens if I just watch a previously downloaded show.) I can go back to the original PC and start a new show with no problems but I pretty much have to have a two hour no activity window in order to change PCs. Netflix seems to stress hitting the back to browse button in IE to keep this from happening. This would be a nice fix but is not really a major issue to overall functionality.

This is really a great plug-in. The latest version seems really stable and works well with the remote control. The only enhancement I can think of would be if you could get the episode number\order in the name of the downloaded episode. I usually like to download several episodes at a time and I can’t always figure out which one is next from the download folder.

General Netflix issue:
I actually had a problem where the TV upstairs stopped working with Netflix. I was getting a DRM issue all of the sudden. (Even with IE) I have this TV hooked up with Component cables running at 720P going thru and Onkio receiver that actually converts the signal to HDMI to the TV. Short story Microsoft felt I was breaking some DRM rule although the Netflix support said it should have worked. (They recommend going to 800x600 but that didn’t work either.) Google research hinted to a problem with Nvidia drivers and Netflix. Since it worked a one time I decided to install the Nvidia video driver that was dated from back in December 2007 and everything worked again. Hope this helps someone with a similar problem.

[thecgmguy]

Hi folks,

I just started noticing this behavior today -- when I view the details for a movie all of the information shows with the value of "null".

For example:

Plot Summary: null
Actors: null
Director: null
Genre: null

What's strange though is that the movies play perfectly fine.

Any ideas?

[thecgmguy]

Hmm... just restarted SageTV and now nothing shows up when I check the various categories.

Perhaps Netflix pushed out another change?

[thecgmguy]

Originally Posted by thecgmguy

Hi folks,

I just started noticing this behavior today -- when I view the details for a movie all of the information shows with the value of "null".

For example:

Plot Summary: null
Actors: null
Director: null
Genre: null

What's strange though is that the movies play perfectly fine.

Any ideas?

Wow. strange. Now everything is working fine. I suppose it's possible that I had a brief internet interruption... but that seems highly unlikely. Oh well. I'm just glad it's up.

[tinycorkscrew]

Originally Posted by thecgmguy

Hmm... just restarted SageTV and now nothing shows up when I check the various categories.

Perhaps Netflix pushed out another change?

It looks like Netflix has broken things again. As of tonight, I can't browse categories, the player won't launch when I try to watch something now, and if I try to download for later, I get an error message.

[mbowe]

I had the same problems last night, most browsing wouldn't work (everything but the 'New' area's were coming up blank), seraches never ended (just gave a spining ciccle) and watch now did not work, but watching d/l'd content did. I assumed Netflix had changed something and broke the Plug-in.

I had a thought earlier today, so tonight, I opened my browser directly, connected to Netflix and tried a couple Watch Now items to confirm my PC was still in good order, everything worked as expected. I then went back into Sage and everything worked as expected for NetFlix from within Sage.

Just thought opening up IE and testing things from the desktop and then returning to Sage and this plug-in might work for others as well.

On another topic, can we d/l multiple episodes from a TV series for viewing later? I seem to just have the first episode coming down.

Great Plug-in BTW.

[tinycorkscrew]

Originally Posted by mbowe

I had a thought earlier today, so tonight, I opened my browser directly, connected to Netflix and tried a couple Watch Now items to confirm my PC was still in good order, everything worked as expected. I then went back into Sage and everything worked as expected for NetFlix from within Sage.

Just thought opening up IE and testing things from the desktop and then returning to Sage and this plug-in might work for others as well.

I think it may have just been coincidence in your case. I immediately tested Watch Now in IE, but the plug-in didn't work when I returned to Sage.

The plug-in is amazing though, and I'm very grateful for the wonderful job that Morgan has done with it.