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

[KJake]

This seems to capture the Netflix output pretty well: http://www.wmrecorder.com/wm_capture.php ... would be interesting if you could just have Sage playback the capture file. No need for a loopback hack then...

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by KJake

This seems to capture the Netflix output pretty well: http://www.wmrecorder.com/wm_capture.php ... would be interesting if you could just have Sage playback the capture file. No need for a loopback hack then...

I looked at that awhile back. I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the output.

[wbarber69]

Originally Posted by wirecreative

I want to delete this STV and try installing it again.

I'm having a few problems with the player (no onscreen controls, when I stop the player, the screen goes white and freezes and I have to stop Sage via TaskManager), and for some reason Netflix shows up twice in my SageMC add-ons settings screen.

How do I remove it? There's no obvious option. Do i just delete the files from the SageTV folder?

Before you reinstall anything you should check to see that full screen exclusive mode is set to false then see if the problem goes away

[wirecreative]

Originally Posted by wbarber69

Before you reinstall anything you should check to see that full screen exclusive mode is set to false then see if the problem goes away

Thanks. I just checked and Full Screen Ex Mode was enabled. I turned it off, and the problem no longer happens upon restarting Sage.

I still don't get any kind of onscreen status/progress bar or anything. Is that normal? Is there no way to advance to a certain point in a movie I may have stopped part way through earlier?

I have a mouse in my remote, and moving the cursor across the screen doesn't reveal any controls the way the IE window used to.

[brainbone]

Some more feature requests I'll blindly pile on:

1) Ability to add only to Instant queue from a watch now title page (now it seems to add both to instant and dvd queue).

2) Obvious marking of a watch now titles in search results/browsing ("*" is often truncated)

3) Ability to filter and display only watch now titles from search results (see 7, below)

4) Removal of Download for Later option when using IE as the player.

5) Display links to "Related Movies:" on the title page.

6) Add channels for New Watch Instantly; Top Watch Instantly; etc.

7) Not sure if you are scraping to get data for the browse instant/dvd/search results, but if you are, allow an option to scrape more than one page at a time (preferably all pages -- I would hope Netflix servers could handle the minimal extra load).

8) If you are scraping, move the scraping routines to external scripts (vbs? python? perl? ahk?) that can easily be modified without the need to re-compile/re-release the Netflix STVi.

[KJake]

Originally Posted by brainbone

I looked at that awhile back. I wasn't very impressed with the quality of the output.

It would actually output mpeg2, which would be nice for those with MVP systems yet. And the quality really is subjective...we're talking about streaming video, which isn't going to look like a DVD anyway...

I don't have the ability to try it, but I would think that the s-video recapture of a screen would look worse.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by KJake

It would actually output mpeg2, which would be nice for those with MVP systems yet. And the quality really is subjective...we're talking about streaming video, which isn't going to look like a DVD anyway...

I don't have the ability to try it, but I would think that the s-video recapture of a screen would look worse.

Actually, some of the netflix movies are close to HD in quality if streamed at the max bitrate, and there is the 16:9 vs 4:3 issue as well.

[brainbone]

Originally Posted by KJake

I would think that the s-video recapture of a screen would look worse.

The problem I had with it was inconsistency in frame rate. Stuttering in video is more noticeable to me than slight differences in resolution.

It would also be difficult to implement, since it doesn't seem to support any type of API. Mouse control only, just like Netflix Silverlight.

That said, if Morgan is able to get Netflix Control working, I'll give it a shot. Probably better than nothing for those that don't have the option of the loopback hack.

[aflat]

I can't seem to get this to play anything in my instant queue. I don't have Silverlight, and I'm using this on a HD200, so using the loopback. The client, running on the server works fine, but the HD200 doesn't. Once I try to play an instant stream, it shows me my server desktop, but the player doesn't launch. It's close, since I can use it on the client, I'm guessing I have most of it set up correctly. I'm using the latest SageMC, started clean, and only imported the Netflix plugin. Any clue?

All I get in the log is

Channel.hasExpired.ttl:Queue:Thu Feb 26 12:00:00 EST 2009
start not found:class="movie seriesMember"
WatchNowDataHTMLParser().getWatchNowDataList(70095077
WatchNowPlayerRemote recieved processRequest
start not found:"id":"

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by aflat

I can't seem to get this to play anything in my instant queue. I don't have Silverlight, and I'm using this on a HD200, so using the loopback. The client, running on the server works fine, but the HD200 doesn't. Once I try to play an instant stream, it shows me my server desktop, but the player doesn't launch. It's close, since I can use it on the client, I'm guessing I have most of it set up correctly. I'm using the latest SageMC, started clean, and only imported the Netflix plugin. Any clue?

All I get in the log is

Channel.hasExpired.ttl:Queue:Thu Feb 26 12:00:00 EST 2009
start not found:class="movie seriesMember"
WatchNowDataHTMLParser().getWatchNowDataList(70095077
WatchNowPlayerRemote recieved processRequest
start not found:"id":"

Your queue ID is obviously set correctly. Verify your username (email) and password are definitely correct. Also make sure you can play a movie from the NetFlix website.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by brainbone

Some more feature requests I'll blindly pile on:

1) Ability to add only to Instant queue from a watch now title page (now it seems to add both to instant and dvd queue).

2) Obvious marking of a watch now titles in search results/browsing ("*" is often truncated)

3) Ability to filter and display only watch now titles from search results (see 7, below)

4) Removal of Download for Later option when using IE as the player.

5) Display links to "Related Movies:" on the title page.

6) Add channels for New Watch Instantly; Top Watch Instantly; etc.

7) Not sure if you are scraping to get data for the browse instant/dvd/search results, but if you are, allow an option to scrape more than one page at a time (preferably all pages -- I would hope Netflix servers could handle the minimal extra load).

8) If you are scraping, move the scraping routines to external scripts (vbs? python? perl? ahk?) that can easily be modified without the need to re-compile/re-release the Netflix STVi.

1) Ability to add only to Instant queue from a watch now title page (now it seems to add both to instant and dvd queue).
DONE

2) Obvious marking of a watch now titles in search results/browsing ("*" is often truncated)
DONE

4) Removal of Download for Later option when using IE as the player.
Removed when SilverLight IE selected

5) Display links to "Related Movies:" on the title page.
Good idea. Will be added

6) Add channels for New Watch Instantly; Top Watch Instantly; etc.
Those 2 are in the next release. Others will be added.

7) Not sure if you are scraping to get data for the browse instant/dvd/search results, but if you are, allow an option to scrape more than one page at a time (preferably all pages -- I would hope Netflix servers could handle the minimal extra load).
It is done in the jar file. I step through NEXT pages when there is more. Bumped up search limit from 20+ to 60+ results.

The remote control with the NetflixSilverlight.exe is working very reliable now through Sage for me. The only thing that does not respond is the PREV/NEXT. I am sending out msg 103/104 but nothing happens for episodes. Can you verify if that is working for you with V2 test 3?

[brainbone]

Episode selection appears to be working for me in v2 test3.

A few questions/requests:

- Is volume change and time line seeking working?
- Is the player being opened in kiosk mode?
- What's the resolution of the screen the player is opened on? (wondering if the episode buttons are not fully visible when the player is first opened)
- Set UseDebug to true in settings.ini and let me know if you see lines similar to below in DebugLog.txt after opening an episode.

13:16:32:368 02/26/2009 - Found nf_prev_chap.bmp at location 50790601
13:16:32:400 02/26/2009 - Found nf_next_chap.bmp at location 50790642

[aflat]

I double checked the user/pass, still no luck. And I know most of it is correct since everything works while using the client on the server(through remote desktop) its only on the HD200 it doesn't work. Anything else I might try?

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by aflat

I double checked the user/pass, still no luck. And I know most of it is correct since everything works while using the client on the server(through remote desktop) its only on the HD200 it doesn't work. Anything else I might try?

If you are running SageTV in service mode, you may have to manually copy the NetFlix settings from the SageClient.properties file to the Sage.properties file for Netflix to work on the Extenders. Just double check the Sage.properties file to be sure the NetFlix settings are correct there and disregard what settings you see in the NetFlix settings on the Extender.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by brainbone

Episode selection appears to be working for me in v2 test3.

A few questions/requests:

- Is volume change and time line seeking working?
- Is the player being opened in kiosk mode?
- What's the resolution of the screen the player is opened on? (wondering if the episode buttons are not fully visible when the player is first opened)
- Set UseDebug to true in settings.ini and let me know if you see lines similar to below in DebugLog.txt after opening an episode.

13:16:32:368 02/26/2009 - Found nf_prev_chap.bmp at location 50790601
13:16:32:400 02/26/2009 - Found nf_next_chap.bmp at location 50790642

This is on a notebook at 1680x1050 mode. I did not have it in kiosk mode. After setting kiosk mode it did not find the fs icon and did not respond at all.
I took out the -k and then it was working fine for all functions. Perhaps the window size was different than before when prev/next did not work. So it does not work in kiosk mode but I can get it to work just the way it is right now, starting off without -k.

I had a problem running with the extender. I have to set my server to 800x600 for the S-Video output to work (for loopback hack). With that configuration it also does not find the fs or prev/next. That is in kiosk mode.

[brainbone]

Try the attached (only change from test3 is netflix_silverlight_control.exe) I think it should help with displays at 800x600. 4:3 content on 640x480 displays will be a bit more difficult, so I recommend 800x600 as the minimum.

I'd be interested in a screen shot in 24bit BMP or PNG of the 1680x1050 kiosk mode where the full screen button wasn't found, along with a DebugLog.txt of the attempt.

[brainbone]

Made another small change to netflix_silverlight_control.exe to fix a small bug in locating navigation buttons.

see attached.

[Morgan111]

Brainbone, the 800x600 didn't work with that latest update either. Data attached for each. Thanks.

[brainbone]

Was the 800x600 run on the same machine as before (server)? or on your notebook?

Does it work when not in kiosk mode?

It looks like the window title is never found, but I'm having trouble reproducing the behavior here.

[Morgan111]

The 800x600 was on the server.

What I did see with kiosk mode, was that the window title has
"http:/www/netflix.com - Netflix: Netflix Movie Viewer..."

Without kiosk mode the title was
"Netflix: Netflix Movie Viewer..."

My notebook and server both have IE 6.0.29 in case that matters.

I tried without -k on the server (800x600), but that forces scroll bars and the controls are out of view of the bottom of the display.