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

[sorrowstyr]

Originally Posted by aflat

It is over the loopback. Again, I see the buffering messages from netflix, with the green bars at the top, but the actual movie contents don't show.

You are very close!

Just to confirm, play a video on the server, and see if you can see the video on channel 1.

Most video cards, can only play videos on your primary video output, so definitely make sure in your video preferences that is how it is setup.


-Gary

[aflat]

I can see video, if I tune to my svideo channel on the extender I can see the desktop, I can even see the mouse moving when I move it. It's just the netflix video I don't see.

I guess I never looked to see if the video is playing on the primary display, even though all the controls are on the svideo display, that would be odd, I'll try to check that tonight.

[mkanet]

Ohhhh Brainbone..

Originally Posted by mkanet

Hey Brainbone, I'm happy to see while you were gone, SageTV was able to fix the distorted trailer video.. which will be available soon in the next public beta.

There's one minor fix we need from you.. Can you please upload a version that shuts down when video is finished? Maybe, Morgan can then repackage a new download with all the latest changes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by brainbone
Yes. However, now that it can be automatically launched by SageMC Netlifx, it probably should be set to shut down when finished.

Morgan,

Do you see any problems if I change netflix_silverlight_control.exe to simply close after stop (10,100)?

Brain, that should be fine. Once I send Stop we go back to normal operation.

[bobbydiamondz]

Hello,

I hope this wasn't answered earlier in this thread. I browsed through about 20 of the 50 pages and couldn't find anyone with this same issue...

When I launch a Watch It Now movie, the default player opens for a second, and then the screen fills with "Netflix Player Open". If I ALT+[TAB] I can see that the player lost focus. Switching back to the player gets the movie on the screen, but very quickly it loses focus and "Netflix Player Open" fills the screen again. If I switch Sage out of full screen mode and minimize the sage window everything works fine, I can watch and control the movie full screen. When I stop the movie Sage goes back to full screen mode. The real problem is I can't do this sequence with my remote, and I have to drag the keyboard out each time I want to watch a Watch It Now movie. Minor inconvenience since this feature is awesome, but if I could fix this it would be better than awesome.

Details: I'm using the default player, not silverlight or IE. Issue happens if I download the file for later or watch it as a stream.

- Bob

[chrisc983]

Not sure if this has been answered already but with 50 pages to go through I was finding it hard to find it.

I have the latest version of the Netflix installed and SageMC. I am using the silverlight plug in. Everything works (Instant Que, mail que, search), except for when I attempt to use the instant play. I am able to playback fine using IE. The problem is when I use SageMC it prompts that I don't have silverlight installed and that when I try to install it its not compatible with IE 64bit.

Is their a way to have it point to the 32bit version of IE so that it runs properly?

Edit: I forgot to mention, I'm using IE 8 on vista ultimate 64.

[chrisc983]

Nevermind I was able to edit the following in the sage.properties file;

plugins/NetFlix/ie_path=c\:\\program files\\internet explorer\\iexplore.exe to

plugins/NetFlix/ie_path=c\:\\program files (x86)\\internet explorer\\iexplore.exe

Next is to get it to work on my hd200. The quality doesn't seem to be that good though. I have AT&T at about 2.5mb download. I set the download speed to be at 2200bps but the quality is still bad. Any suggestions?

[lazysean]

Originally Posted by chrisc983

Next is to get it to work on my hd200. The quality doesn't seem to be that good though. I have AT&T at about 2.5mb download. I set the download speed to be at 2200bps but the quality is still bad. Any suggestions?

I don't think the quality setting makes any difference in the Silverlight version, either using Sage's settings or using the Silverlight stream manager. No matter what you set it to, the player is going to manage the quality automatically.

So if it's a bandwidth problem, there's not much you can do. Just because you have the bandwidth for it, doesn't mean Netflix's servers do at the moment you connect, or your ISP, or anywhere in between.

If it's not bandwidth, then you might have a shot. Maybe. CPU usage too high? Not enough memory? Video card settings / resolution? I know a lot of people have been complaining of tearing when watching full screen at higher resolutions.

[chrisc983]

Its probably the bandwidth on netflix side then because my computer has more than enough power to handle it. Is my download speed from my isp fast enough to get the high quality?

[lazysean]

Should be, if you're actually getting the bandwidth you're supposed to. Netflix lowered the bitrates when they went to Silverlight, there's nothing higher than 1500kbps now (which, according them, should be roughly the same perceived quality as the old 2200kbps windows media streams).

So there's another option for you - you might actually be getting the highest quality stream and it just doesn't look good enough on your setup. It looks pretty good on my old crt SDTV, but it also looks a bit "harsher" than the old player did. Like they artificially upped the contrast/sharpness when they encoded for Silverlight. Again - looks good here, but I can see that looking bad when scaled up for an HDTV...

[bobbydiamondz]

I found the thread in here with Dreameriz having the "Netflix Player Open" issue, and tried his solution of switching the loopback to nothing, then 1 and then 0 several times. That did nothing for me. If loopback is anything other than 0 I get a tuned station instead of the movie, and when I switch the loopback back to 0 I get the same "Netflix Player Open" window. Again, I can watch the movie if I minimize the Sage window when it gets to this point. I'm not running any extenders, this is just a stand alone machine. I can watch the downloaded movies in WMP. Any ideas?

[seidel]

I followed the instructions and unzipped the NetFlix files into the \Sage\Sage directory, but when I go into "Add New STVI" plugin and change to the SageMCE directory, the NetFlix_SageMC.xml does not appear. I do not have a tuner card installed yet. Do I have to have one installed to add this plugin, or am I doing something else wrong?

[setherd]

is there a way to remove movies from my instant queue once I watch them?

BTW I love this plugin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[KJake]

I just set this up and I am impressed, great work! One question, is there a way to set a default AR or use the default Sage playback screen (to allow for the normal sage options menu in playback) for us loopback folks?

(I'm running on a HD100 with s-video loopback through a PVR-250)

[edit]
Additional Question:
Is there a good way to watch a TV series? Once an episode finishes, playback stops and you're prompted to click a button to watch the next episode or go back to browsing. Stopping it and then pressing Watch It Now again starts the first episode over. Using FF/RW buttons only effect the current episode.

Also, minor "bug": There is no time/date on the Netflix screens where there is in all other SageMC screens.
[/edit]

[lazysean]

Originally Posted by KJake

Additional Question:
Is there a good way to watch a TV series? Once an episode finishes, playback stops and you're prompted to click a button to watch the next episode or go back to browsing. Stopping it and then pressing Watch It Now again starts the first episode over. Using FF/RW buttons only effect the current episode.
[/edit]

There's supposed to be - once all the series information on the right hand side of the screen loads, navigate over there and scroll all the way down. A new "Episodes" button will appear, and from there you can pick out the ep you want to watch.

However, I was actually coming here tonight to ask about this very thing, because tonight when I tried to watch the new episode of Party Down this seemed to be no longer working. Episode descriptions still loaded up, but every one was marked "Not Available". The same thing happened with other tv shows I tried to load up. I can still watch movies, and I could still click the "Watch Now" menu option like KJake above and watch whichever one episode Netflix thinks I'm up to, but I can't watch specific episodes of anything.

ps - I just checked and it works fine if I load IE and do it manually, so I guess something must have changed in Netflix's format? Is anyone else seeing this behavior?

[sjrx0213]

Originally Posted by lazysean

However, I was actually coming here tonight to ask about this very thing, because tonight when I tried to watch the new episode of Party Down this seemed to be no longer working. Episode descriptions still loaded up, but every one was marked "Not Available". The same thing happened with other tv shows I tried to load up. I can still watch movies, and I could still click the "Watch Now" menu option like KJake above and watch whichever one episode Netflix thinks I'm up to, but I can't watch specific episodes of anything.

ps - I just checked and it works fine if I load IE and do it manually, so I guess something must have changed in Netflix's format? Is anyone else seeing this behavior?

I'm seeing the same issue. All series episodes are "Not Available."

[sjrx0213]

Bumping this up.

I just updated to Netflix for SageMC 2.1a, and I still have the "Not Available" problem.

Also, same experience as lazysean: If I launch IE, all show episodes are available and play normally.

This is a major bummer.

Additional information: Movies work normally. It's just TV episodes that appear to be broken.

[Steve125]

Originally Posted by sjrx0213

Bumping this up.

I just updated to Netflix for SageMC 2.1a, and I still have the "Not Available" problem.

Also, same experience as lazysean: If I launch IE, all show episodes are available and play normally.

This is a major bummer.

Additional information: Movies work normally. It's just TV episodes that appear to be broken.

Any updates on this issue?

[mkanet]

Steve, last I heard, Morgan went on a business trip. I could be wrong, but I think he should be getting back about now.

Originally Posted by Steve125

Any updates on this issue?

Originally Posted by sjrx0213
Bumping this up.

I just updated to Netflix for SageMC 2.1a, and I still have the "Not Available" problem.

Also, same experience as lazysean: If I launch IE, all show episodes are available and play normally.

This is a major bummer.

Additional information: Movies work normally. It's just TV episodes that appear to be broken.

[sjrx0213]

Originally Posted by mkanet

Steve, last I heard, Morgan went on a business trip. I could be wrong, but I think he should be getting back about now.

That's good to know. This plug-in's such a winner, it's got me (and my family) totally spoiled.

[mzup]

Originally Posted by bobbydiamondz

I found the thread in here with Dreameriz having the "Netflix Player Open" issue, and tried his solution of switching the loopback to nothing, then 1 and then 0 several times. That did nothing for me. If loopback is anything other than 0 I get a tuned station instead of the movie, and when I switch the loopback back to 0 I get the same "Netflix Player Open" window. Again, I can watch the movie if I minimize the Sage window when it gets to this point. I'm not running any extenders, this is just a stand alone machine. I can watch the downloaded movies in WMP. Any ideas?

I am having the exact same issue here. Does anyone have a reason for this and how to correct? The loopback change doesn't work for me either.