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

[robogeek]

Originally Posted by tahoetim

I get the concept (I'm on mc169-15) but exactly where do I delete the copies 2 thru 14?

Switch to mc169.xml STV and delete mc169-1.xml through mc169-15.xml from this directory:

C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV\STVs\SageTV3

If you don't end up back at mc169-15.xml after reimporting all the imports, then you'll have to go to each extender and load whatever the last mc169-#.xml is.

[sjrx0213]

Originally Posted by lazysean

OK - this has been broken for a month. I have no idea what happened to Morgan, he seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Hopefully everything's ok and he'll be back soon. In the meantime, here's an unofficial fix for it. Just shut sage down completely, rename the attached "netflix.zip" to "netflix.jar" and use it to replace the one you have. No need to uninstall etc. You might want to backup the original first in case you have any problems...

Hopefully this works for those few of us that seem to be watching tv shows and doesn't create any new problems. The source included with Morgan's last update was not complete and did not exactly match the binary release, so I changed as little as possible and just copied the one class file I changed into Morgan's jar so nothing else would hopefully be messed up.

lazysean, you rock. Big time.

Thanks for taking this on. It's working for me so far. Netflix, on the other hand, seems to willy-nilly pull stuff out of WatchItNow rotation before I can watch it now.

--Steve

[petereader]

Originally Posted by lazysean

OK - this has been broken for a month. I have no idea what happened to Morgan, he seems to have fallen off the face of the earth. Hopefully everything's ok and he'll be back soon. In the meantime, here's an unofficial fix for it. Just shut sage down completely, rename the attached "netflix.zip" to "netflix.jar" and use it to replace the one you have. No need to uninstall etc. You might want to backup the original first in case you have any problems...

Hopefully this works for those few of us that seem to be watching tv shows and doesn't create any new problems. The source included with Morgan's last update was not complete and did not exactly match the binary release, so I changed as little as possible and just copied the one class file I changed into Morgan's jar so nothing else would hopefully be messed up.

My thanks to you as well lazysean! I watch almost nothing but tv shows from netflix so this is a much anticipated fix for me. I'll try it tonight when I get home.

This is why I love this community. So much talent and a willingness to help. Now if I could only get off my lazy butt and contribute something

I do hope all is well with Morgan. Hopefully, he's just too busy watching Sage or Netflix movies (I guess we can safely assume he's not watching tv shows from netflix).

Thanks again Sean!

[mkanet]

Has anyone heard from Morgan?

[mtncrux]

I am trying to get the netflix plugin to work for the first time. I just installed the latest version of SageMC and the Netflix plugin. Everything works fine except that I can't watch "Watch Instantly" movies. SageTV asks me to choose a bit rate, but then nothing happens. It never launches the netflix player, shows a "Loading..." message or anything.

I can browse movies, view my queue, etc, so I know that the plug-in is accessing my netflix account OK.

I am running SageTV as a service as the local admin user. I have clicked the check box to allow the service to interact with the desktop, but that didn't help.

I have a new netflix account, and it is using the Silverlight player. After reading though this thread I suspect that may be part of the problem.

I can watch movies through IE with no problem.

Do I need to install the silverlight control scripts to get Sage to launch the netflix player? I was under the impression that the silverlight control was built in to the latest version of he plugin.

Is there something else I can try?

Thanks for you help.

[lazysean]

I can browse movies, view my queue, etc, so I know that the plug-in is accessing my netflix account OK.

I think these are actually separate things. Most often if you can use your queue but not stream movies, your Username and Password are right but your "Netflix ID" is not entered correctly on the configuration page. Go to Settings->SageMC->Extras and check what you've got. The "Netflix ID" should be a long string of numbers with a 'P' in front of them. When you highlight that field in the menu a set of directions for finding that number appear at the bottom of your screen.


Also, the Silverlight player does not allow you to set your own bitrates. Try finding a Watch Now movie and pressing the Option key when you're on the "Video Info" page for that movie. (Option is Esc on your keyboard if you haven't mapped it to your remote control). Here you can set your default bitrates and choose the Silverlight player as your viewer. I can only guess that right now the bitrates are set to "manually ask everytime" or however it's labelled, and that your viewer is possibly set to something other than "Silverlight".

Do I need to install the silverlight control scripts to get Sage to launch the netflix player? I was under the impression that the silverlight control was built in to the latest version of he plugin.

You don't need to install them as a separate package, but yes you should have copied them from into your SageTV directory when you installed this plugin.

Give it a shot and let us know how it goes!

[tahoetim]

Go back a couple of pages and see how I was helped here. I had the same problem.

From memory: If you have a server, you have to be logged into the server and allow sage to access local programs. It's a registry setting if I remember.

Tim

[mtncrux]

Originally Posted by lazysean

Also, the Silverlight player does not allow you to set your own bitrates. Try finding a Watch Now movie and pressing the Option key when you're on the "Video Info" page for that movie. (Option is Esc on your keyboard if you haven't mapped it to your remote control). Here you can set your default bitrates and choose the Silverlight player as your viewer. I can only guess that right now the bitrates are set to "manually ask everytime" or however it's labelled, and that your viewer is possibly set to something other than "Silverlight".



You don't need to install them as a separate package, but yes you should have copied them from into your SageTV directory when you installed this plugin.

Give it a shot and let us know how it goes!

Yup, that was the problem. I had the viewer set to "Custom Viewer" instead of Silverlight. I feel a little dumb, since that step was covered in the instructions, I just missed it.

It works fine now. Thanks!!!

[mtncrux]

The Netflix plug-in is working for me now. I was able to watch a couple of "watch now" movies. The picture quality seems great, and the movie started almost instantly.

The Netflix integration is a great feature to add to SageTV. I would like to thank all of he developers who have put their valuable time into making it happen.


I do have two minor problems:

1. About 1 in 4 times that I start a movie, I get a black screen. I get sound but no picture. Hitting Alt-F4 on the keyboard brings the picture back. It is almost like there is an extra (blank) window on top of the player window that gets closed when I hit Alt-F4.

2. Anytime I use the remote (FF, RW, Pause) the player gos out of full screen mode. I have to use the mouse to click on the "Full Screen" button. Is there a way to get back to full screen mode with the remote?

Are there any work-around or fixes for these issues?

Note that I am using the latest official release of SageTV and SageMC on a SageTV box running XP SP3 (single box is both the server and client, no media extenders, etc). My netflix account uses the silverlight player.

Thanks!

[tahoetim]

The blank screen problem for me was the server desktop screen saver kicking in. I quickly disable that and all is good.

I can't say that I've seen or noticed the other issue. I think mine goes back to full screen after a few seconds.

[mtncrux]

It's not the screen saver. I have it turned off.

When I start a watch now movie, the Netflix player is launched. I see the netflix screen where it says "Buffering", then when the movie starts to play the screen goes completely black, but I can hear the audio from the movie. My mouse pointer is still visible, so it isn't a screen saver issue.

I checked the task manager, and nothing else is running except for SageTV and one instance of internet explorer.

Hitting Alt-F4 always makes the netflix player visible again, and then it works fine for the whole movie. The next time I start a movie I get the black screen and have to hit Alt-F4 to get the player back.

Not a big deal, but a little annoying.

Any ideas on how to fix it?

[tahoetim]

Did you set up your video card to clone the monitor and the tv (svideo output)?

[mtncrux]

My SageTV box is both the server and the client. I only thought that you had to do the S-Video trick to get it to work with a remote client.

[mtncrux]

I may have fixed my "black screen" problem. I noticed that I had internet explorer 6 on my SageTV computer. I updated to IE8, and so far that seems to have fixed the problem.

Thanks for everyone who gave me advice.

[sflamm]

New user of Netflix plugin. Before I install, do I need to setup my Netflix account in some fashion?

Do I need to install the PC version of the Netflix Movie viewer, or is the plug-in standalone?

[sflamm]

Everytime I try to use the plug-in it says "you do not have rights to play this file..." and then I have to confirm the media rights acquisition...

is there any way to set this up so that I am not asked to confirm the rights each time?

SOLUTION

Open your Window Media Player, go to Tools -> Options, click the “Privacy” tab, and make sure “Download usage rights auto*mat*i*cally when I play or sync a file” (should be the third option from the top) is checked.

[sflamm]

I installed and ran the netflix plugin successfully on the SageTV server.

After I install it on my SageTV client (software not extender) it hangs when it tries to play a movie. Shows "Netflix Players Open" but nothing happens. There is a some sort of backgrounded screen but it doesnt do anything.

Is there a trick to installing it on the client instead of the Server?

I can play movies instantly from the NetFlix site just fine, silverlight is installed and selected at the default player under "options"

Help please...

[sflamm]

SOLUTION:

Make sure the netflix IE path is correct in sageclient.properties

The default was for drive C.... on my client the default drive is D. When changed... all works great.

NOTE: the IE path is not present in the sageclient.properties file until AFTER you attempt to lauch a movie (and fail). Then you can go update it to the correct value.

[KJake]

OK, who's going to make contols for Hulu now?

[Morgan111]

Sorry for my disappearance from the board lately, life has been awfully busy lately. Thank you to lazysean for the fix to episode selection. I have incorporated a correction for that in the official download (2.1b) so that you will now have to hunt down the patch if you are a new installer.

I will be starting to look at an update to the SageMC SlimPlayer based on Koelec's revamped version before I get back to other NetFlix updates. Perhaps I will get Virtual Audio Cable support worked in after some experience with it on SlimPlayer.

Morgan