Support for Hulu.com and other TV streaming sources?

[Destro]

Would it be possible for SageTV to support Hulu.com and other streaming video sources, like it does for Youtube and Google?

This could be a killer app, especially for the Media Extenders. Hulu is going to start streaming the TV catalog of major studios tomorrow, and others are already doing it from their web sites (CBS, ABC, etc.).

Being able to watch current-run TV shows through Sage on my TV would be fantastic... and legal! Most of these even provide high-def content.

[bshiek]

I am a brand new SageTV user (still getting everything setup), but hulu.com is a great service! I plan to integrate with that feed soon, if possible.

I was looking at this thread:
How To: Add custom online video feed definitions
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30535

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by bshiek

I am a brand new SageTV user (still getting everything setup), but hulu.com is a great service! I plan to integrate with that feed soon, if possible.

I was looking at this thread:
How To: Add custom online video feed definitions
http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30535

Per that thread, I updated my CustomOnlineVideoLinks.properties with a test hulu.com link to The Office episodes RSS (http://www.hulu.com/feed/show/70/episodes). When I open Sage and go to Online Services, I see the Office episodes list come in just fine, but when I go to play a video, I get an error saying "The video download failed. The requested video was not found on the server." I'm assuming this happens because you need to login to hulu.com with a username/password.

Is there any way to add an online video feed that requires a username/password to login?

[evilpenguin]

Agreed. With Hulu opening up to the plublic this week, if it doesn't already work in Sage then they should be frantically coding away to *make* it work.

[ybrew]

Totally agree. Would LOVE this.

[jvl711]

I would also love this, but I am assuming that Hulu's videos have some form of DRM on them. If they do not have DRM, how do they make sure you watch their adds?

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Per that thread, I updated my CustomOnlineVideoLinks.properties with a test hulu.com link to The Office episodes RSS (http://www.hulu.com/feed/show/70/episodes). When I open Sage and go to Online Services, I see the Office episodes list come in just fine, but when I go to play a video, I get an error saying "The video download failed. The requested video was not found on the server." I'm assuming this happens because you need to login to hulu.com with a username/password.

Is there any way to add an online video feed that requires a username/password to login?

I don't have the address for the feed -- are you sure there is even a link directly to the video, or is it a link to watch the video in a browser?

- Andy

[LehighBri]

Originally Posted by Opus4

I don't have the address for the feed -- are you sure there is even a link directly to the video, or is it a link to watch the video in a browser?

- Andy

Unfortunately it's the latter ... the feed's simply point you to watch the video in a browser. Not sure if watching hulu videos will be possible as the whole point of hulu is to have free videos supported by forcing you to watch a handful of short ads.

[bshiek]

Originally Posted by LehighBri

Unfortunately it's the latter ... the feed's simply point you to watch the video in a browser.

Yep.

Here is a link to the feeds available:
http://www.hulu.com/feed

The site will be public tomorrow.

Sample RSS:

<rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/">
<channel>
<atom:link type="application/rss+xml" rel="self" href="http://www.hulu.com/feed/recent/videos"/>
<title>Hulu - Recently added videos</title>
<link>http://www.hulu.com/feed</link>
<description>Hulu - Recently added videos</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:32:05 -0000</pubDate>
<item>
<title>The Simpsons: Dial "N" for Nerder (s19e14)</title>
<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.hulu.com/watch/12140/the-simpsons-dial-n-for-nerder</guid>
<link>http://www.hulu.com/watch/12140/the-simpsons-dial-n-for-nerder</link>
<description>
<![CDATA[<img src="http://thumbnails.hulu.com/6/1024/15412_145x80_generated__EoBurlCay0G5hvPwyjyblA.jpg" align="right" width="145" height="80" /><p>Marge hires a nutritionist who puts Homer on a strict diet, but Homer decides to sneak in snacks and meals on the side.</p><p>Added: March 10, 2008<br/>Duration: 22:00<br/>Rating: 4.7 / 5.0<br/></p>]]>
</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:05:25 -0000</pubDate>
<media:thumbnail width="145" height="80" url="http://thumbnails.hulu.com/6/1024/15412_145x80_generated__EoBurlCay0G5hvPwyjyblA.jpg"/>
<media:credit>FOX</media:credit>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

[evilpenguin]

Yeah, that doesn't sound like Sage would be able to add hulu support very easily unless they added flash support from within Sage, which I imagine would be possible on win32 but would be a serious pain on the HDextender

[Homebuilder]

I must be behind the times.. I just found the website sharetv.org and hulu.com and started to watch old episodes of WKRP in cinncinnati on my computer... and of course thought how much better it would be if I could do this through sage.

Is there any integration to watch online tv shows from sites like those on through sage? Its legal and it has advertisement... but only three short commercials so not too bad.

* merged *

[guho]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Agreed. With Hulu opening up to the plublic this week, if it doesn't already work in Sage then they should be frantically coding away to *make* it work.

Please first let them frantically code to finally finish the MAC version of 6.3.

[Destro]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Yeah, that doesn't sound like Sage would be able to add hulu support very easily unless they added flash support from within Sage, which I imagine would be possible on win32 but would be a serious pain on the HDextender

It shouldn't be that difficult. Adobe has made the Flash Player open-source. The source code can be found easily with a Google search.

Linux already has great Flash support, which is better and more stable than Windows, IMHO. Flash on Windows crashes for me on Slacker.com, but it's stable on Linux.

They could also just trans-code the video...

[evilpenguin]

The problem with sites like Hulo is you can't access the video by itself like you can for google video/youtube, it can only be reached through the Hulu player. This means that Sage would either need to work out a deal with Hulu to gain access to the video securely and display hulu's commercials commercials as well (very unlikely) or add the ability to run flash applications from within SageTV so they can just load the hulu player directly.

[morikaweb]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

or add the ability to run flash applications from within SageTV so they can just load the hulu player directly.

This would be a great alternative which would open the door to many other sites/programs. I truly think that sage needs an integrated browser (with on screen keyboard like the way opera on the Wii works) with java/flash support though, which would solve many problems like this.

[Homebuilder]

I am by no means an expert, but in order for the video to be played on the web browser, there must be a connection to the orginal source somehow.

It may not be a direct link from the webpage, but I would imagine that by the time the video starts to play, my computers web page is connected to an ip address with the video... even if its not apparent.

Just thinking smarter minds than mine may be able to track down what ip address is used to send video to browser, capture that feed and convert flv to mp4 or something... or just play the flv on sage...

Just hoping it can be done because it is a cool site, and you know eventually steve jobs will pay off hulu so that apple can do it

[skyeclad]

This is actually a very cool idea although I don't know if there isn't some Terms of Service agreement that prevents SageTV from directly supporting this.

Perhaps they could program some the underlying framework necessary to support this and maybe a community plugin could finish the rest of the work?

Either way, I think this would take the Online Services function to a whole new level.

[flashbacck]

I'd love to see hulu in sage, but as someone mentioned earlier, I'll bet there's some sort of drm on the videos that would prevent them from being played outside their flash player. I'm guessing that to watch the videos in sage, you'd have to have a flashplayer that'd work within sage. Even then you wouldn't be able to navigate the video like a regular video in sage.

[Ryokurin]

Originally Posted by Destro

It shouldn't be that difficult. Adobe has made the Flash Player open-source. The source code can be found easily with a Google search.

Linux already has great Flash support, which is better and more stable than Windows, IMHO. Flash on Windows crashes for me on Slacker.com, but it's stable on Linux.

They could also just trans-code the video...

No, they didn't make the player open sourced. they made a large part of the SWF format available with a NDA. Basically the only thing you can do is make programs that export to the format, and its made specifically clear in the agreement that you can't make a program that plays flash files.

That brings up how programs are able to play the videos. .flv is basically a container, and the video is standard h.263, vp6 or h.264 video with mp3 or aac audio. Eventually .flv is going away for the standard mp4 format (along with DRM)

I'm no programmer, I can just understand html and basic js, but the way it looks you don't directly see where the file is coming from due to the javascript (or I completely missed it) Probably the best way will be to integrate a browser window.

[electron]

Hulu.com seems to be growing rapidly, I really hope the SageTV people have started talks with them about offering their content through the SageTV interface.