Amazon or Netflix Official Add-In

[jpwegas]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I, for one, don't think my 4 year old can tell the difference between the SD and HD versions (or if she can, she doesn't care).

Disney has lots of their shows available on their web site too. It's a tiny sub-SD window and the kids don't seem to mind that either.

--John

[trk2]

Originally Posted by RedCoat999

I have the use-to-be-every-other-commercial-on-TV "TurboHD", which means I do not get any SD channels, even Disney, which is not what the CEO of Dish said, when he said every Dish customer can still get Disney on SD. I was on the phone with Dish in India of course for an hour trying to get Disney in SD,..... Nope.

I have TurboHD (silver or bronze depending on the sports season) and you do get the SD versions of each HD channel. Check to make sure your receiver's program guide is not set to display HD channels only. The Disney channels are in the 170's.

Oh, and official Netflix HD support would be great!

Also as-official-as-you-can-make-it support for Hulu would be nice if we're asking for the moon. Is anyone else bemused that Hulu works so hard to make sure they are not too successful?

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Dish still carries Disney, they just removed the HD feed (until they finish the contract re-negotiations). It was actually Disney's doing, not Dish's. They want to charge Dish a premium for the HD feeds. It's not like Disney has a whole lot of leverage either. I, for one, don't think my 4 year old can tell the difference between the SD and HD versions (or if she can, she doesn't care).

Disney has plenty of leverage and tends to get what they want in contract negotiations with cable/sat providers. Disney's part ownership of ESPN provides plenty of leverage.

[RedCoat999]

Originally Posted by trk2

I have TurboHD (silver or bronze depending on the sports season) and you do get the SD versions of each HD channel. Check to make sure your receiver's program guide is not set to display HD channels only. The Disney channels are in the 170's.

Nope, not me - says I can upgrade to get the SD channels. Don't worry, 13 days to go and counting. HDHomeRun in the mail, and the antenna.

[TechJunkie]

The one thing I did not see anyone mention was that fact that the playOn interface only allows you to stream one program at a time. If two or more family members want to watch something different from Netflix on two different extenders they are out of luck.
I have had many shows just stop while I was watching them through the PlayOn plugin. Nothing worse then having a good show playing and almost at the end and then it stops and your wifes looks over at you with a WTF look. And since you can not jump ahead when you restart the show using the playon plugin it is useless to to try explain how great it is to use nexflix through sageTV.

Just my experiance with it.

I love SageTV but the new generation is moving to IP TV and it would be great if SageTV embraced it. If not they be pushed aside by people like Apple and Google.

[Zippster]

The Playon workaround while a great way to use hulu,netflix etc, is still just that, a workaround, Sage truely needs to embrace and institute these things asap if they want to stay relevant. The video quality from playon is inferior at best.

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by Zippster

The Playon workaround while a great way to use hulu,netflix etc, is still just that, a workaround, Sage truely needs to embrace and institute these things asap if they want to stay relevant. The video quality from playon is inferior at best.

Understand that it isn't sagetv's willingness to support something officially, it is the willingness of the content provider (netflix, hulu, amazon, blockbuster) to provide an official plugin for sage. Look at cablecard. Sagetv wants support, but don't want to have to use drm that would cripple tv recording. Same goes for this conversation. If netflix wanted a sagetv plugin, there would be one. BTW, I'm in the process of talking to netflix about this very thing. We'll see what happens...

EDIT: This quote from the Netflix developer site tells me exactly why we don't have official support.

"Netflix Branded Applications

The Netflix Branded Partner Program is designed for applications which are projected to reach at least 100,000 unique subscribers within the first year after launch. These applications must pass a much more rigorous certification process. Once certified, these applications can use the Netflix brand and logo, play integrated video and have access to additional restricted APIs. One fine example of a Netflix Branded Application is Netflix in Windows Media Center. Please contact us at apisupport@netflix.com if you are interested in building a Netflix Branded Application and we'll get your Certification process rolling as soon as possible."
Developer page.

[Fuzzy]

I would like to add another MAJOR vote for Netflix integration... Afterall... Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is now available on Watch Instantly.. :-)

[PLUCKYHD]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

I would like to add another MAJOR vote for Netflix integration... Afterall... Ace Ventura: Pet Detective is now available on Watch Instantly.. :-)

WOOOOHHH DO NOT GO IN THERE!!!

[kingwr]

"Please contact us at apisupport@netflix.com if you are interested in building a Netflix Branded Application and we'll get your Certification process rolling as soon as possible."

Ok, so someone should do this. Looks like it would be simple for some of you awesome programmers out there. And while your at it, I need a native Pandora player that works on extenders, too.

[Ericft]

"liiikke a glove!" I'm looking for ray finkle....and a clean pair of shorts!" Gosh love that movie!

[panteragstk]

Originally Posted by kingwr

"Please contact us at apisupport@netflix.com if you are interested in building a Netflix Branded Application and we'll get your Certification process rolling as soon as possible."

Ok, so someone should do this. Looks like it would be simple for some of you awesome programmers out there. And while your at it, I need a native Pandora player that works on extenders, too.

"The Netflix Branded Partner Program is designed for applications which are projected to reach at least 100,000 unique subscribers within the first year after launch."

You missed the important part.

[madpoet]

I'm guessing the Sage guys are WISHING they had 100,000 users

[drewg]

Originally Posted by madpoet

I'm guessing the Sage guys are WISHING they had 100,000 users

And as long as they keep selling the HD300 exclusively at SageTV.com, and keep marketing it exclusively to us PVR using nerds, they don't have a prayer. But if they wrote the netflix plugin (and amazon, pandora, etc), integrated the V7 GUI in standalone mode, and started selling the HD300 in BestBuy, NewEgg, etc, they might. There are new entries to the STB market all the time. There is no reason the HD300 couldn't compete.

It may just be they want to stay small. It is hard to grow a business and transition from high margins / few employees to low margins, and lots of employees. Even if they wanted to do it, who knows if they could even raise the money to do it (eg, to hire the people to write the plugins, to hire the sales/marketing people to schmooze the retailers / reviewers, to ramp up production, etc). Also, we like them mostly because they're small enough to be incredibly responsive to their customers needs. The founder & CEO hangs out on these forums, which is pretty darned impressive.

I really think that if we want netflix/amazon/pandora, it will probably be most expedient to try to pull it from some other similar device's firmware. I guess it all depends on what kind of authentication is done, and how closely tied the other device's apps are to its board (like if there is some kind of TPM / DRM on the firmware). If not, I could imagine some kind of "unofficial" app that downloads the WDTV firmware, extracts the needed bits onto a USB key, and modifies the standalone STV to launch the app.

Brent -- what's the closest thing (in terms of Sigma boards) to the HD300 that has netflix/amazon/pandora/etc?

Drew

[Tiki]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

"The Netflix Branded Partner Program is designed for applications which are projected to reach at least 100,000 unique subscribers within the first year after launch."

You missed the important part.

Actually the key word is "projected". They just need to try to sell that many. Lots of companies have plans that don't actually work out. Plus, the main feature that makes Sage's extenders less attractive than the competition (when looking at stand alone media players only) is the lack of support for Netflix and similar commercial streaming apps. If Sage added Netflix they could compete against the bigger players and might actually sell 100,000 units.

[Zippster]

Originally Posted by Tiki

the main feature that makes Sage's extenders less attractive than the competition (when looking at stand alone media players only) is the lack of support for Netflix and similar commercial streaming apps. If Sage added Netflix they could compete against the bigger players and might actually sell 100,000 units.

My thoughts exactly.

IMO Sage took a HUGE step forward towards main stream when they simplified the plugins etc with the v7 release, the original format of having to download and run stvis etc was just way too complicated for the average user.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Zippster

My thoughts exactly.

IMO Sage took a HUGE step forward towards main stream when they simplified the plugins etc with the v7 release, the original format of having to download and run stvis etc was just way too complicated for the average user.

Plus couldn't be done unless you were either in front of your server OR were using remote desktop. Now I can do it from anywhere!

[Email68]

What is the official word from sage?

I'm at a crossroads here. Do I buy the lifetime playon for $79 or is a preferred plug in being developed within the next year or so? If it is, I should just buy the playon first year for $39.

[GKusnick]

Originally Posted by Email68

What is the official word from sage?

The official word on new features is whatever you read in the Beta release notes. As a rule, they don't comment on product plans that aren't part of the current beta cycle. If they ever do anything along these lines, we'll find out about it when it's ready for beta testing, and probably not before.

[Brent]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

"The Netflix Branded Partner Program is designed for applications which are projected to reach at least 100,000 unique subscribers within the first year after launch. These applications must pass a much more rigorous certification process."

I have no idea how many unique subscribers SageTV has. But I would call that more of a tip that Netflix puts higher priority to the big guys over the little guys for obvious reasons. This is so Netflix gets into as many devices in as many living rooms as possible. It doesn't mean smaller companies don't have a chance - it just means it will be more difficult to make it through. From what I've heard there is quite a bit of "politics" which happens in the process as well so there is never a guarantee that a company will make it through until the end.