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

[Morgan111]

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THIS IMPORT HAS A NUMBER OF GROWING PROBLEMS AS NETFLIX CHANGES. I AM UNABLE TO COMMIT THE NEEDED TIME TO RESOLVE THESE EVOLVING ISSUES AND DIFFERING USER CONFIGURATIONS AT THIS TIME.

NEW USERS SHOULD EXPECT PROBLEMS WITH QUEUE MANAGEMENT AND WATCH NOW VIEWING.

ANYONE WITH A SERIOUS INTEREST AND CAPABILITY IN ISOLATING THE NEW PROBLEMS OR TAKING OVER THE IMPORT CAN CONTACT ME FOR ASSISTANCE.


Features
_______________________________________________________________________

• Same basic features as original NetFlix plugin, plus more!
• Browse through all DVD videos by genre
• Browse through all Watch Now videos by genre
• Browse through movies that are listed in the many NetFlix RSS channels
• View movie descriptions, ratings, trailers and more
• Launch Watch Now movies (Now possible on Sage Extenders with server loopback hack!)
• Add movies to rental queue and manipulate queue items

Installation:
_______________________________________________________________________

1) Download the import files from here and unpack the contents into your SageTV directory ( normally C:\Program Files\SageTV\SageTV) taking care that the file paths are preserved. This will create STVs/SageTV3/neflix.xml, JARs/netflix.jar and JARs/netflix/src, README, etc

2) My Menu -> Settings -> Import STVi (choose NetFlix_SageMC.xml)

3) Settings-> SageMC-> Extras-> NetFlix (Enter account information)

4) Add the link into the "NetFlix Main Menu" menu.

• Select the Options menu by pressing the options remote button while on the main SageMC menu (or ESC key on keyboard or right mouse click).
• Select Main Menu Options.
• Select New...->New Internal Screen->NetFlix Main Menu
• Then select File...->Save menu file

Configuration:
_______________________________________________________________________
Before you can utilize the plugin, you will need to configure it
from: Main Menu My Menus -> Settings -> SageMC -> Extras -> Netflix -> Setup
(or bring up the configuration on the main NetFlix screen (options remote button or ESC key on keyboard or right mouse click)).

You must provide an ID, Username, and Password at a minimum. If you are behind a Proxy, you will also have to provide the Proxy URL and Proxy Port. There are interfaces to walk you though all of this so it's not too bad. Username (email) and password are CASE SENSITIVE).

You must create a folder to save downloaded videos and data. Specify this folder on the NetFlix setup screen under Download Path. If you change from one download path to another, copy the files (including NetFlixWiz.bin) to the new directory. A network share can be used that will allow playback of videos for all clients .


All primary settings are stored in your sage.properties/sageclient.properties files. So if you backup your sage.properties files for other installations, you will be effectively backing up your config for this plugin too. Additional video data is stored in NetflixWiz.bin.



Watch Now:
_______________________________________________________________________
Watch Now movies can be launched from the Movie Details screen automatically to play in Internet Explorer or by a custom player that incorporates Windows Media Player. The default player is the custom player.

NetFlix is switching users over to a SilverLight player that plays inside of Internet Explorer. A special SilverLight control application by Brainbone is included so that we can still control videos with out remote! You must have Internet Explorerer 7 or above! To select the Sage player option, press the Options button (or Cntrl-O) while on the Movie Details page and choose the desired player.

• Custom Viewer - Full control of video playback using WMP. WIll not work if your NetFlix account is set for SilverLight.
• Internet Explorer - Will launch the internet explorer with not control of playback by Sage.
• SilverLight - Will start movie playback with Internet Explorer and allow Sage control of playback through netflix_silverlight_control.exe.

Pressing Watch Now with the custom player selected will present an option to watch the movie with one of 4 bitrates for streaming. The first uses little bandwidth but is fairly poor quality. The last rate requires a hight bandwidth but has excellent quality. Selecting the bandwidth will launch the player. To default to a specific bitrate and bypass the selection menu, press the Options button on the remote and select a specific rate as the default rate.

If the video contains episodes, a specific episode can be started by displaying the episode list and clicking on the desired episode.

Player Control (Custom Viewer):
The custom viewer is launched from a seperate executable from Sage, but Sage receives the remote commands and keyboard shortcuts as usual and passes the relevant commands to the viewer. The viewer will close and return to Sage by pressing the STOP button, or Cntrl-G.

The player has an on screen display which shows up until the video has downloaded enough of the file to begin playing or whenever a remote or keyboard command has been sent. The OSD contains the following information:

• Video Title and playing/buffering status
• Playtime progress bar
• Current playtime into video and video duration
• PREV and NEXT legends that indicate if the Prev or Next (Ch Up/Dn) buttons can be used to step to a new episode

Remote Commands Supported:
Play
Pause
Play/Pause
FF
FF2
Rew
Rew2
Info (displays OSD)
Stop
Vol Up/Dn (WMP volume)

The FF/REW commands step by the time defined for advancing when viewing a show in Sage. Some PC configurations may not see an effect from these commands before the entire video has been downloaded. That is being investigated.

Pressing the STOP button will close the viewer and return to Sage.

Player Control (SilverLight):
Internet Explorer and netflix_silverlight_control are launched from Sage, but Sage receives the remote commands and keyboard shortcuts as usual and passes the relevant commands to the viewer. The viewer will close and return to Sage by pressing the STOP button, or Cntrl-G.

Remote Commands Supported:
Play
Pause
Play/Pause
FF
Rew
Stop
Vol Up/Dn (player volume)

Pressing the STOP button will close the viewer and return to Sage.



If a movie does not start playing as expected, make sure the movie plays when started from the NetFlix website on that PC.


HELP and TIPS
_______________________________________________________________________
If you have previously installed the NetFlix plugin, you can delete your NetFlix cache directory as it is no longer used.

You must be have your WMP already configured to play WatchItNow movies in order for it to work with the import. If it does not play then you may have to check the path for plugins/NetFlix/ie_path in your sage.properties or sageclient.properties file. I am defaulting to the C: drive for program files. Basically if you have gone through the steps to play them from the NetFlix website then you should be all set to go, although the import will only launch it. To go fullscreen you will still have to click on the on screen movie control and close the window with an Alt-F4 keystroke.

When viewing the queue, press the right cursor to bring up the menu to manipulate the current selection. Press Save to change and queue updates.

When browsing DVD genres, selecting genre will display titles for that genre. If there is an arrow on the right side, pressing the right cursor will take you to a list of sub-genres. There are 3 levels of genres at most. There is only one level of sub-genres.

For the main menu, the icon file "hover_my netflix.png" is installed under STVs\SageTV3\SageMCE\Themes\MenuIcons.

You must have Sage 6.3.8 or higher to view Trailers.

To delete a video or cancel download in the Downloaded Videos list, press the right arrow when highlighting the specific video.

To download an episode of a show, press the right arrow when highlighting the specific episode on the Video Details screen.

Select the default video bitrate for video downloads by pressing the Options button while on the Video Details screen.

To playback a downloaded video, select it from the Downloaded Videos list. That will show the Video Details screen. Click on the Watch Now button.

Font sizes for the lists are bases on the font properties of the My Videos screen. Properties are in the .properties file, like:
sagemc/ui/video_lib_folder_font_name=Verdana
sagemc/ui/video_lib_folder_font_size=12
sagemc/ui/video_lib_folder_font_style=Plain





Steps to allow viewing of Watch Now videos on an Extender (courtesy of SnapDaddy)
_______________________________________________________________________

• Make sure the SVideo out of your server is working. (Test somehow - hook up to a TV, etc - whatever - set it to mirror your desktop, not span or dual monitor.)
• Pick a tuner with Svideo and audio in to use for the loop-back.
• Connect the audio and video out of your server into the tuner card (you will probably need to lower your screen resolution).
• Configure the tuner in Sage - pick the option to not use guide data.
• Add either a single channel (999) or use the built in channel "1-SVideo" to the channel list.
• Test the new channel - change to it, and you should see your server desktop. If you don't, something's wrong. Best to try and fix it now.
• Import the latest Netflix plugin.
• In the Netflix config settings, there's an option to select your loop-back channel.
• After that, it's just the standard Netflix settings. When you select to watch a video, it should switch to your channel and go to town.

11/19/08 Update 2.06

• Correct font handling on movie list that broke with SageMC 6.3.8.
• Account for changes to website coding that prevented the "More" prompt.
• Added menu item for Instant Queue on Main NetFlix Menu.

Problems
_______________________________________________________________________
If you experience problems with the application not working for you, there are some extended debugging that can be enabled through your sage.properties.
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLogFile=C\:\\temp\\netflix\\sage.netflix.log
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLoggerDebug=4
plugins/netflix/NetFlixLoggerStream=file

The first setting turns on debugging. It is likely already set to true for the alpha releases. the stream needs to be set to file (instead of out or err).
TRACE = 5
DEBUG = 4
ERROR = 2

This will create a sage.netflix.log file in your cache directory you have configured through the interface. It will contain a great deal of information for your interactions with NetFlix.


History:
_______________________________________________________________________
2/10/08 - Initial Release 0.9

2/15/08 Update 0.91

• Change channel name Blue-ray to Blu-ray.
• Correct missing text on some buttons due to animation.
• Apply proper UI Context to JAR methods so that the correct properties file will be accessed. Was a problem on Extender and possible server in service mode.
• On Movie Details, only display first Genre in list.

2/27/08 Update 1.0

• Add capability to browse all genres and sub-genres (no sub-genres for Watch Now)
• Browse all DVDs or Watch Now titles
• Remove all caching. Read data on-demand (channels lists are cached internally, but not show data)
• Move Configuration settings to the Settings->SageMC->Extras screen
• Add ability to deselect genres from browsing list
• Sort DVD list when browsing by Title, Rating, or MPAA Rating
• Add new NetFlix Main Menu for selecting operation
• Faster search by title. Reduced number of search results to return (too many at the end have little correlation)
• Fixed missing pictures for items in queue that had different show IDs for disc subsets
• Correct error that could prevent video from being deleted from queue

3/2/08 Update 1.1

• Update parsing for change to Watch Now video item list.
• Improve main menu:
  • move Jar version info to Setup Menu,
  • change text alignment and style,
  • add netflix graphics
  • add listener for left key
• Add option on setup page to disable Watch Now features (usefull for extender users)
• Add button on movie detail screen to show a list of actors for the movie. Can click on any actor and bring of a list of DVD titles for that actor.
• Add button on movie detail screen to show a list of episodes with descriptions for a TV series. Can click on any episode to begin plaing that episode in Watch Now viewer.
• Move NetFlix menu icon to SageMC/Themes/default/MenuIcons where it was meant to originally go.

4/3/08 Update 1.2

• Fix error in search dialog that also affected search dialog for standard SageMC searches.
• Sort genre list by title.
• Fix Episode list or Actor list being from previous selection.
• Fix error when viewing trailer and description is from a previously viewed trailer.
• Add My Queue button to movie details screen.
• Add ability to jump to listing by starting letter.
• Add new property "plugins/NetFlix/ie_arg" that defaults to -k for fullscreen windowless. Remove -k to show IE window.

5/18/08 Update 1.2a

• Update html parsing to account for change in website that prevented browsing of DVD or Watch Now genres (update in netflix.jar only)

6/25/08 Update 2.0

• Update html parsing to account for change in website that caused inconsistent detection of Trailers and Watch Now.
• Added Blu-Ray Logo that is displayed on movie details screen when the movie is available in Blu-Ray format.
• Update parsing to fix display of User Rating stars on movie details page.
• Added custom viewer for Watch Now movies that is launched and controlled via Sage remote and shortcut keys. IE viewer is still an option.
• Add capability to select one of four possible bitrates for movie streaming.

7/8/08 Update 2.03

• Update html parsing to correct problem when browsing DVD and Watch Now titles.
• Add the ability to browse Watch Now titles by sub-genre and not just top level genres.
• Add ability to sort Watch Now titles by rating, title, MPAA rating.
• Disable Sage from sleeping while playing movie.
• Move mouse pointer off-screen when starting movie.
• Volume controls now control volume of Windows Media Player. Volume percentage displayed on OSD status line when volume is adjusted.
• Corrected problem when using a default bitrate for movie playback.
• Start movie at position last left off when that info is available (however, that info does not seem to be saved when using the custom viewer).
• Removed HD-DVD channel.
• Correct parsing of Watch Now data that caused a crash of SageTV when playing every other episode. Also correct "resume" position. (2.03b)
• Force display of OSD info when waiting for stream data to buffer. (2.03b)

7/30/08 Update 2.05

• Incorporate changes for viewing on Extenders with server loopback hack.
• Add feature to list new DVD and Watch Now titles.
• Add feature to download Watch Now videos and episodes for later viewing.
• Viewer now has ability to bookmark where a movie is stopped and resumes at that point on next playback.
• Add handler for aspect ratio remote button for playback on extender.
• Prevent stray remote buttons from changing Sage screens and loosing control of open viewer. Also force Stop command to viewer whenever leaving the Sage viewing screen.
• Account for changes to website coding (2.05a 8/10/09)
• Prevent potential crash when selecting limited number of titles for download or Watch Now for some users (2.05a)

2/28/09 Update 2.1

• Add SilverLight player support (includes Brainbones NetFlix Silverlight control v2 test 6).
• Fix missing year info due to website changes.
• Fix actor movies search from actor list on details page due to website chanes.
• Add button to add video to Instant Queue from movie details page.
• Add 3 new channels for Watch Instantly to channel list.
• Add Watch Now icons to search results.
• Remove Download for Later command button when the selected player option is SilverLight player.
• Fix missing NetFlix configuration from SageMC Extras Setup menu. (2.1a)
• Add option to delete a movie from Instant Q on movie details screen. (2.1a)
• Add button to display Instant Q from standard DVD queue screen. (2.1a)

LICENSE:
_______________________________________________________________________
This software is released under the GPL. Please
see the included LICENSE file.

Copyright (C) 2006 'DwarF' Pullen
Modified 2008 'Morgan111'

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

Use this software at your own risk!

This plugin re-distributes the rss4j library that is too covered by the
GPL. It's own LICENCE can be found under LICENSE.rss4j.txt

The apache commons (all jars prefaced with commons) are redistributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. Please review it before usage at (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)



Screenshots
_______________________________________________________________________

[mkanet]

Thanks Morgan.. you dont know how hard it was for me to keep quiet about this incredible addon! Works great.... I watched my first "Watch It Now" Movie "The Italian Job" via this plugin... Works perfectly.

[alijiwani]

sweet! works very well. watch it now also works. Definitely looking forward to your browsing feature.

I do have one major feature request - the plugin displays my netflix password as clear text meaning that my roommate or his guests could see it if they click on the options. Think we can obscure that somehow?

Great job!

[toricred]

Does the Watch It Now feature work with the HD Extender?

[RamonS]

Hi!
Reading about this plugin really made me hop for joy and I had to try it. The problem is that I don't seem to be able to get past installation step 2.
I did the unpack into the SageTV folder, but upon trying to load the stvi file I don't see anything. Checking the folders and the downloaded package for an stvi file brings up nothing. Is that stvi file missing in the package or do I do something wrong?

[ke6guj]

Originally Posted by RamonS

The problem is that I don't seem to be able to get past installation step 2.
I did the unpack into the SageTV folder, but upon trying to load the stvi file I don't see anything. Checking the folders and the downloaded package for an stvi file brings up nothing. Is that stvi file missing in the package or do I do something wrong?

2) Settings -> Import STVi (choose NetFlix_SageMC.xml)

Its there, you have to import the .xml file. It isn't an .stvi file, and is for SageMC only. Not for the default UI if you are using it.


edit: You're a new user, so you may not be aware that SageTV Media Center is not the same thing as SageMC. SageMC is a user-designed alternate User Interface for SageTV that has additional features beyond the basic features of the defaultUI. Some plugins will only work with the DefaultUI, some work only with SageMC, and some work in both UIs

[RamonS]

Thanks for the instant reply. I have the standard SageTV and you guessed right that I figured the MediaCenter is the same as SageMC.
I guess I give SageMC a spin then and see what happens with my other plugins (dynamic menu and FM radio).

....or maybe not. I run on XP 64bit and the first step mentioned something about Server 2003. Ah well, I guess I have to continue to watch NetFlix videos in XP 32bit in VMWare as their plugin doesn't work on 64 bit systems and also not on W2k....or with Firefox.

So, any plans to make that Netflix plugin work with the standard UI? Just asking....

[splicer]

It may take 15 minutes or so for all of the data to download.

After some time, more than 15 minutes, all the shows and movies still say (loading) Still Loading.

Did I do something wrong are am I just impatient?

I wanted to ask since it says to 6.3.8 to watch movie trailers, will my current SageTV V6.3.5.159 and SageMC V 6.3.7 work for the "Watch it Now" option?

I really appreciate the great plug in! I have been patiently waiting for this to happen so we can use the "Watch it Now" feature.

Thanks,
Phil

[myoung84]

How do you put in @ on the HD extender??

[belleboyd]

Originally Posted by toricred

Does the Watch It Now feature work with the HD Extender?

Does it??? Please?

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by myoung84

How do you put in @ on the HD extender??

There one good need for hooking a keyboard to that front USB port. From the server PC you can edit the .properties file under the Program Files/SageTV/SageTV/clients directory.

Look for the line, or add the line:
plugins/netflix/NetFlixUsername=

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by belleboyd

Does it??? Please?

Nope. There are a number of issues with playing Watch It Now videos on the HD Extender. That is discussed here.

That is one reason I am not rushing to replace the PC client in our main TV watching room with and extender...

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by splicer

After some time, more than 15 minutes, all the shows and movies still say (loading) Still Loading.

Did I do something wrong are am I just impatient?

I wanted to ask since it says to 6.3.8 to watch movie trailers, will my current SageTV V6.3.5.159 and SageMC V 6.3.7 work for the "Watch it Now" option?

I really appreciate the great plug in! I have been patiently waiting for this to happen so we can use the "Watch it Now" feature.

Thanks,
Phil

Double check your RSS ID, username, password, and cache directory (Does the dir exist?).


Don't know if it matters, but are you running Java 1.6.0 or above?

6.3.5 will not work for viewing trailers. I had put in a request for correcly playing the format of flash video used for trailers and that support was added in SageTV 6.3.8. Watch it now should likely work since that just launches Internet Explorer to view. Make sure you are able to watch a Watch It Now from the NetFlix website. There are some configurations with Windows Media Player that must be applied for those to play.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by alijiwani

sweet! works very well. watch it now also works. Definitely looking forward to your browsing feature.

I do have one major feature request - the plugin displays my netflix password as clear text meaning that my roommate or his guests could see it if they click on the options. Think we can obscure that somehow?

Great job!

I'll put that on my todo list to look at. That could be important for some of us.

[Brent]

Morgan,
I'm trying this plugin out and it is excellent! I've watched a "watch instantly" movie, some previews (most worked but a few gave me an error) and played around with my queue. It's just an excellent addition to SageMC! Thanks so much!!!

Two questions for you, is there any way at this point to pause, resume or any other type of keyboard controls? Also is there any way to "remove from queue?"

Thanks again for your work on updating the Netflix plugin to work so well and especially with SageMC

[evilpenguin]

Damn, makes me wish I hadn't gutted all of my full clients for STX's, nice job Morgon

[mikesm]

Sorry for the stupid question, but when it says: "*You will have to add the link into the "NetFlix Main Menu" menu."

How exactly is this done? I don't do a lot of gui customization...

thx!

[Brent]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Sorry for the stupid question, but when it says: "*You will have to add the link into the "NetFlix Main Menu" menu."

How exactly is this done? I don't do a lot of gui customization...

thx!

Thats referring to Nielm's "Dynamic Menu" feature built-in to SageMC. You just right-click and select "main menu options" then New>"New Internal Screen" and select the "Netflix Main Menu" from the list. That will add the Netflix plugin to your main menu.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by Brent

Morgan,
I'm trying this plugin out and it is excellent! I've watched a "watch instantly" movie, some previews (most worked but a few gave me an error) and played around with my queue. It's just an excellent addition to SageMC! Thanks so much!!!

I need to check on some of the trailer not working. I think the links may be changing, but the cached link that I save not getting updated. I want to be able to grab that on the fly instead.

Originally Posted by Brent

Morgan,
Two questions for you, is there any way at this point to pause, resume or any other type of keyboard controls? Also is there any way to "remove from queue?"

The spacebar should control pause/play. I think the Enter key on the remote will trigger that. From what I can tell there unfortunately no other shortcut keys for anything else right now.

You should be able to manipulate the queue. Move down to a queue item and press the right arrow key. A sub-menu pops up that has options to move up, down, top, bottom and remove the item. When you are all don, you have to hit the Save button to accept the new queue settings.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by Brent

Thats referring to Nielm's "Dynamic Menu" feature built-in to SageMC. You just right-click and select "main menu options" then New>"New Internal Screen" and select the "Netflix Main Menu" from the list. That will add the Netflix plugin to your main menu.

Don't forget to set the menu icon to "hover_my netflix.png"!