How I got Netflix Watch Now on my HD Extender.

[rgroves]

I've been reading up on using this method to get Pandora to play on the HD-100, but I've got a few questions..

1) If you ARE NOT using a headless server, you can't use the Svideo out on the server to go into the svideo port in my PVR-150 (or PVR-250).... right? I use my server (WHS) for various things.

Well, I supposed I could use the server for this, and just RDP into the server.

2) Am I reading it right that currently you have to setup the SageTV service?? If so, i guess I'm just SOL....for now.

[snapdaddy]

Originally Posted by rgroves

I've been reading up on using this method to get Pandora to play on the HD-100, but I've got a few questions..

1) If you ARE NOT using a headless server, you can't use the Svideo out on the server to go into the svideo port in my PVR-150 (or PVR-250).... right? I use my server (WHS) for various things.

Well, I supposed I could use the server for this, and just RDP into the server.

2) Am I reading it right that currently you have to setup the SageTV service?? If so, i guess I'm just SOL....for now.

For 1) - you could still pipe the video and audio out of the server into a capture card - it will show your desktop on whatever channel you set up. So, you couldn't actually use Pandora if you were doing "various things" on the server, but if you weren't...

For 2) - actually it doesn't work right if you're using Sage as a service (if you need to access remote recording directories). I quit using sage as a service on my server just so I could use this hack. I'm using it now for Pandora, Netflix Watch Now, and iTunes. (Using my new iPhone with the remote software to control iTunes and pipe it through Sage.)

Robb

[Kirby]

Originally Posted by mikejaner

This would be even better when you connect a PC with Component Outputs to an HDPVR...

What about using that Roku Netflix gizmo ($99) and its component video/toslink outputs into an HDPVR? Then setup the fake channel (999 or whatever). Would it work?

[bcjenkins]

That would work aside from the controls, I would imagine.

B

[Mitch G]

So where do things stand at this point? It's not clear to me what one does to make Netflix on the extender trick work these days.

Can I just download the latest SageMC Netflix plugin from Morgan, do the necessary wiring and tuner mapping and things will work?
Or, is there still some magic snapdaddy sauce that needs to be done for this to work?
(It would be great if someone posted some level of step-by-step instructions for folks like me. )

Thanks,


Mitch

[rgroves]

Originally Posted by snapdaddy

For 1) - you could still pipe the video and audio out of the server into a capture card - it will show your desktop on whatever channel you set up. So, you couldn't actually use Pandora if you were doing "various things" on the server, but if you weren't...

D'oh.... I just realized that as well... Thank You for reminding me....

Originally Posted by snapdaddy

For 2) - actually it doesn't work right if you're using Sage as a service (if you need to access remote recording directories). I quit using sage as a service on my server just so I could use this hack. I'm using it now for Pandora, Netflix Watch Now, and iTunes. (Using my new iPhone with the remote software to control iTunes and pipe it through Sage.)

Robb

Hmmm. Ok, I mis-stated myself on this. Right now I AM using SageTV as a service, but I also have the GUI opening when I load to the desktop. I guess I could stop using the service and just setup the server to auto login to the desktop then I won't have to worry about Sage running and not recording things.

Is this what most people on WHS are doing??? I wanna be like all the cool kids....

[snapdaddy]

Originally Posted by Mitch G

So where do things stand at this point? It's not clear to me what one does to make Netflix on the extender trick work these days.

Can I just download the latest SageMC Netflix plugin from Morgan, do the necessary wiring and tuner mapping and things will work?
Or, is there still some magic snapdaddy sauce that needs to be done for this to work?

I don't think there's any special sauce needed - let's see if I can remember how this goes:

• 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.
• 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.

Once it's configured, you can use other plugins too, like Pandora. You can also pipe your iTunes or other music library from your server to your extender.

I hope I didn't miss anything - if I did, I'm sure someone will chime in and help out.

Robb

[Mitch G]

Excellent step-by-step. That's exactly what I was looking for.

Unfortunately, I'm either stuck on step 1 or step 6. I'm not getting the S-Video feed showing up in Sage - I have audio, but no video. The video is slanty lines and blank screens. I don't have an easy way to test the S-Video output of the graphics card to see if the problem lies with the graphics card output or the tuner card's input. That said, after futzing with things for a few hours last night, I've decided I need to get a TV down to the server to verify the graphics card output before going any further (i.e. step 1 ).


Mitch

[evilpenguin]

You're going to want to make your screen resolution TV friendly for this to work so stick to 720x480 @ 60 hrz.

[bialio]

And just to be clear, running Sage in Service mode is mostly a losing battle with this right? I got it working in Service mode, but had to run as local system with access to Desktop - which rendered all the networked media import directories impotent.

One feature I'd like to request is disabling the loopback channel logic - ie let me switch to channel 1 or 999 manually. It seems like a lot of the AR logic doesn't work when the Netflix Plugin changes channels for you.....

But this is very cool stuff - big kudo's to everyone who figured this out!

btl.

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by bialio

One feature I'd like to request is disabling the loopback channel logic - ie let me switch to channel 1 or 999 manually. It seems like a lot of the AR logic doesn't work when the Netflix Plugin changes channels for you.....

What is AR?

[gplasky]

AR=Aspect Ratio.

Gerry

[Morgan111]

Gotcha. I haven't used it on the extender extensively, but I have had to go out and manually change the AR extensively and go back in to get the view I wanted and thought that it was a bit of a pain! So, sure we can do something about that.

From looking at the Extender remote I see that there is already a dedicated AR toogle key that I did not know about. I will just incorporate the listener for it. That's easy enough. I have a few new features that will probably be available in the next day or two. The AR toggle will be included in that.

I will also merge the extender instructions on the main NetFlix description/instructions post.

[Mitch G]

Well, I ended up reinstalling the original/old drivers for my video card instead of using the updated drivers made available by nVidia and all is good. I now can see my desktop on channel 1.

Next step will be installing the netflix plugin and playing with that.

But, I gotta say, this little loop-back idea is really quite clever and does open up all sorts of possibilities.

Thanks.


Mitch

[Fuzzy]

Okay, so I'm reading from work, and am excited to try this when I get home (would be with my lowly MVP, but that shouldn't matter, i would imagine). I have a question. Would it perhaps be possible to start a manual timed record on channel 999 or 1 or whatever instead of just starting live tv? This would provide a way of archiving from the watch-it-now? It could let you start the flick streaming, and walk away. Later, when you come back, you should have the movie in your sage recordings (Naming of the recording from the netflix info would be good) that you could watch just like any other recording?

Pretty excited to give this a try when i get home...

[Morgan111]

I don't thing it would be a good idea for me to record a copy of the videos. That could cause a bit of heartburn with the NetFlix folks. I am incorporating a download of movie files so that you can queue up movies to keep locally and get the highest bitrate and no worry about controls possibly not working during download. It would still require the custom player to watch it and the server loopback for viewing on the extender.

[Mitch G]

So, I loaded what I believe was 2.03b and 2.04b and got the Netflix main menu option and did the setup and I can see my DVD queue. But, I don't see my Watchnow queue. And if I browse Watchnow and select a category, it's empty.
At some point, I was shown my s-video tuner feed (i.e. my server's desktop), but nothing happened.
I'm probably missing some simple detail in all this, so any help would be appreciated.

Mitch

[Mitch G]

Update:
I decided to turn on the squeezebox, crank some tunes (as the young uns call it), and read through the original SageMC Netflix Plugin thread.
In there I found a little bit about copying the netflix properties from the client.properties file to the sage.properties file. So I compared sage.properties with client/<hd100>.properties, and lo and behold there was some missing data from sage.properties. So, I modified sage.properties accordingly, restarted SageTV.
This was much better, I was able to browse WatchNow videos and select one to play (e.g. Lethal Weapon). But, after a "Connecting to Media" and "Lethal Weapon - Ready" indication on the screen, nothing else happened. I tried pressing play, etc. but nothing.
Via my VNC connection to the server, I tried sending Ctrl-D which should mean play and a few other keyboard playback commands.

Any thoughts?


Mitch

[Mitch G]

The Mitch thread continues ...

Well, I got it working. On a whim, I imported the netflix stvi on my bedroom HD100 and it worked! (I watched the pilot for Dead Like Me - which I highly recommend.)
So, I went back to my family room HD100 and simply re-imported the stvi and it works there now as well.

I have a feeling that the steps to make this work on the HD100 might require importing the stvi via your server interface first and then import it on the HD100s. But that's just a guess and may have been more of a result of me screwing up some things earlier on.

Nonetheless, this WatchNow plugin plus the snapdaddy hack brings a whole new dimension to my HD100 love. Plus, the video quality is surprisingly acceptable - if not good.



Mitch

[sjrx0213]

Originally Posted by bialio

So is there any known way to make this work without using the Local System Account to run Sage Service from?

Snapdaddy's got the recipe for non-service mode, but if the goal is to do this with service mode AND retain the ability to use UNC paths, it would probably involve creating a separate service that's basically just a launcher for the NetflixViewer app. The launcher service would run under a Local System Account, while the Sage service would continue to run under a User account. The Netflix plugin would call the launcher service, and in theory, the viewer would run in GUI mode.

--Steve