HuLu/Netflix Queue as RSS Feed - Alpha release

[simonen]

Yes, but I think you will only be able to create 1 feed per folder containing videos. At least at the moment. That is why we are targeting the queues, because you can go online to hulu and netflix and assign videos to your queues.

You could create a feed for each program as well (CSI:Miami) for example.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

I've never looked into PlayOn before, and admittedly have not followed the "quest for hulu" here much, but this has my interest piqued.

I checked out the PlayOn site and saw this quote:


Does this mean that this plug-in opens the door (potentially) to getting CBS, CNN, ESPN, etc., streaming web video as well as the aforementioned hulu and netflix?

Yes.

Gerry

[Zippster]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Yes.

Gerry

That was going to be a "future" question of mine once the original dust started to settle. Many guys are making all sorts of additional programming plugins at several sites for Playon.

[brandypuff]

No one has addressed an earlier post requesting info on whether Playon is needed or not. If so, what needs to be done to set that up? I have no idea what Playon is.

I love the way someone posts a new utility and everyone immediately
jumps in knowing exactly how to use it while leaving the rest of us in the dust.

[Brent]

It appears that yes, PlayOn is required as you will note in step 1 of the instructions at the first post of this thread:

Instructions:
1.) Requires PlayOn to be installed.

Originally Posted by brandypuff

I have no idea what Playon is.

I love the way someone posts a new utility and everyone immediately
jumps in knowing exactly how to use it while leaving the rest of us in the dust.

Don't feel bad, my Dad says the same sorts of things all the time
Keep in mind this "addon" is in a very alpha infancy. Google PlayOn and you'll hopefully understand more. At the moment they're still testing things to see how it will all work - it's not intended for the regular end-user quite yet...

[simonen]

I updated my files to make use of Evilpenguin's new upnp2podcast.exe application. One of the issues that was found was that the timeline duration has a trailing ".0" for milliseconds that sage cannot handle.

The run.bat file (which is what you run) will place 2 files in the C:\xampplite\htdocs folder called "huluqueue.xml" and "netflixqueue.xml" These are the feeds.

If you wish to change the output location, you need to edit the run.bat file vbscripts. You will also need to modify vbscripts (hulu1 and netflix1) to use the IP address of your server so that the extenders can use it.

I am sure that none of this will be necessary once EP has updated his app. But the files are up in case anyone wants to try it. I will refer all future development to him from this point on since he is the one who has done a superb job getting this running.

[gplasky]

Don't those files need to end in .txt? It's not finding the video feeds. I had modified your earlier one to work with EP's latest and it worked. (Except for the duration thing) It's either .txt or modify your php scripts, isn't it? Renamed them to .txt in the bat and vbs files. Hulu is working fine. But the Netflix is giving me playback exceptions. Is this becasue my account uses silverlight? The rss feed shows the file links as mpgs. I've been able to get audio but no video with both directshow and sageplayer.

Gerry

EDIT: The Netflix is playing fine on my HD200. So it's probably a PC client/Directshow thing. I have PowerDVD, Microsoft and Divx h.264 and I'll reboot the client just to make sure.

[simonen]

They don't have to end in .txt, I think it tries to read it as text no matter what the extension is. I fixed the Netflix vbscript to get rid of that millisecond and it is working now.

I am using it right now and they are both working great on the extenders. I don't use the sage server for playback, so I have not tested much with that to be honest. I do know that there is aspect ratio issues which the extenders seem to handle much better.

[evilpenguin]

I can fix the duration right in the script, but what do we do if the video is over an hour long? I'm just going to e-mail Sage and ask them how they want the feed formated because I can't tell from the STV or the documentation what tags they're reading their data (size, thumbnail, description, date, etc.) out of.

edit: Oh, its the millisecond that's the problem? That can definitely be axed.

[simonen]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

I can fix the duration right in the script, but what do we do if the video is over an hour long? I'm just going to e-mail Sage and ask them how they want the feed formated because I can't tell from the STV or the documentation what tags they're reading their data (size, thumbnail, description, date, etc.) out of.

Just knock the milliseconds (.0) off the end and it will work. I was wrong about the leading zeros, those don't matter.

[evilpenguin]

Updated the download again

* Only prints out debug comments if you have a second parameter
* Removes msec from itunes duration

I took out the thumbnail for now because i'm not sure what format its gotta be in, but once I find out i'll add it back in.

Edit: Also be sure an tell people to upgrade their PlayOn to the latest version. They've improved how they present the metadata in the last few weeks and my script only looks for the latest version.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by simonen

Also, maybe you have already thought of this, but the localhost needs to be replaced with the network IP or else the extenders won't work with it.

Not sure quite sure what you mean by that, where are you seeing localhost referenced? Its showing up with the proper IP in my output

<enclosure url="http://10.0.1.2:63478/hulu-d53ad563-3086-426e-8179-524fc119e3db/1-hulu-d53ad563-3086-426e-8179-524fc119e3db.mpg" length="1653744000" type="video/mpeg2"/>

[simonen]

I see that the millisecond is now excluded, but I still get 127.0.0.1 for the IP. I assume you are using .net to program your app and I think the problem is that the function used to grab the network IP address does not work in windows 7 which is what I am using (at least I found it was a problem for vbscript). What Windows version are you testing in?

As a side note, would you rather me not to update my files and wait till you have some official released so that we don't confuse people with these 2 different approaches?

[HuMan321]

Originally Posted by simonen

I updated my files to make use of Evilpenguin's new upnp2podcast.exe application. One of the issues that was found was that the timeline duration has a trailing ".0" for milliseconds that sage cannot handle.

The run.bat file (which is what you run) will place 2 files in the C:\xampplite\htdocs folder called "huluqueue.xml" and "netflixqueue.xml" These are the feeds.

If you wish to change the output location, you need to edit the run.bat file vbscripts. You will also need to modify vbscripts (hulu1 and netflix1) to use the IP address of your server so that the extenders can use it.

I am sure that none of this will be necessary once EP has updated his app. But the files are up in case anyone wants to try it. I will refer all future development to him from this point on since he is the one who has done a superb job getting this running.

Hi,

I am running WHS on my Sage Server. This is where I would like to install Playon, but since the operating system drive is only 20GB I don't have much room.
I saw on the Playon forum a workaround (Junction) that would let you symlink to another location. I was thinking of going this way until I read your post about editing the .bat file for the Hulu and Netflix locations. Will that accomplish the same thing as far as keeping the operating system drive from being used for the transcoding, etc?
Thanks

[Mitch G]

UPDATE: Solved.
I was getting an error message when clicking on a movie in my netflix queue listing:
The video download failed. Error: The requested video was not found on the server.

It was fixed by re-running the bat file. I had updated and restarted playon since originally running the bat file. So I guess it was out of sync with what playon was thinking.

I guess I should add: This is the cat's pajamas!

Thanks,


Mitch

[Mitch G]

It's still the cat's pajamas, but ...
it appears that it doesn't handle TV series.
The generated xml file has my entire queue shown in the debug log, but only movies are put into the rss feed part of the file.


Mitch

[Slipshod]

Looks like the latest batch isn't working with Hulu... The run.bat file is only calling the upnp browser with a search depth of "2" levels, and no shows are showing up in my queue unless I increase that to "3" levels...

And then they show up multiple times since the 2nd level structure is 3 different views into the same queue...

I had to change this:
PlayOn:Hulu:User Queue:+2

to this:
PlayOn:Hulu:User Queue:+3

In the run.bat for it to work.

[evilpenguin]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

Looks like the latest batch isn't working with Hulu... The run.bat file is only calling the upnp browser with a search depth of "2" levels, and no shows are showing up in my queue unless I increase that to "3" levels...

Try this.

"PlayOn:Hulu:User Queue:Sort By Name:+2"

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

Try this.

"PlayOn:Hulu:User Queue:Sort By Name:+2"

Brilliant. Worked great.

And I've used the task-scheduler in Windows to automate running the run.bat in the morning, so hopefully this will keep itself maintained decently well...

[simonen]

Fixed now in the batch file. To my amazement, I was running v.2.59.3545 and when I updated to 2.59.3555, I then needed to use "Sort By Name".