Plugin: PlayOn in Online Services (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon VOD, etc.)

[gtallan]

I've been using this plugin with Playon (and an HD200) for a few months now, almost entirely for Netflix, and it's been almost perfect. But, the two times we've tried to watch a movie >2 hours long, it's flaked out, just over the 2 hour mark. I don't think anything is running out of disk space, on either the Playon machine or the SageTV server. I sent a support message to Playon (which i should have done long ago), but I wonder if anyone has had the same problem.

[mkanet]

Hey EvilPenguin, Happy Holidays. I just wanted you to know that sageTV support officially acknowledged the aspect ratio bug and support for dynamic sub-menus for TV seasons on Netflix and Hulu. I have a good feeling about their motivation to help you out as best as they can; since it doesnt make sense for them to do the same thing you did from scratch.

BTW, you probably already know this, but did you know that if you have playon installed on any PC on your LAN and dont even have a sageTV server.. just an HD-200 in standalone mode, you still have full access to Hulu, Netflix, etc. This is why I think that sageTV developers will develop software which is very PlayOn friendly.

My trial period no PlayOn expired a couple of days ago. I dont think I have ever registered and added a serial number to a shareware product as quick as I did with Playon. I did it so quick that my wife didnt even see the playon trial period expired error message (she was in the restroom at the time) before starting our Netflix movie. I now understand why someone said in an earlier post that this money was the best money they spent (I vaguely remember a comment like that).

Anyway, keep up the good work, this is definitely the hottest adddon for sageTV now in IMO the number of downloads since you released this addon speak for itself.

[JetreL]

Originally Posted by MavRic

Anyody have PlayOn installed on Win2k3 server?

I have it installed on WHS and it runs fine. The steps I took were.

1. Upgrade the OS (Security patches, IE update, etc)
2. Uninstall Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Add/Remove Windows Components -> Uncheck Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration)
3. Login to each site in the Internet Explorer browser.
4. Install/Configure PlayOn

And it works without a hitch.

[Olias]

Originally Posted by MavRic

Anyody have PlayOn installed on Win2k3 server?

I just installed it on my W2k3/SageTV server today.
The web link you refer to may seem complicated, but just follow it step for step and you should be OK.

I'm getting all the feeds showing up on my HD200s, but am having an issue with Netflix movies. Watch It Instantly works fine on the server while viewing via Silverlight in IE8, but is not working yet through Sage.

In Sage, I can pick a movie from my queue to watch but it never gets past the "Acquiring content license" screen.

The Sage timeline shows I'm at the end of a seventeen second clip and never continues to the actual movie.

This issue also crops up when running SageTv on the server or on an extender.
Time for some more troubleshooting...

[73cuda]

I just got this setup and also setup Hulu and Netflix accounts and when I select any of the displayed videos in STV they play fine, the videos I queued show up but when I select any of the videos I queued at hulu, STV displays "The requested video not found on server".

I can select any of the queued videos on hulu.com and they play online fine.

What do I need to do to get my queued videos to play in STV ?

[hobbs73]

Originally Posted by Olias

I just installed it on my W2k3/SageTV server today.
The web link you refer to may seem complicated, but just follow it step for step and you should be OK.

I'm getting all the feeds showing up on my HD200s, but am having an issue with Netflix movies. Watch It Instantly works fine on the server while viewing via Silverlight in IE8, but is not working yet through Sage.

In Sage, I can pick a movie from my queue to watch but it never gets past the "Acquiring content license" screen.

Olias,
I am having this EXACT same problem with my WHS setup. Netflix plays fine through IE8 on my server box, but I have no success with PLAYBACK of any netflix content via HD200's. All other playon services work properly.

When attempting Netflix playback, I was getting the "Aquiring content license" screen, followed by the following Netflix error: 8101-102-4003. Now I only get the 8101-102-4003 error repeatably. I have unintalled/reinstalled playon and silverlight. I also checked for STV updates, etc. All result in the same error.

Any help would be great. My playon trial runs out on 4 Jan, and I'm not going to purchase if netflix doesn't work.

Here's my configuration:
WHS SP2, IE8 with Enhanced Security Configuration OFF
Playon v2.59.3614.60
SageTV v6.6.2.218
Java 1.6.0
SageMC STV v6.3.9a
STV 2009120901
Playon plugin v1.6

Thanks!

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by hobbs73

Olias,
I am having this EXACT same problem with my WHS setup. Netflix plays fine through IE8 on my server box, but I have no success with PLAYBACK of any netflix content via HD200's. All other playon services work properly.

When attempting Netflix playback, I was getting the "Aquiring content license" screen, followed by the following Netflix error: 8101-102-4003. Now I only get the 8101-102-4003 error repeatably. I have unintalled/reinstalled playon and silverlight. I also checked for STV updates, etc. All result in the same error.

Any help would be great. My playon trial runs out on 4 Jan, and I'm not going to purchase if netflix doesn't work.

Here's my configuration:
WHS SP2, IE8 with Enhanced Security Configuration OFF
Playon v2.59.3614.60
SageTV v6.6.2.218
Java 1.6.0
SageMC STV v6.3.9a
STV 2009120901
Playon plugin v1.6

Thanks!

Don't know what to suggest, but I do have this plugin working on my WHS set up just fine. Works for Hulu, Netflix and Amazon VOD. I am at work and cannot check my software versions, but everything looks similar with the exception that I use the standart STV, not SageMC. I doubt that is the issue since there are lots of people using SageMC.

Just wanted to say that is can work with WHS.

[IVB]

I also have playon working with WHS on my HD200's for Netflix/Hulu. Only difference is that I use IE7. I can't remember what program suggested uninstalling IE8 when I couldn't get it to work, it might have been PlayOn but this is my Home Automation server as well so I've got a bunch of different things installed on there.

[bigbill]

Also, try running the playon program on another machine. My WHS box is fairly slow, so I never tried running it there. I just run playon from my workstation and my HD200 works directly via the drive mapping and also via SageTV with the 1.6 Playon (works better via this method, skip forward and back work!!) -Bill

[hobbs73]

Originally Posted by hobbs73

Olias,
Netflix plays fine through IE8 on my server box, but I have no success with PLAYBACK of any netflix content via HD200's. All other playon services work properly.

Here's my configuration:
WHS SP2, IE8 with Enhanced Security Configuration OFF
Playon v2.59.3614.60
SageTV v6.6.2.218
Java 1.6.0
SageMC STV v6.3.9a
STV 2009120901
Playon plugin v1.6

Thanks!

Thanks to all who responded. Here's where I am:
I don't know why I didn't try this earlier, but I tried accessing playon directly via the HD200 (not in extender mode), and netflix content played no problem! HD200 interface did not include all the nice metadata like within Sage, but I had no problems with playback.

I then tried playback through Sage again. All I get is the "Acquiring content license" screen, as before, that never goes away. I wonder if that screen and the 8101 error screen I was getting before are essentially the same indication. Does that make any sense?? Why playback behave differently between Sage Extender mode, and the straight HD200??

I'm convinced my problem is with Netflix, and the process it uses to activate/register the hardware being used to stream their content. I'm just not sure where to go from here.

[Olias]

You're better off than I am at this point. I tried Netflix on the HD200 in standalone mode and still get no video. No error messages, I pick a movie from my queue and the screen goes blank.

I just tried browsing to the Playon upnp service from my son's new Xbox 360 and I can play a Netflix movie without a problem.

I'd really rather not downgrade IE to v7 as prevoiusly suggested, but I don't know what else to try.

[sic0048]

If you are able to play the Netflix movie on the Playon Server with windows explorer, I'm not sure why that would work and Sage would fail. So I don't think down grading your IE is going to change anything. If it doesn't play in the IE on the Playon Server, then that is a different story.

[rileydogmi]

I worked with PlayOn support to troubleshoot the Netflix DRM issue. This below solved the problem (from PlayOn support):

Is your PC an XP 64-bit OS? If so, the Netflix player encounters a DRM error when run as a system service. Pleaese run
PlayOn under the following mode to work around it:

1) Stop the PlayOn Server in PlayOn Settings
2) Press the Ctl button on your keyboard while clicking the Start Button in PlayOn Settings
3) Try again to play the video through PlayOn while running in this "User Run" mode

So, for those running 64 bit OS's, do the above and it works like a charm.

Yes!

[evilpenguin]

Thanks for finding that out, i'll add that info to the first post

[Bikeman]

Olis,

Try pressing the play button on the remote a second time.

Jeff

[belleboyd]

I have your plugin running EP... and it's fabulous. I just wanted to see the folder structure of the PLAYON server to try and understand how it works per this from the install instructions:

"Simonen found a nice UPnP sever file browser you can use to explore whats available in PlayOn."

I can't install this .. because I seem to be missing a .dll. I don't always get a response from some of the selections, and wanted to see what was going on before I posted any further questions.

Am I missing something else? (which is probable..)

Thanks for your help. And thanks for this piece of work. It's really awesome.

Originally Posted by evilpenguin

This plug-in is ridiculously depreciated and has been replaced by this one...

http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44446

Originally Posted by belleboyd

Trying to learn the Custom Video stuff .. and when I went to install this I got an error that "libglib-2.0-0.dll" was missing. I don't want to just install this dll from some unknown site .. can anyone point me to a safe download ?
Thanks!

[Olias]

Originally Posted by Bikeman

Olis,

Try pressing the play button on the remote a second time.

Jeff

Bingo! That did the trick for standalone mode. But I still can't Watch It Instantly in extender mode (consistantly receive a 8101-102-4003 error).

I did find a how-to on the net on installing WMP 11 on Server 2008 (the OS doesn't support it by default). So I gave that a try before I saw your tip on double starting. Not sure if that helped or not.

[russellnewman]

Hulu Instant Queue > Are there limits to the number of items that can be read?

When I look at my Hulu Instant Queue on the website, I show 49 items, but only 30 of them are showing up in the "User Queue" for this plug-in. Is there a limit to how many items/shows the plug-in can bring over?

Is this a limit on the plug-in or on the PlayOn server?

[ohpleaseno]

I've never really wrapped my head around what I can do with this plugin beyond viewing Hulu.

If I have installed Playon Plugins on my server, they don't automatically come up with this plugin, correct? For instance, I want to view content from PBS on my HD-200. What exactly would I need to do?

Sorry for the almost remedial question, but I'm just not getting all the possibilities with this plugin. I'm sure it's more than I'm using it for.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by ohpleaseno

I've never really wrapped my head around what I can do with this plugin beyond viewing Hulu.

If I have installed Playon Plugins on my server, they don't automatically come up with this plugin, correct? For instance, I want to view content from PBS on my HD-200. What exactly would I need to do?

Sorry for the almost remedial question, but I'm just not getting all the possibilities with this plugin. I'm sure it's more than I'm using it for.

You must manually create the different UPnP file entries. So it really takes a lot of work getting the feeds to show up in SageTV. If you search this thread, there are some general instructions on how to do it. But it isn't easy which is why there are so few new feeds.