[Original Thread] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support (2 Viewers)

[morgan53]

Works great

I'm running latest svn and using WMP 11. Everything looks good with skin Blue3wide. Great to see netflix back on MP!

 

[Vaelek]

Couple of things.

#1. Why do only 14 items from the DVD queue appear?
#2. After selecting a movie from the instant queue, the coverart looks like it is over the top of a button or something.
#3. When viewing movie details, clicking play doesn't do anything?
#4. In movie details, I pressed up/down a few times and the description changed a few times, however the cover-art was displaying for the wrong title.
#5. No page up/down when browsing the queue (via channel button on remote)
#6. Browsing through the logs I see a few errors related to the plugin
#7. It does not look the same as the posted screen shots?
#8. The "I" button on my remote does not open any context menus, I have to right click an item with the mouse
#9. Selecting play from the context menu opens a full screen browser that just says I have to upgrade my netflix player, after installing, the same page loads again when trying to play.
#10. Nothing I press works to exit back to MP. I have to bring up the taskbar to close the IE window.
#11. The back button on my remote does nothing, I have to press escape to go back a screen.

Looking good, though it's basically just a queue browser for me currently. Also, this may be unrelated but after installing the plugin, the MP Config took forever to actually appear after launching.

 

[WileECoyote]

Here's some requests
1. Is it possible to have it start IE in full screen mode?
2. Could you make the enter key start the movie? It took me a minute to figure out I had to go to info to actually play the movie.

And some more bugs/feedback
1. I couldn't get it to run initially. Some testing finally showed that Silverlight does not work in 64 bit IE. When you try to play the movie, it it just sits. Changing the path to 32bit IE worked great.
2. The right arrow key consistently crashes MP on the instant queue movie selection when you first get to that screen.
3. You might want to tell users where to find it in the streamed MP editor in the instructions.

Thanks for your super quick feedback Mellroc!

1. Do you mean start silverlight in Fullscreen? I use the -k switch with IE to start it in Kiosk mode, is this not working for you? As far as starting the Silverlight fullscreen, I think Keith2048 is working on something for us there...
2. Great suggestion! Why didnt I think of that It will be in the next release.


1. Interesting observation, I will put that in my instructions.
2. I will look into this issue and will have a fix in the next release
3. I will add that to the instructions

again!

After thinking about it i dont think we need to use a third party utility to control playback. Since MP is still listening for user input you can have the pause (or whatever button) button move the mouse to a certain point and click, and you could have a calibration portion, so if the button moves then all the user would have to do is recalibrate it. I'm using this in my plugin, so if you have questions let me know. Just a thought

I'll try and keep this small (feature requests).
1) Move the mouse off screen when playing videos
2) A way to browse for watch instantly videos
3) This is probably an netflix api issue, but is it possible for TV series to browse the episodes?

Great plugin!

That would be fantastic if we could get it to work without some other software! Could you give us a detailed description of how you got this to work? I have never used the mouse features that way...

1. Hopefully when it goes fullscreen, Silverlight will automatically hide the mouse. If not, maybe your suggestion about moving the mouse for other fuctions may come in handy here as well
2. As of now the NetFlix API does not provide for this, but I think I may have a way around it in the near future. I want to be very careful not to break NetFlix policies. If we stay within the boundries of their agreement we shouldnt have any issues growing this project.
3. This is an issue that Blitzkrg has run into, and I am working on a way to get the information to display. I will keep it on my to-do list.

Thanks again for the help Keith. Your testing has also been key to the sucess of this project!

Wile E.

Couple of things.

#1. Why do only 14 items from the DVD queue appear?
#2. After selecting a movie from the instant queue, the coverart looks like it is over the top of a button or something.
#3. When viewing movie details, clicking play doesn't do anything?
#4. In movie details, I pressed up/down a few times and the description changed a few times, however the cover-art was displaying for the wrong title.
#5. No page up/down when browsing the queue (via channel button on remote)
#6. Browsing through the logs I see a few errors related to the plugin
#7. It does not look the same as the posted screen shots?
#8. The "I" button on my remote does not open any context menus, I have to right click an item with the mouse
#9. Selecting play from the context menu opens a full screen browser that just says I have to upgrade my netflix player, after installing, the same page loads again when trying to play.
#10. Nothing I press works to exit back to MP. I have to bring up the taskbar to close the IE window.
#11. The back button on my remote does nothing, I have to press escape to go back a screen.

Looking good, though it's basically just a queue browser for me currently. Also, this may be unrelated but after installing the plugin, the MP Config took forever to actually appear after launching.

Thanks for the feedback Vaelek! In order...

1. For some silly reason, NetFlix doesnt index any items in the DVD queue after 14. So there are no position/index numbers for me to pull from in the code. I am currently looking for a way around this...
2. Which skin are you using? If its Blue3Wide I think I see the issue.
3. As stated in the first post, this plugin is very context menu driven. Mellroc had a great suggestion as well, so I will make it to where if you hit play or select/enter it will start to play the movie (if its a watch-now movie)
4. I will research this more... (Actually I have never tried that, interesting find )
5. That is not a feature I have built in just yet.
6. The NetFlix API has been challenging to get to work properly. The Movies are seperate from Series which are sepreate from other...etc. So I am trying to work through every scenario to get all movies to display correctly.
7. If you are using the Blue3Wide skin, that would be why. The screen shots are from the StreamedMP skin. I hope some skinners take this and run with it so it is supported by all skins... I welcome any help (Please )
8. Which remote do you use? Has the I button been re-assigned for another function?
9. Can you play a NetFlix movie in IE outside of MP? I looked at your logs and your account is authorized, so this would be a browser related issue.
10. Which remote are you using? I know Keith had an issue with his Hauppauge remote initally (See my first post instructions on how to fix.)
11. Again it sounds like button assignments? I know the MS remote back button will return me to the Home, as well as the Green Button.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Wile E.

 

[Vaelek]

Thanks for the feedback Vaelek! In order...

1. For some silly reason, NetFlix doesnt index any items in the DVD queue after 14. So there are no position/index numbers for me to pull from in the code. I am currently looking for a way around this...
2. Which skin are you using? If its Blue3Wide I think I see the issue.
3. As stated in the first post, this plugin is very context menu driven. Mellroc had a great suggestion as well, so I will make it to where if you hit play or select/enter it will start to play the movie (if its a watch-now movie)
4. I will research this more... (Actually I have never tried that, interesting find )
5. That is not a feature I have built in just yet.
6. The NetFlix API has been challenging to get to work properly. The Movies are seperate from Series which are sepreate from other...etc. So I am trying to work through every scenario to get all movies to display correctly.
7. If you are using the Blue3Wide skin, that would be why. The screen shots are from the StreamedMP skin. I hope some skinners take this and run with it so it is supported by all skins... I welcome any help (Please )
8. Which remote do you use? Has the I button been re-assigned for another function?
9. Can you play a NetFlix movie in IE outside of MP? I looked at your logs and your account is authorized, so this would be a browser related issue.
10. Which remote are you using? I know Keith had an issue with his Hauppauge remote initally (See my first post instructions on how to fix.)
11. Again it sounds like button assignments? I know the MS remote back button will return me to the Home, as well as the Green Button.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Wile E.

2/7. I am using blue3wide yes. I will give StreamedMP a shot later tonight.
8/10. I am using an HP MCE remote. http://memages.jrpereira.com/images_junk/hp_media_center_remote.jpg I have no problems in any other areas of MP. I have not reassigned anything and the I button brings up context menus normally in MP. Also, in anything else, backspace will go back a screen, when in the netflix plugin, I have to press escape to go back.
9. Yep. This could be a 32 vs 64 bit issue. I will have to check the path when I get home tonight but I think I may have put in the 64bit path.
11. I have not tried the green button but going all the way back to home isn't as spiffy as going back one screen

 

[DerZwen]

I don't seem to get it to work

Hi There,

first: Great Idea!
But as always it's never as easy as I thought it would be. I got Netflix running via IE, but the plugin doesn't show me my instantqueue or recommendations. I sat it up, as it is documented within the read me. Any Hints on what I did wrong?

Thx

Sven

 

[WileECoyote]

After thinking about it i dont think we need to use a third party utility to control playback. Since MP is still listening for user input you can have the pause (or whatever button) button move the mouse to a certain point and click, and you could have a calibration portion, so if the button moves then all the user would have to do is recalibrate it. I'm using this in my plugin, so if you have questions let me know. Just a thought

Keith I think this is totally possible. I am playing with a few things now to see if I can get the mouse control to work properly. This is going to be so much easier than a third party utility...

 

[Vaelek]

After thinking about it i dont think we need to use a third party utility to control playback. Since MP is still listening for user input you can have the pause (or whatever button) button move the mouse to a certain point and click, and you could have a calibration portion, so if the button moves then all the user would have to do is recalibrate it. I'm using this in my plugin, so if you have questions let me know. Just a thought

Keith I think this is totally possible. I am playing with a few things now to see if I can get the mouse control to work properly. This is going to be so much easier than a third party utility...

This may not be possible since IE is not being hosted by the plugin but rather being launched in kiosk mode, but one could use the DOM to directly interact with the controls on the page. Other plugins that manually moved and clicked the mouse have run into issues with varying screen resolutions, one thing to keep in mind.

On a side note, any particular reason for launching IE rather than just hosting a full screen WebBrowser control in the plugin?

 

[jdoo]

Wow, many thanks for working on this plugin. Netflix support is the only thing truly missing from my setup and is also really the only thing I use my xbox360 for these days.

I can't wait to try this out!!!

 

[dcwp]

Thanks for cranking this out! I managed to get a couple of unexpected days at home, so this is good timing.

I'm just now messing with it and I've got a little kink, or perhaps I just need to poke it a little more.

First question: Is it necessary for IE to be set as default browser? When I hit the "Authorize" button, it took me to the authorization window in FireFox. In the last incarnation of this plugin, it was absolutely crucial to garner cookieID from the IE browser. I tried to work around this by copying the URL into an IE window and authorizing there, then clicking YES.

I think that was a bad idea since the plugin doesn't seem to gather any of my information from Netflix. So second question:
Is it possible to re-authorize? I went back to the config window and hit the authorize button again, but instead of taking me to the authorization page, it simply returned the message "User is Authorized." Can I force a reauthorization?

Thanks for any help. I'll keep futzing around and see if I can figure it out myself.

OK, here's another fundamental question. How do I opt in to the Silverlight player. I have studiously avoided it up until now since I understand there is no opting out once you've got it. But this is a good reason to jump in. I'm looking around Netflix.com right now and oddly don't find any links that would obviously do this.

Thanks again for any advice. I'm feeling a bit lost today.

 

[WileECoyote]

Hi There,

first: Great Idea!
But as always it's never as easy as I thought it would be. I got Netflix running via IE, but the plugin doesn't show me my instantqueue or recommendations. I sat it up, as it is documented within the read me. Any Hints on what I did wrong?

Thx

Sven

Hi Sven,
Could you post your logs?

Thanks!
Wile E.

First question: Is it necessary for IE to be set as default browser? When I hit the "Authorize" button, it took me to the authorization window in FireFox.

Is it possible to re-authorize?

OK, here's another fundamental question. How do I opt in to the Silverlight player. I have studiously avoided it up until now since I understand there is no opting out once you've got it. But this is a good reason to jump in. I'm looking around Netflix.com right now and oddly don't find any links that would obviously do this.

For the first version, I have focused on IE. I will look into other browsers as we move along...

Yes it is possible to re-authorize. If you delete the NetFlixDatabase database you will have to re-authorize yoru account. Also, dont forget to save your browser settings.

You can opt in to NetFlix Silverlight at Netflix Online Movie Rentals - Rent DVDs, Classic Films to DVD New Releases

Wile E.