[RELEASE] XBMCFlix-o-mate

Wow!. Between -o-mate and the updated version of XBMCFlix, it looks like XBMC is getting a fully functioning Netflix plugin! Thanks!

The one big "feature" that would make it perfect is to implement remote control capability out of the box.

It seems the MS MCE Remote scheme is widely used and it controlls XBMC perfectly -- is there a way/plan to integrate MCE Remote support for it into the plugin?

(2012-04-26 21:20)Zellig Wrote:  Wow!. Between -o-mate and the updated version of XBMCFlix, it looks like XBMC is getting a fully functioning Netflix plugin! Thanks!

The one big "feature" that would make it perfect is to implement remote control capability out of the box.

It seems the MS MCE Remote scheme is widely used and it controlls XBMC perfectly -- is there a way/plan to integrate MCE Remote support for it into the plugin?

Short answer - no. And it's been asked and answered many times in these forums.

XBMC will never fully integrate Netflix unless Netflix provides the tools to allow the open source community to do this. Netflix is too concerned with DRM on their streams and currently the ONLY way to use Netflix on a PC is via the official Netflix Silverlight player through a browser.

Since that is the case, the only solutions would be to have a way to not only control IE (or whatever browser) with a remote control but also to control the Silverlight plugin. Not only that, but the Silverlight plugin does not expose control IDs for most of the controls, so really the ONLY way to automate access to them is via the method I have used - Image Recognition. Technically you can do it just based on coordinates, but it would not be as reliable (though it may possibly be quicker).

This question is really dead and buried and there won't be anything that changes in the near future. As soon as you being to see other players able to stream Netflix outside of the Silverlight plugin (via a browser wrapper) then you can ask that questions again. If you are on these forums you most likely don't have anything setup "out of the box" - getting all the features you want out of an HTPC is still a hacker's work.

Netflix may surprise us with a stand-alone player for the PC, that gives us the 5.1 support and remote control capability that is sorely needed. But, chances are if you are serious about your Netflix, it's easier and more functional to buy a $50 roku (or use your 360) then to try to get it going seamlessly with less features on a PC.

(2012-04-26 22:22)bengalih Wrote:  Short answer - no. And it's been asked and answered many times in these forums....

This question is really dead and buried and there won't be anything that changes in the near future. As soon as you being to see other players able to stream Netflix outside of the Silverlight plugin (via a browser wrapper) then you can ask that questions again. If you are on these forums you most likely don't have anything setup "out of the box" - getting all the features you want out of an HTPC is still a hacker's work. ...

Thanks for the reply, bengalih.

The reason I asked is because the MCE Remote functions work with both the Plex Netflix plugin (which works with SilverLight 4, but it has not been updated to 5), as well as with the Media Portal Netflix plugin, both the stable and the Alpha versions.

I assume that these other projects don't have any better access to Netfix, so was hoping that whatever they do, can be done in XBMC as well.

(2012-04-26 22:39)Zellig Wrote:  

(2012-04-26 22:22)bengalih Wrote:  Short answer - no. And it's been asked and answered many times in these forums....

This question is really dead and buried and there won't be anything that changes in the near future. As soon as you being to see other players able to stream Netflix outside of the Silverlight plugin (via a browser wrapper) then you can ask that questions again. If you are on these forums you most likely don't have anything setup "out of the box" - getting all the features you want out of an HTPC is still a hacker's work. ...

Thanks for the reply, bengalih.

The reason I asked is because the MCE Remote functions work with both the Plex Netflix plugin (which works with SilverLight 4, but it has not been updated to 5), as well as with the Media Portal Netflix plugin, both the stable and the Alpha versions.

I assume that these other projects don't have any better access to Netfix, so was hoping that whatever they do, can be done in XBMC as well.

This really belongs in the XBMCFlicks thread (or in the XBMC developer thread) and I had asked that this talk not be brought into this thread. But, as I already reinforced your behavior by answering you once, I'll continue on.

I believe that Plex works by re-streaming all your media. That is you set up a Plex server and have it play your media there and stream it out to your clients. This has a lot of benefits when it comes to playing video on multiple devices (like mobiles, etc)...but it can be slow and the quality can suffer. I remember watching a youtube video on some guys showing off Plex on some internet show, and they were raving about it - the whole time the video kept buffering...
I am assuming that the Plex server is logging into netflix and pulling the stream down and re-encoding out to the client. At that point, it is like VLC in a sense and whatever stream their client is then picking up can be controlled natively. I am not 100% sure how they do this, and if it is even kosher as far as Netflix is concerned. Suffice it to say the entire architecture is different from XBMC.

I don't know anything about Media Portal with the exception of the link I just looked at that you sent. This seems nothing more to me then a hack by a 3rd party trying to provide some additional functionality to a lacking product. The thread is riddled with reports of people having problems getting it to even enumerate the queue, and of the remote not working. Additionally, the only remote commands he supports are those already built into the Silverlight plugin. That's because it is trivial to send an "F" to Netflix to tell it to go full screen...

AFAIK however there exists not a single stand-alone silverlight player for Windows (or Mac, Linux I believe). Why is this? Look - it would be trivial for someone with the coding knowledge to write a better wrapper for the browser. Basically a Windows application that opened a browser inside of it and also supported remote commands which it would send to the browser running inside (this seems to me what most likely the Media Portal one is). But they still wouldn't be able to automate the remaining Silverlight controls unless they used image recognition (or possibly cooridnate mapping) as I do with XBMCFlix-o-mate.

I hear everyone bitching about how bad Netflix is on XBMC, but when I go research it and try to implement it on the other popular Media Centers out there it is just as bad or worse. Getting 90% of full functionality still requires multiple apps and workarounds.

Technically, XBMC team could write a better "wrapper" but it would be totally against the current code design of XBMC. XBMC doesn't "shell out" to external apps. It strives to incorporate everything inside and by using open source code. That is a big design factor - and something that I know at least Plex doesn't do.

I'm having some kind of difficulties with this addon. I have not yet binded anything to Eventghost since the keyboard shortcuts aren't working right now.
Only thing that does work is the pause ja exit (Q and space). And even they won't work unless I click to the browser screen first. Auto fullscreen doesn't work, neither does the fullscreen shortcut. I tried the debug version but it didn't show any problems, atleast anything I could notice.

I followed the instructions carefully, tried both x64 and x86 .exes, tried installing Autoit with 64bit libraries and 32bit libraries, with no success or changes whatsoever.

Hope you will find some workaround on this, I'm really looking forward for this addon.

I'm using Win7 64bit with xbmc 11.0 eden.

(2012-04-28 18:15)hoopz Wrote:  I'm having some kind of difficulties with this addon. I have not yet binded anything to Eventghost since the keyboard shortcuts aren't working right now.
Only thing that does work is the pause ja exit (Q and space). And even they won't work unless I click to the browser screen first. Auto fullscreen doesn't work, neither does the fullscreen shortcut. I tried the debug version but it didn't show any problems, atleast anything I could notice.

I followed the instructions carefully, tried both x64 and x86 .exes, tried installing Autoit with 64bit libraries and 32bit libraries, with no success or changes whatsoever.

Hope you will find some workaround on this, I'm really looking forward for this addon.

I'm using Win7 64bit with xbmc 11.0 eden.

Why don't you actually send the full output of the debug log screen along with what specifically you are trying?
What resolution are you running at?

(2012-04-28 18:48)bengalih Wrote:  Why don't you actually send the full output of the debug log screen along with what specifically you are trying?
What resolution are you running at?

Sorry, Here's the debug log. I just noticed that the pause command works because silverlight has pause on space natively, C+A+S+Space doesn't work either, C+A+S+Q still works thought.

I would love if the pause, Q and fullscreen would work, and optionally subtitles.

I'm running extended desktop, tv as my second screen at 1920x1080 resolution.

Edit :
I took a closer look on that debug log and noticed that it may be a problem with my Java, so I fully reinstalled x86 Java and now it doesn't give any errors. But it still doesn't work in extended screen mode, it doesn't find the netflix logo. I tried putting my TV as the only monitor and then everything works fine, except if I put it on fullscreen mode, I can't get back to normal mode and then subtitles won't work either. But that isn't a major problem, is there any way to get it to work with extended monitor, I'd like to still have my main monitor open without a hassle?

(2012-04-29 11:20)hoopz Wrote:  

(2012-04-28 18:48)bengalih Wrote:  Why don't you actually send the full output of the debug log screen along with what specifically you are trying?
What resolution are you running at?

Sorry, Here's the debug log. I just noticed that the pause command works because silverlight has pause on space natively, C+A+S+Space doesn't work either, C+A+S+Q still works thought.

I would love if the pause, Q and fullscreen would work, and optionally subtitles.

I'm running extended desktop, tv as my second screen at 1920x1080 resolution.

Edit :
I took a closer look on that debug log and noticed that it may be a problem with my Java, so I fully reinstalled x86 Java and now it doesn't give any errors. But it still doesn't work in extended screen mode, it doesn't find the netflix logo. I tried putting my TV as the only monitor and then everything works fine, except if I put it on fullscreen mode, I can't get back to normal mode and then subtitles won't work either. But that isn't a major problem, is there any way to get it to work with extended monitor, I'd like to still have my main monitor open without a hassle?

At this point in time it probably won't work with an extended monitor. I designed it for standard usage, which was single monitor monitor mode. There is hope of multi-monitor support, as I believe Sikuli supports it...but the documentation is a bit sparse and I have no multi-monitor setup to test.

In any event, I would be more concerned that even in single monitor mode you state things don't work. This may be related to the same issues kevev above is having and I would definitely want to test these first prior to trying to add multi-monitor.

So, can you confirm exactly which of XBMCFlix-o-mate's hotkeys (the CTRL+ALT+SHIFT ones) work in your single monitor mode when you are not in fullscreen, and when you are?

I actually didn't test this last release on my 1920 display. I am going to finish adding some more debug info into the next release, fully restest and then post it. If you can provide any more results before then I might be able to either fix the issue or better target the debug info.

(2012-04-29 17:37)bengalih Wrote:  At this point in time it probably won't work with an extended monitor. I designed it for standard usage, which was single monitor monitor mode. There is hope of multi-monitor support, as I believe Sikuli supports it...but the documentation is a bit sparse and I have no multi-monitor setup to test.

In any event, I would be more concerned that even in single monitor mode you state things don't work. This may be related to the same issues kevev above is having and I would definitely want to test these first prior to trying to add multi-monitor.

So, can you confirm exactly which of XBMCFlix-o-mate's hotkeys (the CTRL+ALT+SHIFT ones) work in your single monitor mode when you are not in fullscreen, and when you are?

I actually didn't test this last release on my 1920 display. I am going to finish adding some more debug info into the next release, fully restest and then post it. If you can provide any more results before then I might be able to either fix the issue or better target the debug info.

I did some further testing and the problems I had earlier had mysteriously disappeared, only thing that doesn't work is the automatic fullscreen. I don't know what I did this time but I'm gonna keep investigating, hopefully it was just a one-time bug or something else acting up. The automatic fullscreen isn't a problem at all since the hotkeys work.
Debug mode doesn't give any errors for the auto fullscreen failing, just:
debug: loading movie
debug: loaded movie
debug: full screen action!

Thanks for all your patience and work on this, awesome job!

(2012-04-30 01:09)hoopz Wrote:  I did some further testing and the problems I had earlier had mysteriously disappeared, only thing that doesn't work is the automatic fullscreen. I don't know what I did this time but I'm gonna keep investigating, hopefully it was just a one-time bug or something else acting up. The automatic fullscreen isn't a problem at all since the hotkeys work.
Debug mode doesn't give any errors for the auto fullscreen failing, just:
debug: loading movie
debug: loaded movie
debug: full screen action!

Thanks for all your patience and work on this, awesome job!

Sounds good...I'll hopefully be posting a new version later tonight. It may fix the auto full-screen issue...at the least it will give us some more debug info.

And, just for clarification, is it working for you in multi-monitor mode or just single? I'd be surprised if it worked for the former.