[WIP] XBMC Flicks (Netflix Addon) Development Thread - Developers Only!

fekker Wrote:Linux - No Playback Support, you could use it to add/remove/search for items, but playback will not work
- Linux Playback is not supported and will not be unless Microsoft makes Silverlight for Linux, or Netflix uses something else. There are no workarounds.

Have you tried using Novell's Moonlight to get this running on Linux as well? I have never used Moonlight before and don't know how good it works but it might be worth a try.

Montellese Wrote:Have you tried using Novell's Moonlight to get this running on Linux as well? I have never used Moonlight before and don't know how good it works but it might be worth a try.

Moonlight is currently lacking the DRM portion of Silverlight so it can't playback protected content like Netflix.

On another note, for those using slate tablets (like the ExoPC) remove the -k option from the playercorefactory.xml args so you still have the menu options in IE.

fekker Wrote:For most shows I could show the season numbers (from the title), but others said stuff like "the eleventh year", and not season 11. Mythbusters in particular also didn't have much season relation as they group the episodes into bundle like things, instead of seasons.

Maybe just group it by the title of the disc set then. Mythbusters is notorious over on thetvdb for inconsistent season grouping...

I'll see what i can do with the shows

I'm also going to put together a IE in a windows form for Windows, it'll have an X button at the top right when not in full screen as a way to exit. I'll make some key combo as well that can be configured for exit. This should get around the alt+f4 not always exiting IE correctly (go figure). It's a few lines of code in c#, very basic, just IE embeded into the form. (i've tested and got it working with it just opening netflix main page, playback works fine as it's really just IE)

I'm working on the next rev, if anyone wants to test it out, it's adding support for the Disc queue items, it will also generate the .xml's as needed for the OS

I can't test with OSX, apple tv and Vista so any feedback on those would be good as well as all other OS's.

You can grab the zip from here
https://github.com/spudsdude/XBMC-Flicks/zipball/master

I like where this plugin is going and I'm impressed at the rapid state of development. That being said, I still find XBMC Flicks fitting into the category of clever-but-not-very-useful-proof-of-concept addons. I haven't used the IE wrapper yet but I think it might be the key to seamless integration. I use the official XBMC app to control my laptop htpc setup. The current solutions for accommodating XBMC Flicks into my remote setup are frustratingly complex and under-documented. I think the solution to this problem is to find a way to intercept remote commands sent to XBMC and pass them on to the netflix player. Whatever remote you use to control XBMC, it just works with XBMC Flicks.

I apologize if I seem overly demanding. I merely hope that my feedback may provide useful to development.

2mny Wrote:I like where this plugin is going and I'm impressed at the rapid state of development. That being said, I still find XBMC Flicks fitting into the category of clever-but-not-very-useful-proof-of-concept addons. I haven't used the IE wrapper yet but I think it might be the key to seamless integration. I use the official XBMC app to control my laptop htpc setup. The current solutions for accommodating XBMC Flicks into my remote setup are frustratingly complex and under-documented. I think the solution to this problem is to find a way to intercept remote commands sent to XBMC and pass them on to the netflix player. Whatever remote you use to control XBMC, it just works with XBMC Flicks.

I apologize if I seem overly demanding. I merely hope that my feedback may provide useful to development.

Feedback is good to get, always.

I agree the control of the video playback is not remote friendly, I fixed that buy getting a $7 remote that has a built in mouse, works awesome now.

The silverlight controls are all documented, the release post also lists what keys do what. That part is all silverlight, which is required by Netflix. Your Netflix playback in windows will respond the same way as when you launch it from xbmcflicks as I just tell the browser where to navagate to and which movie to play.

Granted, these are not always what you have xbmc set to. In my case, I remapped things in xbmc around the silverlight controls.

After I've got the plugin part's working, I'll dig further into the i.e. wrapper option and see what events (key presses, remote commands, etc) can be captured, some keys and commands are locked when silverlight is in fullscreen and can't be captured or remapped.

If anyone has ideas or wants to help, i'm all for it, it's open source after all.

I don't know if it's possible to get a custom player from Netflix done like the big dogs have (xbox, ps3, wii, boxee), that would be the ultimate way to go with the player option and could possibly expand it to Linux. But the odds of that are very slim, but i'll surely ask again

Should i add the full Netflix Catalog?

I'm also considering adding the full catalog, but i'm not sure that's the way to go. It's a ~200meg compressed file download that's changed daily by netflix with all the details of every title they offer. It does offer a TON more options, would need a database to store it and a routine to update it's contents.

Basically it would be like browsing your library of files, only with netflix data, instant watch would be easy click / play (like it is now, still using external player), disc queue could get pretty cool as well.

It might just be too much though as feature creep always gets me.

Downfalls
200mb daily download, local db that would have constant updates

Cool stuff
Every feature of the library in xbmc, but with netflix as it's source, filtered for instant watch items it's close to having them all locally.
Fast searches
Fast display of content
Full meta-data for all items

Thoughts?

I am all for it. I would love as native and feature-full of integration as possible. A 200 MB download per day is fairly large, but is still only 6 GB a month, not to big of a deal in my opinion.

I am starting to fiddle around with Event Ghost to see if I can get it to help me control XBMCFlicks from an IR remote. If I have some success, I will report back my configuration.

For me and my family, the ability to control the entire system with a Logitech IR remote is key. Still have Boxee kicking around on the media center for Netflix until I can control your excellent add-on entirely with the remote.

Thanks for the great work it is most appreciated!

fekker Wrote:Should i add the full Netflix Catalog?

I'm also considering adding the full catalog, but i'm not sure that's the way to go. It's a ~200meg compressed file download that's changed daily by netflix with all the details of every title they offer. It does offer a TON more options, would need a database to store it and a routine to update it's contents.

Basically it would be like browsing your library of files, only with netflix data, instant watch would be easy click / play (like it is now, still using external player), disc queue could get pretty cool as well.

It might just be too much though as feature creep always gets me.

Downfalls
200mb daily download, local db that would have constant updates

Cool stuff
Every feature of the library in xbmc, but with netflix as it's source, filtered for instant watch items it's close to having them all locally.
Fast searches
Fast display of content
Full meta-data for all items

Thoughts?

This sounds awesome.