Netflix "Watch now"

[uwfalcon]

I'm new to development in GBPVR but am a seasoned a .net 2.0 programmer. We built a bot the other day using the embedded IE control in .net. Could we use this same functionality to get "watch now" accessible in GBPVR. Since it only works in IE there has to be a way to embed an IE window in the program. I dont know if your framework supports this but would love to fire up people developing a way to use "watch now" in gbpvr.

[sub]

It doesnt specifically enable the embedding of IE, but it also doesnt control things too much, so there should be nothing to stop you doing this. Another user has embedded the Window Media Player control in his plugin, so there is a good chance you should be able to do the same with IE.

[folkboat]

Been using the Netflix "Watch Now" feature. Frankly I'm impressed!! Has a simple viewer, allows for full screen viewing of the movie, it can be paused and returned to later (resume from previous location).
Sure would be nice if it could be started and run from within GBPVR. Now it requires a keyboard & Mouse.
Anybody working on a plug-in?? Unfortunatly I'm not a programmer!!

[HydroChronic]

UbuStream is the plugin which has the WMP overlay. It also includes overlays for RealMedia, VLCPlayer, Quicktime, etc. I have just recently gotten back from vacation and have been taking a break from my own plugin production (which will probubly use some of the classes from UbuStream), but last I heard from Ubu he was putting together some documentation for the more general classes and methods from his plugins so other programmers can use them. I plan to follow up with him soon, since I want to start working on the plugin again.

[mkenyon2]

Sounds like this is down the ally of my WishList post.

[gnutech]

I heard NetFlix uses a proprietary player for their Watch Now service to prevent people like us from taking advantage of such a stream. What have you heard?

I'm a Redbox fan at the moment. However, if someone was able to get a plugin working for the NetFlix Watch Now service, I would convert in a second.

Please keep me updated.


Gary

[-Oz-]

gnutech, I think thats why they're talking of embedding internet explorer in gb-pvr, thus making it think its in IE when its actually not.

[ubu]

It depends why they "require" IE.

If it's simply because they're using the embedded WMP ActiveX player then UbuStream can probably already play the movie streams (by simply adding the stream URL as an UbuStream "station"). Or, if somebody wants to write a Netflix-specific plugin to support this, they're welcome to use my UbuNetStreamPlayer dll (as mentioned by HydroChronic) to play the movie streams.

However, they may be hooking into something specific to IE to handle digital rights management. Does anybody know if this is the case?

Another approach might be to use the .Net 2.0 browser control (which is, essentially, IE embedded in a form) to display the player page. I used this approach to build a rudimentary Flash video player for UbuStream a while back. (But then found that it was quicker and easier to grab the url of the underlying flv file and use the VLC ActiveX player to play it ).

My wife has a Netflix account so, when I get some time, I'll "borrow" it and see if I can figure out what's going on.

[ubu]

UPDATE:

Good news. Netflix WatchNow does work with UbuStream. Here's how I got it to work:

1) Using IE, download and install the Netflix movie player on your GB-PVR system (this will set up the neccessary DRM hooks).
2) Select a Watch Now movie and start playing it in IE.
3) Select View>Source from the menu and then use Find to locate the string "var WNPlaylistMovies". You'll see several URLs, one for each bitrate/bandwidth combo. Copy the URL you want to use. Stop the movie and close the player page.
5) Open the UbuStream config app and select New>Station. Paste the URL into the station URL field and enter the movie name as the station name. Make sure "Windows Media Player" and "Internal" are selected. Close the config app.
6) Start the UbuStream plugin from the GB-PVR main menu (Web Streams or Web TV/Radio, depending on the version you're using).
7) The new station should show up in the "Ungrouped" group. (Obviously, you could set up a "Netflix" group to contain the Watch Now movies you are currently watching).
8) Select the station and press the Play button.

The stream is "seekable" so you can use the FastFwd or Rewind buttons on your remote to resume playing where you left off (sorry - no "Resume/Restart" with the ActiveX player). Pause, Stop, Play all work as does the aspect ratio toggle button. I haven't tried using "Timeshift" play (don't know if the DRM management will allow it to be transcoded, so MVP users can do this too).

So far so good. My wife hasn't been using her free Watch Now time so now I get to use it. To make this a tad more user-friendly, somebody could write a simple Dynamic Source application (using UbuStream's exposed Dynamic Source framework) to make it easy to capture the movie URL and title (and, ideally, description, duration and thumbnail image, too) from the Netflix web pages and to automatically create UbuStream stations. Don't look at me. I'm too busy trying to finish the v2.2 release of UbuStream.

[mkenyon2]

Check out this thread:
http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php?t=27591