vmcNetflix
is an add-in for Microsoft
Windows Vista Media Center which allows you to manage your
NetFlix subscription, stream NetFlix "WatchNow"
movies directly to the Media Center player, or download the movies for
playback later from a "WatchLater" gallery.
Requirements:
- Microsoft
Windows Vista with Media Center (Premium or Ultimate)
- A valid NetFlix subscription
- A broadband internet connection
- NetFlix Movie Viewer installed (i.e. make sure you can view WatchNow movies)
The major features currently included:
- Stream WatchNow movies directly to the
Media Center player.
- Download WatchNow movies to a "Watch Later" gallery.
- Support for Vista Extenders on both x86 and x64 platforms.
- Support for NetFilx Instant Queue.
- Support for Episode listings.
- Search for movies by keyword.
- Browse DVD and WatchNow movies by genres.
- Sort Gallery by Title or Year.
- View your queue, history, and recommendations.
- Add, remove, move movies in your queue.
- Dynamically switch between small, medium and large gallery listings using FastForward and Rewind buttons on your remote.
- Switch to full screen anytime video is playing by simply pressing the Play button on your remote.
- Prevents
standby/sleep while downloads are still in the queue - requires Vista Media Center PC to be configured in "Away Mode".
List of features I plan to work on, in no
particular order:
- Better/improved download status and queue management.
- Ability to add recieved DVDs to the Watch Later
gallery.
- Add support for Parental Controls.
List of known issues:
- When watching a streaming WatchNow
movie on the Extender, it seems that fast forward, rewind, & skip
is causing the extender to hang if pressed after starting the
movie Once the streaming buffer gets larger, it starts working
okay. Note: I've read reports online that other folks are having
the same or similar issues with other videos as well.
- When
initializing the movie player for the extender, it currently is not
uncommon for it to fail. See "Troubleshooting the extender setup"
below.
Installation:- Run the installer for the new version.
- Start Vista Media Center and you should find an entry in the Program Library under the Online Media strip.
- When
prompted enter your NetFlix username & password, click
the Remember checkbox if you don't want to keep having to entering it,
and select Login. From there it should place you in the Main Menu.
Steps to setup extender:- Install new version.
- On
Vista Media Center PC, start vmcNetFlix application - during startup,
you should see a dialog indicating Extenders can now be setup.
- Then
start up the Exender, connect to the Vista Media Center PC and
start the vmcNetFlix application on the Extender. You should
encounter several dialogs prompting you for options to setup the
extender for streaming. After this, it may take 30-50 seconds to
setup the Netflix Player on the Extender.
- The main menu will load and you should now be able to play
WatchNow or the downloads in WatchLater.
Troubleshooting the extender setup:- If
you are having issue with the extender getting setup, make sure you
don't have any antivirus software blocking vmcExtenderSetup.exe from
running.
- Sometimes it might take multiple initialization attempts before it works, so make sure you try multiple times...
Release Notes Beta 1.0.22 (5/10/2008):
- Fixed "Instant Queue" listings to support lastest Netflix website changes.
- Removed "Recient Additions" until it can be fixed/replaced,
- Changes to font size to help with 4:3 sized displays.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.21 (5/9/2008):
- Fixed various scrolling issues with the gallery items.
- Moved "Instant Queue" category to WatchNow menu.
- Fixed the issue with Reciently Watched movies showing up in the Instant Queue.
- Fixed the issue with menus getting reset when coming back from the Details page.
- Renamed WatchLater to Downloads .
- Increased spacing on menu items.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.20 (5/7/2008):
- Major change to UI look and feel - combined main menu and gallery pages, cleaned up details and settings page.
- With combined start page, should have slight faster load time.
- Added direct support for WatchNow queue (i.e. Netflix Instant Queue)
- Removed "A", "An" and "The" when sorting.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.10 (4/28/2008):
- Fixed issue with missing Genre listings due to NetFlix recent change in formatting.
- In the 'Your Queue' gallery, added addition In Queue listing for WatchNow-only movies.
- Fixed Install Upgrade issue in which addin was getting unregistered (hopefully this is the last one).
- Misc UI bug fixes (spelling errors and length of buttons).
Release Notes Beta 1.0.9 (4/26/2008):
- Added support for sorting gallery items by Title or Year, select your sorting preference in Settings->Gallery Options
- Centered the summary text.
- Fixed
some issues with the installer, which should now upgrade and repair.
Also, moving from a 4 field version to a 3 field version - which
solved some of the install problems.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.8.1 (4/25/2008):
- Fixed a bug that was preventing the application to run if it was a first time install.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.8.0 (4/24/2008):
- Added new configuration settings (under Settings) for Netflix
Connection (user/password), Gallery Options(default thumbnail size),
Bitrate Configuration (default stream/download bitrates), and Movie
Player (setup/initialization).
- Now displays movie summaries in the Gallery when Large thumbnails are selected.
- Now displays a different error if the connection is bad versus
invalid email/password.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.7.8 (4/19/2008):
- Removed automatic initialization of the movie player during
typical startups, this now only happens during startup when you
are going through the extender setup.
- If a movie fails to play, it will now ask if you want to re-initialize the movie player and try playing the movie again.
- Added a new button in the Settings page which performs initialization of the
movie player, this allows you to manually force the initialization
to happen without rebooting.
- Fixed an issue in which ffdshow which was causing the
application to fault.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.7.7 (4/17/2008):
- Modifications to simplify the Extender
setup. At startup, it now takes 30-50 seconds longer to load, but
everything is now done in the background and overall setup should be
more reliable. This greatly enhances the experience for those
wanting to Clone the license from the VMC PC.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.7.5 (4/15/2008):
- Fixed issues with downloading of some Episodes.
- Added some fault handings around some registry accesses.
- Extender
setup now provides two options for extender licensing, cloning the
license from the VMC PC or obtaining a new license from NetFlix.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.7.3 (4/13/2008):
- Fixed UAC issue with x64 platforms when sharing common files w/ extenders
- Removed registration of
'Services\Movies'
category, due to VMC Start Menu limitiations, this was overwritting
other Add-In's in the start menu. Will leave it in 'More
Programs' for now.
- Removed creation of desktop short-cut during install.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.7.2 (4/12/2008):
- Fixed the detection of an Extender vs. a Remote Desktop Session.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.7.1 (4/11/2008):
- Added support for Vista Extenders. Also sets up the
Extender's user session to share the main VMC NetFlix PC license,
typically each new Vista user will use up an extra license - of which
NetFlix only allows 4 total (which resets each year in January).
- At this point, Extender support has only been tested on a XBOX 360 and 32-bit Vista OS.
- Moved the storage location of favorites and cached files to a common area so extenders have access.
- Modifications to ease the transition when playing videos.
- Addressed more issues with UI behavior.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.6.0 (4/5/2008):
- Added caching of movie covers and implemented a major change
in the way gallery items were processed in order to enhanced
the load/response time.
- Removed video background, this was
causing occassional vmcNetFlix crashes when starting live video (like
switching to live tv) while vmcNetFlix was running. I'll look at
adding it back in at a later time.
- Modified to install vmcNetFlix Add-In under the 'Services\Movies'
category - this places it in the TV+Movies section. Will look
into making an option to install into different locations at a later time.
- Changed Browse DVD, it now shows New Release, Top 100, and Top 25 by Genre - the
search function still searches the entire database.
- Addressed more issues with UI behavior.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.5.5 (4/1/2008):
- Fixed issue playing downloaded files - if UAC is 'on', the
files could not be played because of security access placed on the
files. Modified security access of the downloaded files so that
"everyone" has full access to the files after download.
- Added
"play" key handler - now while in vmcNetFlix app, if video is
playing in the background and the 'play' key is pressed you will be
switched to "full screen".
- Added Small, Medium and Large
thumbnail support in the galleries. By pressing the 'FastForward'
or 'Rewind' keys, you can switch between Small, Medium and Large
thumbnails. The default is Medium.
- Started working on a Settings page, basic page now allows modification of username and password.
- Fixed some issues with UI behavior.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.5.0 (3/30/2008):
- Fixed some issues with UI behavior.
- Added a new "Favorites" sub-category in "Your Queue". Any movie can now be added to the "Favorites" sub-category.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.4.5 (3/28/2008):
- Fixed issue with "play download" not working.
- Fixed some spelling errors.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.4.3 (3/28/2008):
- Added support for episode listings.
- Some cosmetic changes (changed the wording and locations of some text).
- Now supports x64 w/o UAC modifications.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.3.1 (3/25/2008):
- Fixed application crash if "Your Recommendations" reports no movies.
- Fixed an issue in which gallery item tags where sometimes not getting displayed correctly.
- Moved more gallery item processing to the background, should improve response time a little.
- Non-WideScreen issues should be resolved.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.2.0 (3/24/2008):
- Modified detail text, should be easier to read now.
- Fixed random gallery items showing up in the Delayed
Viewing gallery.
- Added
"Go To FullScreen" button which will be displayed when there is
media playing in the background. This provides a way to get
back
to the movie from the vmcNetFlix application.
- Added numbering in each of the gallery
selections.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.1.1R2 (3/22/2008):
- Updated registion file in the installer to match
1.0.1.1 release files.
Release Notes Beta 1.0.1.1 (3/22/2008):
- Fixed "null" string exception using on-screen
keyboard, a condition that would happen after logging out.
- Reduced number of gallery pictures on main page if
non-widescreen resolution.
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Donations
This software is free of charge. However, if you wish to
express your appreciation for the time and resources that I
have spent for the development of this product,
I will glady accept and appreciate any donations.
Just click on the above PayPal donate button and follow the
instructions.
Since this was my first Media Center application, I started with the "Z" sample application
provided in the Windows Media Center SDK - it provided a great
jump-start for the UI, which really saved development time. I
also include the MiniHttp and NetFlixAPI
libraries, which aided in development as well.
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Screen Shots
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