vmcNetFlix

• 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)

• 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, Year, or Star Rating.
• View your queue, history, and recommendations.
• Add, remove, move movies in your queue.
• Supports DVD/Movie Partental Controls
• 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".

• Look into the ability to switch between DVD and BluRay.
• Improve Episode listings.
• Better/improved download status and queue management.
• Ability to add recieved DVDs to the Watch Later gallery.

• 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:

1. First, make sure you verify the following items:
• Can play a NetFlix instant movie on the VMC PC manually from the NetFlix website via IE7.
• IE7 set as the default browser.  IE7-32bit should be the default if you have a x64 OS.
• Check the Windows Media Player Privacy settings (Tools->Options->Privacy) and make sure "Download usage rights automatically" and "Automatically check if protected files need to be refreshed" are checked..
2. Run the installer for the new version.
3. Start Vista Media Center and you should find an entry in the Program Library under the Online Media strip.
4. 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. 
5. You should then see a dialog indicating Extenders can now be setup.
6. From there it should place you in the Main Menu.

Extender Setup:

1. First, follow the steps in the Installation section above and make sure you can play movies using the vmcNetFlix plugin on the VMC PC.
2. Then start up the Extender, connect to the Vista Media Center PC and start the vmcNetFlix application on the Extender.  
3. You should encounter several dialogs prompting you for options to setup the extender for streaming.  When asked to "clone" the VMC PC license, choose Yes.
4. After this, it may take 30-50 seconds to setup the Netflix Player on the Extender.
5. The main menu will load and you should now be able to play WatchNow or the downloads in WatchLater.  If not, proceed to the Troubleshooting the Extender Setup section below.

Troubleshooting the Extender Setup:

1. If you are having issue with the extender getting setup, make sure you don't have any antivirus software blocking vmcExtenderSetup.exe from running.
2. Make sure IE7 is setup as your default browser.
3. Sometimes it might take multiple initialization attempts before it works, so make sure you try multiple times...
4. Some have experience a failure due to a update being required for the netflix movie player.  The update has to be done manually by attempting to play a movie manually on the NetFlix website running IE7 on the VMC PC that the extender is connected to.  Then attempt to play a movie using the plugin on the VMC PC, then attempt to play a movie on the Extender again.
5. Attempt to reset the extender in Settings->Movie Player->Reset Extender.  Re-run the plugin on the extender, it should ask you to clone again - answer yes to cloning. Then try playing a movie - re-init the movie player when asked (trying several times if necessary).
6. Try turning off User Acces Control (UAC) and then try Step 4 & 5 again.
7. Try extending the re-init timeout (Settings->Movie Player->Extender Setup Timeout) and then try Step 5 again.
8. Some have solved their problem by doing a complete re-install, as follows:
• Completely uninstall the vmcNetFlix plugin (see Complete UnInstall section below).
• Uninstalling the extender from the VMC PC (Within Media Center on your VMC PC,  go to Tasks->Settings->Extender, select the Extender and click on UnInstall)
• Reinstall the extender again (Within Media Center on your VMC PC, go to Task->Add Extender and then on your XBOX go to Media->Start Windows Media Cente and then enter your code on your pc.
• Proceed with the steps in the Installation section above.
• Proceed with the steps in the Extender Setup section above.
9. If none of these help, send the following logs to vmcNetFlix@gmail.com:
•  C:\Users\Mcx1\AppData\Local\Temp\ehExtHost.log
•  C:\Users\Mcx1\AppData\Local\Temp\vmcExtenderSetup.log
•  C:\Users\Mcx1\AppData\Local\Temp\AxPlayer\AxPlayer.log
  

Complete UnInstall:

1. Uninstall from Control Panel->Programs and Features->Vista Media Center vmcNetFlix Add-In.
2. Remove the following, if they exist:
• C:\Program Files\Luttmann\vmcNetFlix
• C:\ProgramData\vmcNetFlix_Data
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Luttmann\vmcNetFlix
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Luttmann\vmcNetFlix

Get Downloads Here

• Added option to use Web/Silverlight player instead of Windows Media player.  This provides some functionality for those using the new silverlight player.  The option was added under Settings\Movie Player.

• Fixed movie limitation on StarzPlay, WatchNow and BrowseDVD categories.

• Modifications to address login issues due to Netflix site changes.
• Added 'Stars Play' category.
• Moved categories so that the Instant Queue is displayed first.

• Fixed issue displaying Instant Queue.  
• Fixed issue w/ listing all search items.
• Updates to login page
• Made install check less restrictive, now requires Vista+ instead of requiring Vista-only

• Went back to using external vmcExtenderSetup application - works for 64-bit OS's and has the advantage of being able to kill the process after timing out, if necessary.  
• Modifications to support detection of virtualized registry keys when IE runs in Protected
  Mode.
• Fixed minor spelling error.

• Modified so that ExtenderSetup only uses 32bit WebBrowser component - did not help on 64bit platforms!

• Modifications to reduce startup time when processing DVD and Instant queues.
• Backed out URL encoding of password when attempting to sign in - it did not help!

• Updated WatchNow URL links to match recent update from NetFlix.
• Fixed crash on startup if ApplicationStorage did not contain user/password.
• Now displays plugin version on main gallery page.
• Added option to prompt for login, instead of just aborting, during certain login failures.
• Now URL encodes password when attempting to sign in - might help with passwords containing special characters.
• Fixed crash which occurred when attempting to play but was unable to get streams correctly.
• Fixed issue when attempting to play certain movies (i.e. Blade Runner), in which it was unable to obtain stream.

• Fixed application crash that occurred during launch of plugin - this most likely would happen on new installs or after a Complete Uninstall was performed.

• Addressed issues found in displaying text on detail pages.
• Re-added manual sorting for categories that cannot get the data in pre-sorted order.
• Fixed crashing issues when attempting to re-init the movie player.

• Fixed bug in which only the first 24 titles were being displayed

• Several changes to address performance and cache problems.
• Added "Watch New" and "Browse New" category items.
• "Browse DVD" category now lists all the movies, not just the Top 25.

• Now support lastest Netflix website changes (again).

• Bug fix to support movies from different server hubs (by coderanon)
• Small changes to avoid hanging when invoking movie (by coderanon)

• Modifications to support lastest Netflix website changes.

• Attempt to fixed issue with Settings pages getting cut-off on lower resolution displays.

• Fixed issue with vmcExtenderSetup.exe crashing.

• Fixed another issue that might have been causing the plugin to fail.

• Now prompting for Pin if when going into settings if Parental Control is enabled.
• Addressed some issues that might have been causing the plugin to fail.

• Added star rating to the displayed movie metadata and sort functionality.
• Added setting to disable thumbnails in gallery page.
• Fixed issue in which small thumbnails could override large thumbnails in cache (or visa-versa).
• More updates to Gallery UI.

• Added support for Parental Controls.  It uses the 'DVD/Movie Ratings'.
• Rewrote the logic to get episode listings, hopefully this will address the issue with missing episode listings.
• Most "Settings" are now stored so that both the VMC PC and Extenders use the same settings.  If you make a change on the VMC PC, the extender will now recognize the change (and visa-versa).
• Changes to address issues with special characters in the password/username when attempting to re-init the movie player.
• Modications to gallery UI to address possible overscan issues on extender.
• Other minor UI modifications.

• Fixed a issue causing a crash when displaying the details page.

• Added new category configuration - you can now determine which categories you want displayed.  After changing and saving the list of categories to be displayed, the plugin will need to be restarted.
• Added support for triple-tap entry in all edit fields.
• Background is now configurable (spotlight or none). 
• Moved Search/Download/Settings so that they can be selected by mouse.
• Added ability to clear movie cache in the settings.
  
• Fixed some parsing issues when displaying episode listings.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• Fixed a bug that was preventing the application to run if it was a first time install.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.
  

• 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.  
  

• 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.

• Fixed the detection of an Extender vs. a Remote Desktop Session.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Fixed issue with "play download" not working.
• Fixed some spelling errors.

• Added support for episode listings.
• Some cosmetic changes (changed the wording and locations of some text).
• Now supports x64 w/o UAC modifications.

• 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.

• 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.

• Updated registion file in the installer to match 1.0.1.1 release files.

• 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.

Donations

Screen Shots