Brent is trying to decode the URL's that Netflix is using to display the movie previews so they can add support for them to a Netflix plug-in for Snapstream's Beyond Media product.
Brent writes:
We have recently run into a snag with the preview function because Netflix has changed many of their newer previews to use flash video instead of the old way. In doing this, the link to the flash videos are more hidden and tougher to discover the link that would be needed for each preview (for each movie). I'll copy my question from my post in the snapstream forums below, but wondering if any hackingnetflix.com readers have any ideas around the problem. It sounds more complicated than I've made it, but I definitely could use some help.The Links seem to be unique for each swf preview (not just a different id substituted in the same link) so there doesn't seem to be a way to predict what they will be. Some examples:
Here are some examples of movie previews on netflix and the underlying link code - you can copy each one and paste into your browser to see the preview:
As you can see, the movie id is distinct (31181 for cars, 30209 for da vinci code and 30596 for eight below), but the rest of the link seems to be somewhat unpredictable. look at the number after sid= on each link. This number is different for each one.
It looks like the http://screeningcdn.nflximg.com/us/flash/210.swf part of it seems to be the flash based embedded object that pulls up the movie player. Try it in your browser to see what I mean. I'm not sure why cars uses 235.swf and the other two use 210.swf, but I did notice that cars will play the preview even with 210.swf in the link. I'm more interested in the sid (long number starting with 10111..............) that is in the code. Not sure how to decifer that part of it. The old, non-flash previews were easier to pull up since the only unique thing about them was the movie id number (like 31181 for cars).Anyone have any ideas on how to deal with this problem on the netflix previews?
Thanks Mike,
If anyone has any ideas on this feel free to respond here under comments or on the snapstream forums at http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showthread.php?t=34794
I would really appreciate any feedback on this!
Brent
Posted by: brent | November 10, 2006 at 02:58 PM
OK, the 210.swf and 235.swf just refer to the players version. As far as I can tell the "bl" variable refer to an alternate hosting url for the flv (flash video) files. But that does not seem to be implemented yet.
The "sid" and "dlid" variable seem to not do anything but make the url look scary.
To retreave the .flv files, you use the url http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/trailers/ then follow that with the last 2 digits of the movieID then another slash, then the movieID in full and end that with .flv so that would look like http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/trailers//.flv
So CARS would be:
http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/trailers/81/31181.flv
And Eight Below:
http://cdn.nflximg.com/us/trailers/96/30596.flv
---
After looking over the code some more, it looks like the sid is just a session id for use in the analysis statistics via the log files to see which movie trailers are viewed most and by whom and which browsers ect.
Posted by: dmardan | November 10, 2006 at 11:00 PM
I haven't played with the netflix previews, but in web apps, SID virtually always means session ID, which is a long string of randomly generated numbers and characters assigned to you when you first access a website, and then used to track you while you browse. It is often also stored locally in a cookie so the site can remember you when you return. Here it is being passed to a separate domain, nflximg.com, so netflix can log/track you as you switch sites (cookies won't work for this since it is a different domain).
hope that helps
Posted by: DocForbin | November 12, 2006 at 01:14 PM
A big thanks to Mike of www.hackingnetflix.com who posted my question here, dmardan and docforbin for the great information. With your help we have the netflix plugin working for all previews again on Beyond Media.
If you're interested, the final instructions for the plugin are here:
http://forums.snapstream.com/vb/showpost.php?p=219857&postcount=22
Thank you!!!
Brent
Posted by: brent | November 13, 2006 at 10:40 PM