Hacking NetFlix

vmcNetflix: Watch Instantly on the Xbox 360

The vmcNetflix Windows Vista Media Center plug-in now has the ability to stream Netflix's Watch Instantly movies to the Xbox 360.

You'll need a Windows Vista Home Premium Media Center and an Xbox 360, and you'll need to associate the Xbox with the Vista computer. Install the vmcNetflix plug-in on the Vista computer, and then you can run it on the Xbox Media Center (you'll find it in the "Program Library" under "Online Media"). You'll have to enter your Netflix username and password, and then you can watch movies on the Xbox 360.

I got it working, and recorded a short video to demonstrate the vmcNetflix plug-in:

The vmcNetflix plug-in works, but it is a bit buggy. You might get codec errors, and have to wait before using fast-forward (it hung the Xbox on several occassions). You also have to make sure the Vista computer is running, otherwise it won't work.

The vmcNetflix plug-in also lets you search for movies, edit your queue, and more. If you have an Xbox and Vista Media Center, I recommend giving it a try.

via Thomas Hawk and Davis Freeberg.

Netflix Genre Search by Year Hack

Allan sent in an interesting trick that enables you to sort genres by year:

I wanted to sort the browse list of movies by year, but currently the site only allows you to sort by title, MPAA, and star rating. So I found a way, to do this, for example, if you go to action & adventure genre section and sort by title you get the url like this:

http://www.netflix.com/Genre?sgid=296&so=1&sc=0&lnkctr=ListSort_0&#list

If you change the url where the two zero occurs to 7, so the url now looks like this below:

http://www.netflix.com/Genre?sgid=296&so=1&sc=7&lnkctr=ListSort_7&#list

You get the list sorted by year, change &so=0 to reverse the sort direction.

This works in every genre section.

Netflix Customer Creates Watch Instantly Search Engine

Richard writes, " I am a Netflix subscriber that uses the instant viewing functionality extensively. However, searching their site for movies I want to watch is near impossible. To get the most out of my membership, I built a tool that indexes their site. I then built a site that allows for easy searching by director, actor/actress, and movie/show title. I figured other people would get good use out of it, so I put it online for everyone to use. I am completely open to suggestions, so any ideas you or your readers have for improving the search would definitely be considered."

Richard's Watch Instantly search engine is online at http://netflix.softworksdevelopment.com.

Share Your Queue & Reviews with FeedFlix

Feedflix is an interesting new service that enables you to share your queue and reviews, and you can also track how long you keep rentals.

Feedflix only has a small number of users, but they are already sharing some interesting aggregate information, including top rentals, most awaited movies, and shipments by weekdays (see chart, below).

To use FeedFlix, you need to copy and paste your RSS queue feed.

via Netflix Fan.

Dashflix Widget for OS X Updated; Needs Developers

Ryan updated the popular Macintosh Widget Dashflix to work with Netflix's website changes, and noted that the project needs developers to keep it alive:

I wanted to let you and your readers know that the Apple Dashboard widget Dashflix has returned after the last Netflix update brought it down. The original developer, in lieu of making fixes himself, donated his code to the public domain (thanks, Joshua Emmons!). I've resurrected it on Apple's Dashboard downloads, based on a Google Code project. I'll actually be suspending my NF account soon (long road trip), so I want to put out an appeal for some help from the Apple / Netflix / hacking crowd to make sure Dashflix at least survives, if not grows and improves, over time, independent of individuals' mercurial lives. Interested parties should join the project's discussion group.

How to Use a Remote With Netflix's Watch Instantly

Brent Evans has figured out how to use a remote with Netflix's Watch Instantly feature.

You can control Netflix Watch Now playback with your remote. All you need is a remote control, a infrared receiver like the USBUIRT and a program like girder. I'll show you how I'm doing this and share with you my girder gml file which you can download as well.

Do you use a remote control with Watch Instantly?

Netflix Watch Instantly in Ubuntu using Virtualbox

Kris Brower reports success using Netflix's Watch Instantly feature in Ubuntu using Virtualbox.

I am an Ubuntu user, and I already had vmware server installed with both a windows xp and vista. Both of these options ‘worked’, but the playback was so choppy the movies were unwatchable. Fortunately I found some other virtualization software and Virtualbox(the first one that I tried), worked smoothly. It also provided better windowed integration into Ubuntu as well a full screen mode that worked better on my dual monitor set up. This should hold me over until there is some proper linux support.

We Talk During Movies to Watch "Falling Down" Tonight

Group movie-watching experiment We Talk During Movies will be viewing Falling Down tonight at 7pm CST. You can use our own DVD, or watch along with John and his crew using your Netflix's Watch Instantly service.

iNeedFlix: Simple Mac Netflix Queue Management Program

iNeedFlix is a free Netflix queue management tool for the Mac. It's a great first attempt, but it does have a minor bug regarding availability. The one quirk is that you need to be logged into Netflix via Safari.

If you're looking for a full-featured Netflix program for the Mac, check out Netflix Freak ($15).

via TUAW.

Possible Workaround For Watch Instantly DRM Problems

Kevin wrote in with a possible solution to the Netflix Watch Instantly HDMI DRM problem:

I have an HDCP compliant motherboard, video card, projector and HDMI cable and have had zero luck getting the Watch Now feature to work - in spite of multiple phone calls to Netflix. Doing some searching I've realized several others have this issue as well. So....I discovered that I *can* stream movies if I use a VGA cable (analog) to the projector, but I was dissatisfied with the quality of the video compared to HDMI. Some tinkering showed me that if I run both an HDMI and VGA cable to the projector and setup my desktop to "clone" the display, I can easily stream movies and watch them over the HDMI cable. Finally, I decided to make a VGA terminator and voila! I plug the vga terminator into one of the video outs on the card, run my HDMI cable off the other one and set the display to "clone" mode. Works like a charm.

Here's the site that has the details on the terminator.

As with any hack, you should remember that there is risk of damage to your equipment (but what's life without a bit of risk?). If you try this, please leave a comment with your results.