Amazon On-Demand Video Addin for Media Center

[micallen]

https://www.youtube.com/tv

404

You must use Google Chrome. It will not work in any other browser.

I'm using Chrome. It wasn't working - but now it is. Go figure.

[nathagt]

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/tv#/browse

Google TV
http://www.google.com/tv/spotlight-gallery.html

Update:

Here is the link to the icons from my dropbox. There are active and inactive state versions.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10996823/Icons.zip

[nathagt]

Back to our topic, here are some things I would love to see incorporated into this addin with time:

- HD if Amazon allows this. Anyone know what resolution it is now?
- 5.1 audio
- Movie/TV rental
- Ability to add to watchlist
- Resume playback. right now it seems to start over each time

[KerrAvon]

Hi Nathagt - all of those are on the roadmap. The better video/audio may need to wait until the Silverlight player is working.

Movie/Tv Rental/Puchase, Add to Watchlist, and resume playback are all being actively developed.

A new update is going out tonight with Skip Forward/Back support, UI improvements, new animations and other code improvements.

[nathagt]

That's great news! One question - for content I've bought from Amazon... will it stream that or do I need to have it downloaded already?

[woodchuck]

- HD if Amazon allows this. Anyone know what resolution it is now?

I just noticed this on Amazon's site regarding HD:

"HD playback is not available on all devices. For example, some Roku and TiVo devices don't support HD content. The Kindle Fire HD is HD compatible, along with Windows computers that meet the content protection (HDCP) requirements."

Does anyone get HD from Amazon on their PC? I've never watched anything on a PC streamed from Amazon that looked even close to HD. My entire system is HDCP compliant as well. Thoughts???

[soccerdad]

If I use the amazon web interface directly from the PC (not wmc) it uses Silverlight and I do get HD to my TV. Not sure how to check what it really is, but the HD box in the Silverlight player is highlighted and the picture looks pretty nice. Through this addin, the picture is pretty good, but definitely not HD. So like Marc said, we will have to wait for Silverlight. (But once there, it should be REALLY nice)

[woodchuck]

Well, that makes perfect sense. The majority of my experience is via the MC Plugin, and/or the web browser from some time ago. Silverlight probably wasn't around then. Here's to looking forward to Silverlight support in Marc's plugin!!!

[nathagt]

I just checked with both chrome and IE and I'm only getting 480p on movies that are advertised as HD. I tried streaming an HD version of a tv show that I bought and got 720p. I don't use a graphics card but I'm pretty sure my intel mobo and i5 meet HDCP standards. I did notice that both my browsers are using flash instead of silverlight. Trying to force it to use silverlight instead.

Update: Silverlight gives me HD in both browsers.

[KerrAvon]

Hi Nathagt,

If the purchased content is available for streaming you can stream it via the add-in - no problem. I am doing that now with purchases.

[Randyored]

Thanks so much for this plugin! I have high hopes for this app.

The UI looks great! Yet, there are issues...

Right now, for me, there are some core issues. It does not show HD video and what does play is not very smooth. The video stutters/jitters. It is very watchable, but just not smooth. Amazon audio sometimes quits. Have to exit MC to fix it. Maybe Silverlight will fix these issues.

When you select "watch/resume" or "start from beginning" there is no MC click sound to acknowledge the acceptance. So, if you click it again, it will start a 2nd player (you can hear both audio). 3 times... well, you get the idea. Seems the plugin is not "self aware" of an already running video instance. You can only access the last video instance. You have to exit MC to kill them all.

If you select the Info button or right click on the playing amazon video there is a small menu. Nothing in this menu is useful for the plugin. I say remove it.

While running/watching an amazon video if you hit the Green button it goes out to the MC menu. You can still hear the amazon video playing. There is no "Now Playing" option to get back to the Amazon video. You can hit the back button, but that makes the video reload instead of returning to the running video.

There is no where you can add/remove a video from the watch lists.

Well, that's my first take so far.

[KerrAvon]

Thanks so much for this plugin! I have high hopes for this app.

The UI looks great! Yet, there are issues...

Right now, for me, there are some core issues. It does not show HD video and what does play is not very smooth. The video stutters/jitters. It is very watchable, but just not smooth. Amazon audio sometimes quits. Have to exit MC to fix it. Maybe Silverlight will fix these issues.

When you select "watch/resume" or "start from beginning" there is no MC click sound to acknowledge the acceptance. So, if you click it again, it will start a 2nd player (you can hear both audio). 3 times... well, you get the idea. Seems the plugin is not "self aware" of an already running video instance. You can only access the last video instance. You have to exit MC to kill them all.

If you select the Info button or right click on the playing amazon video there is a small menu. Nothing in this menu is useful for the plugin. I say remove it.

While running/watching an amazon video if you hit the Green button it goes out to the MC menu. You can still hear the amazon video playing. There is no "Now Playing" option to get back to the Amazon video. You can hit the back button, but that makes the video reload instead of returning to the running video.

There is no where you can add/remove a video from the watch lists.

Well, that's my first take so far.

HD Playback is coming (being tested now) - but Amazon restricts this to only TV in HD at the moment. Trying to play HD Movies generates an unsupported message. Slverlight won't fix it.

There is actually a keypress sound when you choose Watch - but it is being delayed by the NavigateTo process. I am working on that. Just click once - it will go through.

The right-menu is part of Media Center - probably can't get rid of it.

The Home button issue is expected - Need to see if I can stop playback on exit.

If a video is on the Watch list you should see a button that says 'Remove from Watchlist' on the title page for the video.

Development continues on this solution so look for more updates soon. Remember - 10 days ago this didn't work at all.

[nathagt]

I thought the HD playback restriction to TV was for flash, or at least that's what amazon tech support told me when I called about my flash/silverlight browser issue last week. I'm able to stream HD movies via the browser with silverlight now.

[KerrAvon]

I thought the HD playback restriction to TV was for flash, or at least that's what amazon tech support told me when I called about my flash/silverlight browser issue last week. I'm able to stream HD movies via the browser with silverlight now.

hmm - I haven't been able to stream HD movies with my desktop PC - getting either the video is not streamable in HD (but it has an HD version) or getting some HDCP errors - even though my display is HDCP compliant and I'm just browsing on the Amazon site. Will continue to test.

[Doctor Feelgood]

I'm on a PC that doesn't use MCE right now - but I am logged in to Amazon Prime. I can't watch anything in HD, even though it seems like I should be able to.

I get a link to this page:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/video/ontv/dev ... _dp_hd_dev

Only PC issue blocking HD should be HDCP requirements. Maybe they have issues detecting HDCP properly.

[nathagt]

Well I can confirm that I am indeed able to watch HD (it shows "HD" in the quality section" using IE and Chrome with Silverlight on my PC. I was not able to do this with flash, but after calling Amazon tech support, they made silverlight the priority player for my account and that fixed the issue. I am using HDMI from PC to TV with Intel mobo and i5 processor.

[bandook]

This is excellent to see someone working on this addin! I tried it for the first time a few nights ago. Video streams fine but the picture is wonky, like the framerate is wrong. Its not exactly jerky, just looks like its low fps, instead of media center default of 60fps. Anyone else notice this?

[nathagt]

Haven't noticed the video looking bad. You should try viewing it in IE and see if it looks the same.

[FMinMI]

Thanks so much for this plugin! I have high hopes for this app.

The UI looks great! Yet, there are issues...

Right now, for me, there are some core issues. It does not show HD video and what does play is not very smooth. The video stutters/jitters. It is very watchable, but just not smooth. Amazon audio sometimes quits. Have to exit MC to fix it. Maybe Silverlight will fix these issues.

When you select "watch/resume" or "start from beginning" there is no MC click sound to acknowledge the acceptance. So, if you click it again, it will start a 2nd player (you can hear both audio). 3 times... well, you get the idea. Seems the plugin is not "self aware" of an already running video instance. You can only access the last video instance. You have to exit MC to kill them all.

If you select the Info button or right click on the playing amazon video there is a small menu. Nothing in this menu is useful for the plugin. I say remove it.

While running/watching an amazon video if you hit the Green button it goes out to the MC menu. You can still hear the amazon video playing. There is no "Now Playing" option to get back to the Amazon video. You can hit the back button, but that makes the video reload instead of returning to the running video.

There is no where you can add/remove a video from the watch lists.

Well, that's my first take so far.

HD Playback is coming (being tested now) - but Amazon restricts this to only TV in HD at the moment. Trying to play HD Movies generates an unsupported message. Slverlight won't fix it.

There is actually a keypress sound when you choose Watch - but it is being delayed by the NavigateTo process. I am working on that. Just click once - it will go through.

The right-menu is part of Media Center - probably can't get rid of it.

The Home button issue is expected - Need to see if I can stop playback on exit.

If a video is on the Watch list you should see a button that says 'Remove from Watchlist' on the title page for the video.

Development continues on this solution so look for more updates soon. Remember - 10 days ago this didn't work at all.

I for one have nothing but thanks for your efforts and realize that you HAVE done a considerable amount of work in a very short period of time. Having ANYTHING is better than nothing. As a programmer I realize how hard it is to do add-ons and here you are working with two very secretive companies who don't readily want to help others make their product better. Great job!

Frank
Michigan

[SilverRubicon]

This is what I see when logging in to Amazon...

Code: Select all

1/18/2014 12:24:24 PM : <html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>500 Service Unavailable Error</title>
</head>
<body style="padding:1% 10%;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">
  <a href="http://www.amazon.com/"><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/img09/x-site/other/a_com_logo_200x56.gif" alt="Amazon.com" width="200" height="56" border="0"></a>
  <table>
    <tr>
      <td valign="top" style="width:52%;font-size:10pt"><br><h2 style="color:#E47911">Oops!</h2><p>We're very sorry, but we're having trouble doing what you just asked us to do. Please give us another chance--click the Back button on your browser and try your request again. Or start from the beginning on our <a href="http://www.amazon.com/">homepage</a>.</p></td>
      <th><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/errors-alerts/product-fan-500.jpg" alt="product collage"></th>
    </tr>
  </table>
</body>
</html>
1/18/2014 12:24:24 PM : DoLogin: Login Error

Any ideas? Could it be caused by the special characters I have in my password (!^) ?