Amazon On-Demand Video Addin for Media Center

[Doctor Feelgood]

My issue with the Flash error persists on the first system I tested. To be honest, I'll have to verify I used the right registry patch as I can't remember if that system is Windows 7 32-Bit or 64-Bit. It is a 720p laptop with 4GB DDR2, a 128GB SSD, Intel P8400 processor, and GeForce 9600M graphics.

I have installed on two other systems - which are definitely Windows 7 64-Bit...

The first one is working just fine - very nice with TV and movies functioning properly. (Windows 7 64-Bit, 24GB DDR3, 240GB SSD, ATI Radeon 6850 graphics, Intel i7 920 processor).

The second has a different kind of problem. This is a Windows 7 64-Bit system with Pentium G620 processor, 120GB SSD, 8GB DDR3 on an H61 motherboard that is using the integrated Intel HD graphics to output 1080p over HDMI. The installation went fine, navigating the plug-in works as expected, but as soon as I select Play for any given file the screen goes white and stays that way. Another observation from this system is that this system boots straight to live TV, and during one test I booted up and then navigated to the Prime app - and TV had just started playing before the screen change. When switching to Movies, Netflix, etc the "Now Playing" source is stopped before starting a new source. I made it all the way to the white screen during this test and the audio from the live TV stream was still active. Not conclusive since the Prime movie wasn't truly playing, but it suggested to me that there was no automatic cut-off for the previous source...

Thanks again for this - I am very excited to see this work!

[barrg]

My issue with the Flash error persists on the first system I tested. To be honest, I'll have to verify I used the right registry patch as I can't remember if that system is Windows 7 32-Bit or 64-Bit. It is a 720p laptop with 4GB DDR2, a 128GB SSD, Intel P8400 processor, and GeForce 9600M graphics.

I have installed on two other systems - which are definitely Windows 7 64-Bit...

The first one is working just fine - very nice with TV and movies functioning properly. (Windows 7 64-Bit, 24GB DDR3, 240GB SSD, ATI Radeon 6850 graphics, Intel i7 920 processor).

The second has a different kind of problem. This is a Windows 7 64-Bit system with Pentium G620 processor, 120GB SSD, 8GB DDR3 on an H61 motherboard that is using the integrated Intel HD graphics to output 1080p over HDMI. The installation went fine, navigating the plug-in works as expected, but as soon as I select Play for any given file the screen goes white and stays that way. Another observation from this system is that this system boots straight to live TV, and during one test I booted up and then navigated to the Prime app - and TV had just started playing before the screen change. When switching to Movies, Netflix, etc the "Now Playing" source is stopped before starting a new source. I made it all the way to the white screen during this test and the audio from the live TV stream was still active. Not conclusive since the Prime movie wasn't truly playing, but it suggested to me that there was no automatic cut-off for the previous source...

Thanks again for this - I am very excited to see this work!

Interesting - I have another report of a white screen problem, so you are not alone in this. It sounds like the HTML that is hosting the flash viewer isn't actually loading. I will see if I can reproduce this by intentionally breaking it, then try to include further error checking on this page if possible. Out of interest, do you use Internet Explorer on that machine? or do you only really use e.g. Chrome/Safari/Firefox? If you don't generally use IE, it would be helpful if you could go and launch IE and go to Amazon, log in and stream a movie there using the browser, then see if that works in Media Center afterwards.

I haven't checked about the Now Playing source, but I suspect that you are right - I am certainly not doing anything to stop the existing source, so I will need to amend this. Thank you for your feedback.

[Doctor Feelgood]

Your question on the browser raises a good point... The system with the white screen is pretty much for MCE only and only has the default installation of Internet Explorer. The other two systems have Firefox set as the default browser. I'll check out installing Firefox and setting it as the default browser... Thanks!

[barrg]

Actually, it should only use Internet Explorer - not positive on this, but I think it is using an embedded IE control to make requests in Media Center. I was more thinking that maybe the initial Internet Explorer setup might not have been run, or something like that.

[ptranluu]

Love the addon. I tried it with the xbox slim as media center extender. The adddon ask for credentials but I can’t seem to enter it using the xbox controller or my harmony remote. Bummer. If this works through the extender you have a leg up on netflix that doesn’t require a live account.

[3rob3]

I just wanted to say thanks for creating this add-on! Can't wait to try it out.

[bay area]

All I get is the proxy server error when trying to play the video...even after downloading the registry fix.

[spanner]

All I get is the proxy server error when trying to play the video...even after downloading the registry fix.

same here, i have uninstalled and installed it a few times now including the reg fix but also still getting this error.

[staknhalo]

Well the CinemaNow plugin which I used to use to buy/rent stuff from WMC, just went dead. So now I'm considering adding this to my HTPC at some point in the future. Quick question, does searching/logging in work via remote? If it's only text entry via keyboard, is there plans on adding remote support in the future?

[barrg]

does searching/logging in work via remote? If it's only text entry via keyboard, is there plans on adding remote support in the future?

We are adding this in - it wasn't right in the original release, but expect to see it in the next week or so.

(sorry for the late reply - for some reason, I missed this one)

[staknhalo]

(sorry for the late reply - for some reason, I missed this one)

No worries man, thanks for the response. Look forward to giving this a go

[barrg]

Hi all,

Quick update for followers of this thread. I have released an updated alpha version of this addin, with the very kind development help of Eric Brown.

Please go to http://garethbarr.com/amazonmceaddin/ to get the latest version.

[Doctor Feelgood]

I put the new one on last night and like the new features! Thanks again for doing this.

This is fairly trivial considering how well things are working - but would images / icons be possible in the higher level menus? Like here?

http://i1.wp.com/garethbarr.com/wp-cont ... =300%2C231

It was odd to me that I had to uninstall the previous version, but after installing / running the new version it still retained my credentials and I was in without effort.

[wilkcards]

thanks for doing the work on this. i just started an amazon prime membership, so I will be checking this out!

[tad]

Wow, somehow I totally missed this -- I've been hoping for something like this for a while!

[barnabas1969]

Dumb questions:

1) Does this work if I don't have a "Prime" membership with Amazon?

2) Can I buy videos individually from Amazon via this app?

3) What does this do for me that the Amazon Unbox application doesn't? With the Unbox application, I can order Amazon videos (using my laptop PC, HTPC, smart phone, etc), and they will be automatically downloaded into the Videos library on my HTPC. Then, I can simply watch them in Media Center (no plugin required). What does this plugin do for me in addition to this?

I'm not trying to be a jerk... just wondering what this gives me that I don't already have. Thanks in advance for your answers.

[barrg]

I put the new one on last night and like the new features! Thanks again for doing this.

This is fairly trivial considering how well things are working - but would images / icons be possible in the higher level menus? Like here?

http://i1.wp.com/garethbarr.com/wp-cont ... =300%2C231

It was odd to me that I had to uninstall the previous version, but after installing / running the new version it still retained my credentials and I was in without effort.

Yes - you have me on two points here:

1. I agree that it should do an upgrade, rather than require you to uninstall and reinstall - as soon as I figure out how to make that happen, I will do so!
2. I would definitely like to have images there, but I was hoping to find a way to get something dynamic - i.e. related to what is popular in e.g. Action & Adventure/Documentary etc for each of these, rather than just basic static images. I will continue to try to find a good way of doing it dynamically, but if I can't, then will fall back to basic static images

[barrg]

Dumb questions:

1) Does this work if I don't have a "Prime" membership with Amazon?

2) Can I buy videos individually from Amazon via this app?

3) What does this do for me that the Amazon Unbox application doesn't? With the Unbox application, I can order Amazon videos (using my laptop PC, HTPC, smart phone, etc), and they will be automatically downloaded into the Videos library on my HTPC. Then, I can simply watch them in Media Center (no plugin required). What does this plugin do for me in addition to this?

I'm not trying to be a jerk... just wondering what this gives me that I don't already have. Thanks in advance for your answers.

Not dumb at all - here are my responses:

1) It doesn't really add a whole ton of value if you don't have prime - although you can view trailers without prime, you can't buy movies etc, so it doesn't yet work for that use case.
2) As above - at the moment, this simply plays the free content for prime users - however, I would very much like to add the purchase of non-prime content too - will depend on how easy this is to do
3) The key thing this does that unbox doesn't do is to allow you to stream movies live in much the same way that the Netflix addin does. I wrote this for me to use, as Amazon's content has grown, while Netflix seems to have reduced their content, and I was fed up having to leave media center and use a keyboard just to play back videos from Amazon.

So for the moment, for you, it is probably not going to be that helpful. If you do go ahead and get a prime membership, you might find it very useful, or if I can get purchasing of content working, it might also work, but until then, I would probably stick with unbox if that is working for you.

[tad]

Dumb questions:

1) Does this work if I don't have a "Prime" membership with Amazon?

2) Can I buy videos individually from Amazon via this app?

3) What does this do for me that the Amazon Unbox application doesn't? With the Unbox application, I can order Amazon videos (using my laptop PC, HTPC, smart phone, etc), and they will be automatically downloaded into the Videos library on my HTPC. Then, I can simply watch them in Media Center (no plugin required). What does this plugin do for me in addition to this?

I'm not trying to be a jerk... just wondering what this gives me that I don't already have. Thanks in advance for your answers.

You can't "download" movies for free with a Prime membership (only streaming) - so Unbox is no help.

[trooper11]

Just wanted to say thanks for developing this. I use Amazon Prime alot, but missed it not being integrated with my 7MC htpc. I just spotted this thread and I'll get this installed this weekend to give it a good run through.