I have completed development on the next version of MyNetflix (v2.1). This new version has been in private beta for about a week, and now it is ready for public beta. One of the features you will probably be most interested in is the ability to play WatchNow movies in full screen, and use the remote control for pause/resume commands.

Changes since version 2.0 beta
Enhancements:

• Enhanced the “Watch Now” feature to play the media in full screen mode
• Added support for pause/play remote control buttons during “Watch Now” playback
• Added a “select episode” screen when selecting “Watch Now” on a TV series
• Redesigned gallery and movie details UI to remove dependency on third-party libraries (modified license agreement and about screen to reflect these changes)
• Added a busy indicator while looking up data
• Added new category – “Watch now in queue”
• Removed numbers from movie descriptions in the gallery
• Changed movie ratings to graphical stars on Movie Details screen
• Changed to navigate back to queue after adding, removing, or moving an item to the top of the queue
• Added the movie caption to the gallery thumbnails while images are loading. If an image cannot be loaded, a “broken image” graphic displays, as well as the title of the movie.
• Added the ability to reorder categories, hide categories, and hide genres

Bug fixes:

• Fixed problems with using special characters in username/password
• Fixed navigation issue when navigating to the end of a large set of movies (ex: Top 100) and then navigating to a small set of movies (ex: Queue) causes no movies to be displayed.
• Changed image cache location from %TEMP% to %TEMP%\MyNetflix
• Added refresh to queue after removing or moving to top
• Added an error message when trying to “watch now” on an extender, now says “Watch now is not supported on an extender.”
• Resolved issues with Netflix player (in Internet Explorer) and MyNetflix being treated as two seperate computers (reduces the likeliness of the “more than 4 computers” error)
• Removed MyNetflixBrowser icon from the Program Library

Public Beta Program
The public beta version of MyNetflix 2.1 can be downloaded from my Software page. Please send any feedback you might have about this version to mynetflix@anpark.com, or use my Feedback Page.

Public Beta Update – 02/28/2008 @ 8:58P MST
I just posted a new version of MyNetflix which resolves two issues. The first issue was that the “Test” button in the configuration app was not working. This has been fixed. The second issue was that with accounts that did not have WatchNow capabilities, MyNetflix would show the watchnow features and display an error if they were used. The configuration application now correctly tests for this, and MyNetflix will not show the watchnow categories if the feature is not enabled on your account. Thanks for the great feedback so far, and keep it coming!

Public Beta Update – 03/01/2008 @ 9:43A MST
It looks like Netflix upgraded their website last night, and the Episode list in MyNetflix stopped working. Unfortunately, this is simply one of the risks that comes with parsing the watchnow data from their web pages. I have corrected this issue and posted a new version of MyNetflix on my software page. Thanks!

Screenshots

Browsing your queue

Movie Details (in queue)

Browsing genres

Browsing genres

Movie Details (not in queue)

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Movie Details (Watch Now)

Select Episode (Watch Now)

About

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

A friend of mine, Roger Whiting, designed a logo for the MyNetflix plug-in I have been working on. This logo will appear in the “More Programs” screen in Media Center.

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

Whew! I’ve been pretty busy responding to all of the emails and feedback for MyNetflix, and I wanted to take a moment to say “thanks” to a few people who helped indirectly with the development efforts on this project.

I mentioned in my previous post that “I’ve kept this pretty quiet” up until now, and that’s true. I have to say, though, that even though these people did not know I was working on this project, their contributions to the Media Center development community have both accelerated and encouraged my development of this project.

Ryan Hurst. Ryan wrote the original version of MyNetflix that was designed to run within Media Center 2005. His version was the inspiration for this new version, which was written using the Media Center Markup Language (MCML) for Windows Vista. Ryan has also been very helpful in getting the word out about this new version, and in providing feedback about features/issues.

Steven Harding. Steven worked on a open-source (LGPL) library for MCML developers called MCMLookalike. This library allows developers to easily get started writing add-ins which have similar pivot menus to those found in Media Center. MyNetflix uses this library for the categories at the top of the main page. Steven has also been a contributing community member on the MediaCenterSandbox forum, which is a helpful resource for MCML developers. I found several of his posts to be helpful during the development process.

Niall Ginsbourg. Niall has several of his own add-ins for Media Center, is a fellow Media Center MVP, and has been very active in the MCML development community. Niall also worked on MCMLookalike with Steven. In addition, he has provided sample code/images for a Vista MC Style GelButton, which is used in MyNetflix for the buttons on the “Movie Details” page. Niall has also been a helpful community member on the MediaCenterSandbox forum, where he has shared his knowledge about MCML development.

In appreciation of their community efforts, I have also added a “special thanks” section on the About page in MyNetflix.

It was also brought to my attention (thankfully) that MyNetflix was unintentionally violating some of the terms of the LGPL license under which MCMLookalike was published. I have addressed these issues this evening and have posted a new version of MyNetflix which is now available for download on my Software page. No bug fixes or enhancements to this version, but if you are beta testing please take the time to check out the new version and make sure I didn’t break something.

I am still compiling all of the emails and feedback I am receiving, and will hopefully be able to address some more of the issues and feature requests in the coming days. Keep the feedback coming!

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix

I’ve kept this pretty quiet, but I’ve been working on a new Media Center plugin for a little while now. It is now ready for beta testing, and I’ve decided to run a public beta for this one.

MyNetflix features

• View your Netflix queue
• Browse movies by genre, top 100, new titles, etc.
• View your history and recommendations
• Add movies to your queue
• Remove movies from your queue
• Move movies to the top of your queue
• Browse “watch now” movies
• Play “watch now” movies

Public Beta Program
The public beta version of MyNetflix can be downloaded from my Software page. Please send any feedback you might have about this version to mynetflix@anpark.com, or use my Feedback Page.

Public Beta Update – 02/10/2008 @ 8:35P MST
I got some very good initial feedback from a few people and apparently there were problems with UAC both during the running of the configuration application and the running of the plugin. I have updated the version on the Software page to resolve these issues. I’m going to try not to make this thing too much of a moving target for beta testers, so I probably won’t do another build for at least a few days unless I find something major. In the meantime, please keep the feedback coming!

Public Beta Update 2 – 02/11/2008 @ 9:22P MST
There was a problem with the previously posted version that occurred in some cases during the configuration. An error: “System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.” would occur when launching the configuration application. Since this was affecting quite a few people, I fixed the issue and did another build. I overwrote the previous version on my Software page with this new version. If you experienced the issue and did not get around it, please download the new version.

Screenshots

Browsing your queue

Movie Details (in queue)

Browsing genres

Browsing genres

Movie Details (not in queue)

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Browsing “Watch Now” movies

Movie Details (Watch Now)

About

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tags: Media Center, MVP, MyNetflix