MyNetflix: Saying Thanks
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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Thank you for the awesome software! I think there has been a lot of people waiting for something like this to come to the open source community. I have still yet to use it but have seen it’s potential on somebody else’s machine. Do you have any plans making this software compatible with Media Center 2005 in any future releases?
Comment by Joe — February 13, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
Hey, thanks for the great work so far (better than I could do)! I have a couple of comments and suggestions if I May:
1. Can you have it show the multiple episodes in browsing watch now instead of just playing the first episode. Example, if I want to watch episode #4 of Heroes, I browse for the show, find it, but then all I have is a Watch Now, and no selection for what episode.
2. As I understand it, you are using a different browser than Internet Explorer to do the actual playback. Can you make it use IE instead? Reason: Netflix has just started limiting how many computers you can use their Watch Now feature on (see the Netflix community forums. Part of the “key” they use to track what computer you use is the browser itself. So the different browser your plug-in uses is taking up a whole license by itself and pushing me over my allowed 4. I know this is not technically your problem, but wanted to throw it out there.
Keep up the great work!
Comment by Rob — February 18, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
This is AMAZING! I have been waiting for this software for quite a while and it’s Flawless so far. I am SOOOOO very happy! I love building my own media centers and just recently went for upgrading to Vista Media Center. I purchased an HP with the ATI Digital TV tuner for about 300 bucks more which is the only way to record HD Content thru media center. I was ditching the HD DVR cable box and the ON DEMAND. BUT NOW…I have my netflix to watch thru media center and now have Such an amazing amount of more movies to watch. YOU ROCK! and keep up the good work! You made my dreams come true
Mikel
Comment by Mikel — February 19, 2008 @ 1:29 pm