Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Movie/Video Search Aggregation?
raolin writes "I have been running without television service for the last few years, relying instead on Netflix Streaming, Hulu Plus, Amazon, and my personal video library. I have the latter indexed and easily searchable, but I have not managed to find a good aggregator for the streaming services that I use, so when I have friends over and the question 'Can we see X?' is asked, I have to search three streaming sources, which is kind of a drag. I know Netflix has a search API that I could work with, and it seems at least possible that Hulu and Amazon do as well, but before I try to build something myself I thought I'd ask the community. Any thoughts?"
but https://github.com/dacort/mwhich MWhich seems to do exactly what you want?
I've been trying out http://gowatchit.com/ . It allows you to set up a queue of desired movies and then alerts you when a movie is available to stream on a selection of feeds. My only complaint is that I've not found a way to distinguish between free (to me) and paid available sources.
Have you tried http://zinc.tv? It works for me and does more than your 4 sites.
googletv has it. i have Logitech Revue and it lets you search by name and displays where its available. but it not support hulu. searches amazon, netflix, cable, movie packages.
It does what you want, actually, it doesn't.
FTFY
I'm not trolling, I'm being serious. Do a google search that only includes particular servers with information about the material you want. For instance a google-search that only includes the hulu and netflix servers. You don't search the material, you search the index and it will take you to links that you click for the material.
Yeah, you're right. People are so dumb they can't even stay on-topic. Every discussion, no matter how trivial, can be hijacked to serve a poster's idea of what's wrong with everyone else but me.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I had one. gowatchit.com looks good for online. I like coollector for ripped video, it has a nice browse feature too.
Instead of thinking how to fix important problems or how to explore space, we're investigating such pressing matters as "How do I find that episode in which...
Because you can't possibly do both, duh.
And whilst exploring space is an interesting pursuit, science is not at the point where we can colonise other planets and this doesn't help people get fresh water does it.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Isn't this exactly what Boxee is for?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
Yeeeaahhhh, no. Netflix never buffers on me past the first time it loads the video. And I can just find a video I want and be watching it, without having to think hours ahead about what I want. It sounds like someone (you) hasn't used streaming technology since the 90's.
And on those long trips to colonize other planets they'll need what? Entertainment, that's right. Kudos to the OP for his foresight into this problem and performing the needed research for the benefit of humanity. :P
Actually streaming is exactly what he wants to use. He doesn't want to pre-download what he or his friends might want to watch. He wants to just sit down and find out if he can watch x as soon as it pops into his head or his friends suggest it.
In the automotive analogy, it's like he's driving down the road and he or his passenger wants a hamburger, but he has to check 3 different maps for Wendy's McDonald's and Burger King to see if there's one at the next exit. It would be easier if he could just check one place.
Lucky you. What device are you using - your computer, sombody's little black box that hooks up to your TV, a TV with the right stuff built in, or something else?
As a long-time Tivo devotee, I figured to dump my Roku box when I got my new Tivo a few weeks ago. For best connectivity, I used ethernet cable to hook it up rather than wireless. It's been a mixed blessing. I now have one less device and one less remote cluttering the entertainment center and the Tivo is, as always, superb for watching TV.
The Netflix functionality built into the Tivo, however, just sucks. You can't search; you can only view your instant queue. While there's always an iPad on the coffee table that I can use to search and update the queue, then go back to the Tivo to watch, I still find that to be a painful kludge of a workaround.
Once you've scrolled through your queue all the way to the bottom (no navigation buttons or methods that I can find except to hold down the "down" button), starting up the video is not always a smooth process. Sometimes the screen goes black and nothing happens; you have to back out and start over. Sometimes the initial buffering progress bar shows up and, still, nothing happens. Start over.
I will, however, say that once the movie starts, it rarely pauses to buffer. When it does, it generally just stops and bounces completely out of the movie, back to the movie information screen.
I love Tivo and will never give it up but their Netflix implementation is crap. I can't tell you how many times I've found my sister watching a movie on Netflix using her iPad while sitting in the living room, right in front of the main TV/entertainment center, with the big TV turned off.
My point: The Netflix streaming experience varies widely with the method/hardware used to access it.
Yeah, I concur. If friends are over and we want to watch a movie, either I already have it, or I can download it in about ten minutes, so while that is going on, we play a short boardgame or prepare some drinks and food and hé presto!
...in Africa, people are asking themselves "What am I gonna eat today?" or "Where do I go to find fresh water?". Any thoughts, first-world-problem community?
Seriously, it's been said many times already, but we really are dumbing down as a civilization. Instead of thinking how to fix important problems or how to explore space, we're investigating such pressing matters as "How do I find that episode in which Ross and Rachel have sex and Rachel gets pregnant?".
You do realize that the time you spent posting this annoying comment could have been spent feeding starving children in Africa right? We all know you are a troll, which is funny, because you are trolling for entertainment purposes. Look at any culture in history, they all had some form of entertainment. I'm not saying that some people don't work harder than other people, or that some people don't have more important jobs/hobbies than other people, but just try to imagine what life would be like if you were working every waking hour. Taking a shower would be awesome, but that's wasting time and water. . .
...so says the Anonymous Coward on Slashdot at 9.41am. Ran out of new rocket fuel candidates to study?
My problem is I work a menial job and have only moderate brainpower so I don't think I will every be able to work on the questions of space travel.
But I love to watch movies about it.
I found this thread, but I don't know anything about its quality.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Hulu+, Amazon, Netflix, Xfinity and iTunes are all supported and you can toggle which services you wish to browse or search. Hope this helps.
The latter.
seems to be great for finding television episodes. If you're looking for movies, zmovie.tv has been kind to me.
plus mobile apps ...
Rachel is revealed to be pregnant in the Season 8 premiere
rewriting history since 2109
Check out http://CanIStream.it
CanIStreamIt searches Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, iTunes, Crackle, Blockbuster, Youtube Movies, EPIX, Vudu, Android, Amazon on Demand.
There is also a reminder option for when movies become available.
You can also download a free iPhone and free Android app.
Last time I checked Slashdot was exactly about solving the submitter's problem and not about feeding people in Africa.
By the way, western countries have been DUMPING money into Africa for decades. Decades. Plural. And that has failed to solve the problem. Maybe the solution is the simplest one: The starving people in Africa live in a fucking desert. Maybe they should move to where the food is.
It's Africa. You can't live near the water. You will get malaria.
White do-gooders have probably done more damage to Africa by giving incompetent advice than all of the "natural dangers" combined.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you don't know what your "friends" would want to watch then you don't know them very well do you?
The idea that current streaming options are a suitable "instant gratification" mechanism always amuses me given that they tend to be subject to things like 28 and 56 day release delays.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If it takes 7 hours for you do download a movie, then you aren't going to be streaming anything anyways.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If it's some random thing my friends want to watch that there's a minimal chance I will feel the burning need for in the future, IMHO I'd rather stream it because a) I don't want to buy it and b) streaming for free is rather less illegal than downloading for free, right?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
From what I've seen, as the number of friends in the room increases, your ability to accurately predict what everybody wants to/is willing to watch approaches 0 :)
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Clicker.com will automatically pull in your existing netflxi Queue and stay synced with it. This was the big deal for me. It meant I can continue using netflix as my primary but also find availability on Amazon or Hulu for the things netflix misses.
The main problem with it is that it does not differentiate between free and paid so you have to go look.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is exactly the problem that Clicker solves. It bills itself as the TV guide for the web. www.clicker.com The downside is it doesn't always index all the services right after they get a film. so even if it says no, still look and see. --Sam
I think Tivo screwed the pooch by not including LOCAL streaming to its device. Im dumping my Tivo soon and switching to Xbox/MCE with CableCARD. No monthly fee($2 card rental), WAY better video conversion (Tivo 'highest' conversion setting is a crappy ipad resolution.) and streaming for everything. (with transcoding if needed). If they had jsut been able to make it stream to and from the device, I would own it forever, but all the nice streaming service integration on the Tivo is for naught if I cant also inject my own streams.
Good-bye
Plenty of plugin's out there for XBMC of which Navi-X is one, and there are others over at XBMC HUB so do check 'em out. I love XBMC its the best thing available anywheres right now.
On the bright side, In Canada it's still fully legal for us to just download whatever we want and watch it (personal use only)(note, the Harper government is working very hard to change the existing law to make this illegal, but it hasn't happened yet). Of course the companies COULD allow us to buy their product and make some money off of us, but they are far too short sighted for that.
http://www.canistream.it/ is a streaming (and physical media) metasearch for movies.
To take this down another tangent, why aren't sports available online? I'm missing a race today that I would love to be watching, but I don't get the channel it's on (NBC Sports Network). Of course, they won't provide a streaming option, even a delayed one. So, I'll be avoiding much of my online news sources for about a week, until I find some torrent I can grab and finally watch the race. Why is it so difficult?
Jesus told him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. - John 14:6 NLT
Another car analogy would be rest stops. Ask your passenger if he's looking for bear, buff, twink or athletic, then just press a few keys and find out the mile marker.
Any others?
You mean like, congressmen, priest ... oh you meant "any others" like other analogies...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Netflix on Tivo is abysmal, which is a shame because I love Tivo. Netflix on everything else (PS3, Xbox, PC, Roku, etc,) is pretty sweet. I bought a couple of WDTV streamers for under $100 each and use those for Netflix & local media streaming, keeping the Tivo for recorded stuff. It's a shame, but I have yet to find any solution which really works well for multi room cablecard DVR, network file playback & streaming.
(and yes, I've looked at WMC, XBMC, Boxee and pretty much everything else - they all fall down somewhere).
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
What resolution does it stream in? In any case, it seems that the Tivo is rather the exception rather than the rule in this case.
For me even with my cheap laptop or a cheap older PC, and on the cheapest slowest DSL plan, Netflix has always worked for me (as long as someone else in my family isn't streaming something else at the same time).
Keep watching those movies Wild Dog! Every effort needs it's supporters. Maybe also write your representatives in Washington and tell them you think space is important. Then you will have helped with a real problem: paying for space research. My apologies to the community for taking this discussion further off topic. Average people are important too IMO.
thanks....
I can't believe this got modded to zero?
Sometimes I am baffled by how things are evolving.
http://www.google.com/#q=can+i+stream+it
Not too hard.
I'm not absolutely sure this works in the Netflix interface (which isn't built into the Tivo, AFAIK.. I think it's essentially a web app), but for the main Tivo menus, the skip to tick/30 second skip button ( ->| button) jumps to the end then to the beginning of a menu.. e.g. now playing or any other menu screen.
You actually CAN stream to your Tivo, at least using third party tools. (and no, I'm not confusing it with TivoToGo)
Also, you talk about better video conversion -- you can download shows from your TiVo with lots of other tools, e.g. kmttg, and then convert them (if you want to) with any other tools.
Oh, the horrors! A whole 28 and 56 days!
Solution: Queue up a bunch of movies, then suddenly, the "delay" becomes meaningless. I already end up watching some shows (e.g. HBO shows) on DVD year(s) after they originally came out.
I would say these delays are a very minor annoyance, but not much. If they went to multiple years, then yeah, maybe it would be an annoyance. But I already was watching years old movies and TV shows (that I had never seen before) on netflix (the vast majority via DVD, I used streaming very rarely, and turned it off completely after the threatened split + price increase).
Hey everyone, thought I’d post as I work in the Product group at Charter and we actually launched a service to let you figure out where an asset is available for playback online. If you go to http://charter.net/tv/ just enter an episode or movie into “What Do You Want to Watch”, we aggregate feeds from Netflix, Hulu and Amazon among others