[Romans I XVI]

Since Amazon added flash drm to their videos i have been working on a way to still use xbmc to browse the videos and open them up in a browser and it has actually turned out to work pretty good so i thought i would share with everyone.

Requirements
Firefox -installed in its default location-
Or
Chrome -installed in its default location-

Optional
I would recommend having a program to automatically hide your cursor after so many seconds.

• linux - Unclutter - It will most likely be available in your package manager or you can get the source here-
  If you use Unclutter be sure to start it with unclutter -grab otherwise it will trigger a bug where the cursor keeps reseting itself to the middle of xbmc.
  
• Windows - AutoHideMouseCursor
  

Otherewise you can just put your cursor in the bottom left corner and it will barely be visible.

Installation

Notice [
New implementation of the addon using the Chrome Launcher. Its much easier to install. Includes additional features. and will be more actively maintained.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=182172

]

Outdated - Please move to the thread noted above
To make installation and configuration of this mod easy i have created installation files for both windows and linux. (sorry i don't have a mac)

Here are the installers

• Windows -
  • https://www.dropbox.com/s/919p1rvsn0jxqt...irefox.exe -- Firefox
    
  • https://www.dropbox.com/s/46jahe9t9yedkz...Chrome.exe -- Chrome
• Linux-
  • https://www.dropbox.com/s/zh6g1ujvcluk30...irefox.run -- Firefox
    
  • https://www.dropbox.com/s/fhsqgee7vc8bc6...chrome.run -- Chrome
    

Windows users be sure to follow the installation instructions carefully, windows wouldn't launch firefox with the correct arguments as nicely as linux so you will need to do a little bit of configuring but i hope that the instructions i wrote are clear enough that anyone can do it.

Linux users all you need to do is go to where you downloaded the file and type
sh amazonxbmcfix_*.run

The installers were created using makeself.sh for linux and Inno Setup for windows. I know some people might be afraid to run a executable but i assure you these installers are completely safe to run. If however you are still uncomfortable running them you can always install it manually using the files along with instructions found here.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/hkvtrvjg0w3o68...Source.zip

Here is a youtube video of the plugin in action.


Notes
You may need to disable your screen saver to ensure it doesn't start while the video is playing.
If playback is not smooth try double clicking on the screen to make the flash go to real fullscreen mode.



Enjoy

Update - 6/5/2013
As of 6/5/2013 Amazon updated their website to incorporate microsoft silverlight, this temporary caused this workaround to stop working, However I have updated the installers now to include the new working scripts. Just run the installers again and everything should be back to working. Actually there are a few things that work better than before, videos now start playing at 0 seconds instead of 45 second mark and their will no longer be a "Trailer Not Available" error when attempting to resume a video. If you experience any problems just post on this forum, I will try to check it to make sure everything is working fine.


Update - 10/27/2013
Created a chrome installer for windows and also updated the firefox installer with the -no-remote option which i should have included in the first place if i knew about it, it makes it so your kiosk mode browser will open right even if you already have a firefox instance running. Also I made it so BACKSPACE and ESC will both exit the browser and take you back to XBMC (please note that once you click on the screen, to pause it for example, the flash shortcuts take over you will just have to use Alt+f4 to exit like before). Also i figured out how to determin your windows directory structure properly so there is no longer 2 seperate installers for 32-bit and 64-bit. Enjoy.

Update - 01/01/2014
I made a version that uses the Chrome Launcher by AddonScriptorDE. I like this version because it is very easy to install. And also for linux users who have xdotool installed the page will automatically be clicked so that you can use your remote.

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=182172

[limenet]

Simply awesome!!!!

Installed and working perfectly for me !

[Fmstrat]

I'm curious, have you put any thought into if this fix is possible for OpenELEC by adding all the prerequisites?

[Romans I XVI]

I'm curious, have you put any thought into if this fix is possible for OpenELEC by adding all the prerequisites?

I will look into it, from looking at OpenELEC it looks like it would require installing firefox and flash from source but even then im not sure if OpenELEC's WM/DE can handle opening firefox properly. When i get time i will install it on a system and see if i can get it working.

Also just as a note xbmcbutu should work properly as you can still install firefox and flash from a terminal using apt.

[htpc guy]

This works great. The only issue I see is controlling the playback window with the remote. I'm not sure if the amazon player has any way of controlling it with the keyboard. I'll look into that. I was able to assign alt+F4 to a remote button. I'm using an iMon remote sensor built into my PC case so I have the ability to assign key presses to the remote easily using the provided software.

Also, I've sent you a PM about an issue with the .exe files you provided. I hope you read it soon.

[Romans I XVI]

This works great. The only issue I see is controlling the playback window with the remote. I'm not sure if the amazon player has any way of controlling it with the keyboard.

Yes the amazon player can be controlled with the keyboard

Spacebar = Pause
Right Arrow = Seek Forward
Left Arrow = Seek Back
Up Arrow = Volume Up
Down Arrow = Volume Down

One thing to take note of though is that the player doesn't consider itself as the active window and wont register any of these keyboard commands untill you click on it once, if your are doing this from a pure remote setup without a mouse you might also need to map a key to do a left click on the mouse in order to get the keyboard shortcuts to work.

Also i have fixed that error in the .exe thank you very much for catching it, see your PM.

[moocow1452]

Any chance you could get something like this working for Netflix-Desktop, using the Queue and New to Netflix RSS feeds?

[locoguano]

Any chance you could get something like this working for Netflix-Desktop, using the Queue and New to Netflix RSS feeds?

This is exactly what XBMC Flicks does... If you can setup the api keys correctly. While this is a workaround, I would not call it a fix. A fix is playing inside XBMC with access to the XBMC interface.

[limenet]

Hi all,

Had this running perfect on Windows 7 but just tried another PC with Windows 8 and its constantly freezing the video.

I tried the following -

I have pressed the "esc" key but it still just locks up.

Anyone else had troubles with windows 8 or got it working ok on windows 8?

Seems to work fine under Google Chrome though both web based and kiosk based.

If you modify this mod to run chrome instead of firefox though you get white bars...

[moocow1452]

Any chance you could get something like this working for Netflix-Desktop, using the Queue and New to Netflix RSS feeds?

This is exactly what XBMC Flicks does... If you can setup the api keys correctly. While this is a workaround, I would not call it a fix. A fix is playing inside XBMC with access to the XBMC interface.

Does XBMC-Flix work with the Netflix-Desktop package for Ubuntu? Last I heard it wasn't possible, plus the API dispenser for Netflix is being retired, which is why the RSS angle might be worthwhile.

[Romans I XVI]

If you modify this mod to run chrome instead of firefox though you get white bars...

To remove the bars i used the firefox plugin stylish found here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/ along with this code.

Code:

@-moz-document domain("www.amazon.com") {body{margin:0 0px!important}}

Im sure you can do the same in chrome if chrome has some addon to add custom css to a webpage.

[ailingcoot]

it seems very nice

[limenet]

If you modify this mod to run chrome instead of firefox though you get white bars...

To remove the bars i used the firefox plugin stylish found here https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/ along with this code.

Code:

@-moz-document domain("www.amazon.com") {body{margin:0 0px!important}}

Im sure you can do the same in chrome if chrome has some addon to add custom css to a webpage.

Yep spot on got it running perfectly with Chrome now !

Steps for those that want to use chrome instead -

1) Install this mod as instructed in the first post

2) Install "Stylish" for chrome

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detai...cffe?hl=en

3) Open chrome and select the stylish icon in the top right hand corner and -

a) Click "Manage installed styles" in the drop down
b) Click "Write New Style" left hand side
c) Give it a name
d) Copy this into the code section

Code:

body {margin: 0 0px!important;}

e) Select "URLs on the domain" from the drop down on what it applies to
f) Enter "www.amazon.com"
g) Click "Add"
h) Click "Save"
i) Your'e down with Stylish for now

Note: You can verify this worked by going to any Amazon url and you should see stylish has a number 1 listed below it indicating it has picked up your style changes

4) Locate the folder where your "xbmc.exe" is located and enter the "system" folder and edit "playercorefactory.xml"

5) You need the path to your chrome executable, different OS' seem to have different paths so ill leave it up to you but you need to change it look like this -

Code:

<filename>C:\Users\[b]XXXXXX[/b]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe</filename>
         <args>--kiosk</args>

As long as you got the paths right to chrome, and installed stylish with the right edits you should be right and now it will open chrome instead of firefox.

[bourgeois_rage]

Ok, I've installed this in XBMCUbuntu Eden. and it boots up the browser albeit in a window on only half my screen and it looks like it is going to start playing, but then I get a message from Amazon saying that I need to update my flash player. Any ideas?

[Romans I XVI]

Im not sure why your video is is only showing on half of your screen but as for it needing to update your flash make sure you have both the latest version of flash and also to play videos from amazon through the browser on linux you need the package HAL.

Try running these commands in the terminal.

Code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-installer
sudo apt-get install hal