Well, MythTV launched in Australia today. I couldn’t have my wife trying to start/stop the MythTV frontend and poke around looking for web browsers, typing URLs and maximising windows and whatnot, so I quickly banged up a Netflix launch button for MythTV.
It works by launching the Google Chrome browser in kiosk mode. You will need to download and install the full Google Chrome browser from here, because Chromium does not contain the necessary DRM libraries to decrypt the video that is delivered by Netflix. It won’t work in Firefox either.
Once you have Chrome installed, create a directory to hold a custom default menu for MythTV:
mkdir -p ~/.mythtv/themes/defaultmenu
Then clone the main menu file from MythTV into this directory:
cp /usr/share/mythtv/themes/defaultmenu/mainmenu.xml ~/.mythtv/themes/defaultmenu
Open the new file in a text editor. Add this element right above the TV_WATCH_TV button (or wherever you like):
<button> <type>NETFLIX</type> <text>Netflix</text> <description>Launch Netflix in a browser</description> <action>EXEC "/usr/bin/google-chrome" --kiosk "https://www.netflix.com/ProfilesGate"</action> </button>
That’s about all there is to it. Save the file and restart the MythTV frontend and the button should appear. To exit Netflix press CTRL+W or ALT+F4.
2 replies on “Integrating Netflix into MythTV”
Hi. Just had to say thank you for this post. I had Netflix working before I had to reload the OS, but not without a lot of steps and confusion. This procedure has made it so much easier and as a result I will read the other posts on this site as you appear to be someone who knows.
Thank you,
Billmnfl
These steps are the only that i can get to work have followed a lot of different web advice.
Just need to sort out now how you van use a remote to navigate and exit google chrome browser.
Thank you,
Mark