PipTube
This is a very simple plugin that lets you access YouTube leanback from within MediaCenter. It pretty much just opens youtube.com/leanback in a media center browser window.
I made this plugin because I wanted to be able to access my own YouTube playlists from media center so that I could save videos on my pc or phone and watch them later on my TV.
The leanback interface is easily navigated with the up, down, left, and right buttons. Ok can be used to make selections or play/pause a movie.
https://github.com/downloads/pipplo/PipTube/PipTubeSetup.msi
Certain media center buttons like 'Back' are linked to keyboard shortcuts. Pressing Back on your remote will exit the plugin, NOT go back in leanback.
You can use the keyboard to search, but since 'Backspace' is used by Media Center to go back a menu you can't really use Backspace whiel in leanback. I hope to fix this
There is some problem on MediaCenter 64 bit where Leanback will only work properly once. If the flash plugin is cached then you will get an error message. To workaround this the plugin will look for a watch_as3*.swf file in the temporary internet files directory and delete it.
Thanks to EddyC for the tip on deleting that .swf file!
At this point you should see YouTube leanback. Logging in after this is optional
You should now be able to access your own playlists
I've also made this plugin open source so if anyone wants to modify it it feel free
http://github.com/pipplo/PipTube
I just wanted to post this plugin I made. I have been using Macrotube but it always bugged me that I couldn't login to access my own playlists.
This plugin lets you open Youtube.com/leanback from within Media Center and access it with your remote. If you login you can view your playlists.
I uploaded the code to github so that anyone who wants to modify it can. I hope it's useful to others.
I just downloaded this to try it out. When in PipTube, I see a scrollbar to the right. Any way to hide this? Also, if the back button is pressed while a video is playing, the video keeps playing. I don't know where it's playing, because the screen goes back to the Extras Gallery, but I can still hear the audio.
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Probably the best way to get youtube on MC. It seems to work pretty well, after a few hours of playing with it I hadn't had any issues except for a login error. Thx.
i can't enter login info using my hp media smart tv remote
1 have no directional control and So can mot get to the fields to enter login information
suggestions?
There is a way to hide the scroll bar, I just haven't figured it out yet. It's on my list of things to check into. I'll check out the issue with playing audio too.
grantndub Probably the best way to get youtube on MC. It seems to work pretty well, after a few hours of playing with it I hadn't had any issues except for a login error. Thx.
Thanks!
pghboemike i can't enter login info using my hp media smart tv remote 1 have no directional control and So can mot get to the fields to enter login information suggestions?
I used a keyboard and mouse. You shouldn't have to login too often so once you login once you'll be done.
It looks like Google just changed over to HTML5 for Leanback or YouTube on TV. Now I cant get the remote to move around any of the menus. Is this just me or does the app need to be updated to support the change? thanks, I love this app and use it all the time.
I see the same problem, so I believe that this is a general issue. I wonder if the author can take a look into this...
Hey everyone.
I noticed that Youtube Leanback is HTML5 now. If it doesn't load for you, you may have to update your internet explorer to IE9. The good news is that there is no more scroll bar on the right side of the screen anymore!
There is a problem with the remote buttons not working. Keyboard input works fine, but remote buttons don't work.
I haven't been able to figure it out yet. I will update the app if I can figure it out or make a WA.
One tip: If you have an android phone/tablet you can use the Youtube Remote application to control Leanback from your phone. That is what I am using in the mean time. I'm not sure if there is an iPhone equivalent.
For what it's worth, a possible clue to help in debugging this problem with the remote not working for PipTube: www.youtube.com/leanback does respond to the remote control buttons when launched directly in IE9. I think the problem may have to do with the version of the browser used by Media Center, which I believe uses IE7 compatibility mode.
I did a bit of research and discovered that IE9 runs in an IE7-compatible mode by default when embedded in other applications. This behaviour is controlled by a registry setting (actually, a separate registry entry for each application that embeds IE).
For Media Center, the setting is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION]"ehExtHost32.exe"=dword:00002328That's for Win64. For Win32, it should be (untested):[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\MAIN\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION]"ehExtHost.exe"=dword:00002328More info at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee330730(v=vs.85).aspx(0x2328 is 9000 in decimal; the default value for apps using the embedded webcontrol is 7000 which means ehExtHost.exe normally uses an IE7 version of the WebControl).Unfortunately, even after adding this setting and confirming that Media Center HTML pages now report IE9 rather than IE7, it doesn't seem to fix the compatibility issues with Leanback -- the remote arrow keys still don't work correctly inside Media Center, though they work fine when launched from the desktop.
This made me wonder if Media Center itself was intercepting the remote arrow keys and passing slightly different codes through to the application. I ran Spy++ and monitored the message stream going to the Youtube Leanback window, then compared messages for keyboard arrows vs remote control arrows. As far as I can tell, they are identical - both result in WM_KEYDOWN / WM_KEYUP messages with the same keycodes.
There are also RIM_INPUT raw messages, immediately before these, which Spy++ doesn't fully decode, but usually such messages are handled with a library call that converts them to the corresponding WM_KEYDOWN/UP message; I think it's unlikely IE would do it any differently.
So basically, I'm baffled as to why it doesn't work! But the registry tweak may still be useful to users wondering why some of the other Leanback features might be a bit flakey under Media Center.
Eddy
This looks great, and it more or less works for me but it acts a bit strange: When I launch piptube MediaCenter immediatly throws an error that "piptube has stopped responding and will be closed". In the meantime however Youtube Leanback nicely loads and when I close the error message I can use it fine.
I already tried reinstalling the plugin, this doesn't help. Does anybody have a clue what is wrong?
I'm running Windows 7 64-bit with IE9 (and Chrome and Firefox installed, Firefox is my default browser).
Thank you so much, finally!
I have not tested the remote keys but despite the error reported one post above me, it works via RDP on my HTPC.