You can configure XBMC to view videos from Hulu, Amazon Instant, and Netflix. The following instructions are for [XBMCbuntu][] rather OpenElec because you need to install a number of custom packages.

BlueCop

I installed and configured the [bluecop][] repository and enabled Free Cable and Hulu. As of 4/28/13, Amazon has enabled DRM on their videos, so the Amazon add-on in the bluecop repo will no longer work. See the Chrome section below for a workaround.

Audio

In order to use other applications with XBMC, you need to tell it to share the audio device. This can be accomplished by listing your audio devices using aplay and noting the card and device number:

$ aplay -l**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC262 Analog [ALC262 Analog] Subdevices: 0/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

In this case, both are 0. Now, create a new file called /etc/asound.conf and paste this contents, substituting your card and device number if they are different:

pcm.!default { type plug; slave.pcm "dmix0"; }ctl.!default { type hw; card 0; device 0; }pcm.dsp0 { type plug; slave.pcm "dmix0"; }ctl.dsp0 { type hw; card 0; device 0; }ctl.mixer0 { type hw; card 0; device 0; }pcm.dmix0 { type dmix; ipc_key 13759; slave.pcm "hw:0,0"; slave.channels 2; slave.rate 48000; slave.period_size 4096; slave.buffer_size 16384; slave.period_time 84000; slave.buffer_time 340000; # Map only the first two channels bindings.0 0; bindings.1 1; }

Restart the computer. Once it boots back up, in XBMC go to Settings - Audio Output and select the dmix0 audio device (the mixer device you just created to share audio across applications). Restart again and afterwards you should be able to both use XBMC and play sound in other applications. To test this, run this command while XBMC is running:

aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav

[Source Post][]

Chrome

For sites that are unavailable via the bluecop repository, you can use the official Adobe Flash player with DRM decryption support in Chrome or Firefox. I've attempted to automate these steps with a very basic script (install.sh), which you can download [here][], otherwise follow these instructions:

  • install [Chrome][]

    • go into chrome:plugins, click the Details link on the right, find Adobe Flash player, and disable the Pepper or PPAPI plugin (leaving just the regular Flash plugin, libflashplayer.so)

    -

    install hal (required to decrypt DRM in Flash):

    • sudo apt-get install hal

      -

      add a link to /usr/sbin/hald to /etc/rc.localto start it automatically on boot

    -

    Make sure you've already completed the Audio section above.

    -

    install the [RemoteDroid][] server application for remotely controlling Chrome. iOS users could try an app like [MobileMouse][].

    -

    install Oracle Java with these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/javasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

  • extract RemoteDroidServer.jar to /usr/local/bin and configure it to run at startup via /etc/rc.local

    -

    create a script called /usr/local/bin/chrome.sh with the following contents:

#!/bin/bash## Launches Google Chrome# first launch a Window Manageropenbox &# launch the RemoteDroid application for keyboard/mousejava -jar /usr/local/bin/RemoteDroidServer.jar &# launch Chrome, optionally pass in a URL:/usr/bin/google-chrome $1# after Chrome quits, stop everything elsekillall -9 java openbox

-

install the [Advanced Launcher][] XBMC add-on; Note that as of this writing you have to wget it from the page above and then install via Zip in XBMC

-

go into the Advanced Launcher program in XBMC and configure a new launcher to take you directly to your Amazon Watchlist by setting the program to */usr/local/bin/chrome.sh* and the arguments to [https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/watchlist][]

- disable DPMS (screen blanking) so the monitor doesn't go to sleep while watching videos. To do so, add the following in the ServerLayout and Monitor sections of /etc/X11/xorg.conf respectively:

#### Netflix

To install Netflix under Linux, follow the instructions [here][1] for installing *netflix-desktop*. Once installed, make sure you completed the steps in the above Audio and Chrome sections and then do the following:

-

create */usr/local/bin/netflix.sh* with the following content:

#!/bin/bash## Launches Netflix# first launch a Window Manageropenbox &# launch the RemoteDroid application for keyboard/mousejava -jar /usr/local/bin/RemoteDroidServer.jar &# launch Netflix/usr/bin/netflix-desktop# after Netflix quits, stop everything elsekillall -9 wine wineserver java openbox

-

add a new launcher to Advanced Launcher in XBMC which opens */usr/local/bin/netflix.sh*

[XBMCbuntu]: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=XBMCbuntu [bluecop]: https://code.google.com/p/bluecop-xbmc-repo/ [Source Post]: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=104019&pid=825708#pid825708 [here]: /downloads/xbmc-chrome.tar.gz [Chrome]: https://dl.google.com/linux/direct/google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb [RemoteDroid]: http://www.remotedroid.net/ [MobileMouse]: http://www.mobilemouse.com/ [Advanced Launcher]: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add-on:Advanced_Launcher [https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/watchlist]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/watchlist [1]: http://www.compholio.com/netflix-desktop/