netflix

Programming Contests (with prizes)

I've had a go at solving the Eternity puzzle (1,000,000 GBP prize) and Netflix Prize ($1,000,000) in the past. I didn't win either, but they motivated me to find out about a new area. What other contests with prizes do you know about / have competed in yourself? ...

When will the netfix prize be won?

Does anyone have a graph of the best Netflix prize submission by day? I'd like to get a prediction of when it will be solved based on extrapolating the existing progress. Alternativly, when do you think it will be won and why? ...

Netflix API, OAuth, and Ruby Issue

Hi, I am trying to use oauth with the rares-branch Ruby gem. I keep getting the error: instance of OAuth::Consumer needs to have method `marshal_load' My code, activate.rb is below. Any thoughts on how to fix this? THANKS! -Henry require 'oauth/consumer' def index @consumer = OAuth::Consumer.new("CONSUMER KEY","CONSUMER SECRET", ...

SimpleXML: Selecting Elements Which Have A Certain Attribute Value

In an XML document, I have elements which share the same name, but the value of an attribute defines what type of data it is, and I want to select all of those elements which have a certain value from the document. Do I need to use XPath (and if so, could you suggest the right syntax) or is there a more elegant solution? Here's some ex...

Why is the Netflix Prize so challenging?

Having just read the recent article in Wired, I'm curious: what is it about the Netflix Prize that's so challenging? I mean this in the sincerest way possible, I'm just curious about the difficulties posed by the contest. Are most recommendation engines in general this hard to improve? If so, why is that? Or, is Netflix unusually dif...

Facebook Connect/App Implementation Overview

I am just starting to design a Facebook 'app' that I would like to see work similar to the Netflix Facebook app. I have looked high and low on the Facebook developer site for details how how such an app might be implemented, but most of the documentation seems geared twords websites where a user is already logged into Facebook. Are ther...

Blackberry and OAuth Question

Hi everyone, I am developing a Netflix application for the Blackberry, and so far one of my biggest challenges has been related to the OAuth protocol. I have been searching for examples of implementing OAuth with Java (on the Blackberry), and I have found very little. One of the other posts on stackoverflow recommended Signpost (http://...

OAuth Callback procedure for mobile devices

Hello, I am designing a Netflix Application for BlackBerry mobile devices. I am currently working on the OAuth. I am at the point where I can generate a Netflix login page in an embedded browser field in my application. After the user signs in, Netflix will send the user from the login page to a specified callback url. The callback url...

Using a REST API and iPhone/Objective-C

So I'm brand new to Netflix's API and have never used an API ever before. I'm ok with Objective-C and Cocoa Touch but just have no clue where to start when accessing the API and how to in general. Can someone help me get started with some code that will access titles in Netflix or just how to access a REST API in general with authenticat...

OAuth Authorized Access Token question for Java

Hi everyone, I am developing an OAuth library to be used by BlackBerry mobile devices to connect to Netflix. I have successfully negotiated the request token and the access token. I have received the authorized token, the token secret, and the encrypted subscriber ID. Encrypted subscriber ID: T1BlCJtdcWMuF6gJEfue96_W.kZ_gW81h59KqLEfT1...

Why aren't there any dates in the Netflix.com NewWatchInstantlyRSS feed entries (when parsed with feedparser)?

The output from the following: import feedparser d = feedparser.parse('http://www.netflix.com/NewWatchInstantlyRSS') d.entries[177].keys() is: ['summary_detail', 'links', 'title', 'summary', 'guidislink', 'title_detail', 'link', 'id'] According to http://feedparser.org/docs/common-rss-elements.html, there should be a "date" element...

Authenticating with Netflix: Netflix OAuth vs. SignPost OAuth: Which is correct?

With signpost 1.2: String authUrl = provider.retrieveRequestToken( consumer, callbackUrl ); Netflix API response: <status> <status_code> 400 </status_code> <message> oauth_consumer_key is missing </message> </status> I see how to craft the URL manually via the netflix documentation, but this seems to contradict othe...

Trouble making OAuth signed requests

Hello, I am able to successfully make non-authenticated and protected calls to the Netflix API. I am having a little trouble making signed requests to the catalog, however. Using the OAuth Test page, it is clear to me that my Base String is correct. My request URL is also correct, except for the oauth_signature. The oauth_signature is t...

Netflix OData API iPhone: Accessing more than just the title

Netflix just recently announced that they have a new OData API which gives developers access to more of their catalog and is exactly what I've been looking for. Also, on odata.org they have a sample iphone objective-c sdk that accesses the netflix odata api and displays a few movie titles in a tableview with a navigationcontroller. http...

Search Netflix using API without the user being logged in?

I'm trying to search Netflix through their API, but without logging anyone in (because I want to do this on the back-end, not necessarily related to any user action). I'm just starting off with their API so please forgive me if I'm doing something completely stupid. Here's the URL I'm trying to access: http://api.netflix.com/catalog/tit...

Construct a Netflix Affiliate URL to a search result page?

I have a Netflix Affiliate account, but I don't want to direct users to the homepage for them to create an account, I want to direct them to a search result page. The reason for this is that on our site we have lots of titles but they can't be reliably linked to a single Netflix result programmatically, so we would prefer if we could dir...

Use LINQ to query nested OData collection

I'm playing around with the new Netflix OData feed (http://odata.netflix.com/Catalog/) and having some issues. I'm trying to learn LINQ at the same time but having difficulty doing what I thought was going to be quite simple. I'd like to return a list of Titles that match a given Genre. The Titles object contains a collection of Genre...

Return Count from Netflix oData Service When the LINQ Count() Method Doesn't Work

Is there a way to use a LINQ expression to request a Count query from the Netflix oData service in Silverlight 4? The Netflix documentation shows that you can return counts by appending $count to a request for a collection, but a URL like this: http://netflix.cloudapp.net/Catalog/Genres/$count Is not generated from an expression like...

Request all titles by actor using LINQ to Netflix OData

I'm experimenting with LINQPad to use LINQ to query the Netflix OData. I'm trying to search for all films with a particular actor in. For example: from t in Titles from p in t.Cast where p.Name == "Morgan Freeman" select t.Name this results in: NotSupportedException: Can only project the last entity type in the query being transl...

Netflix: Fetching new remote data when it becomes readily available.

Hi there, I hope this is an appropriate question: I'm using the Netflix API and I'm wondering what the best way one would be able to automatically recieve new data when presented (in this case, recently watched films when a Netflix user finishes watching one) The only way I can think of is spamming requests in intervals to query their f...