Because searching Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and iTunes sucks rocks!
If you’ve downloaded this code from the repository or as an archive, just run
rake install
MWhich was created because I’m lazy, and that laziness led to a loss of money. Many times I end up watching on movie on iTunes simply because it is the first place I look, even though had I taken another minute I would have found the same movie available via Netflix Instant Play, or cheaper on Amazon’s Video on Demand service.
Of course there is no easy standard for accessing this movie data, Tim Berners-Lee’s wishes be damned. Here is how these services are accessed:
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Netflix: OData via odata.netflix.com
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Amazon: ECS
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Hulu: Some hack of their publisher tool endpoint
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iTunes: Their Store Web Service Search API via AffiliatesSearch2.1.pdf
You’ll need the following gems:
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yajl-ruby
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nokogiri
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ruby-hmac
This is very bare bones right now:
To create a basic MWhich instance:
m = MWhich::Client.new
Search for a movie:
m.search("The Prestige") # => {:amazon=>[], :hulu=>[], :itunes=>["feature-movie: The Prestige ($9.99)"], :netflix=>["Movie: The Prestige"]}
At this time, this merely returns a hash of key/value pairs indicating which services the movie or TV show was found on. The value is a simple string with the type of media found and the title. Comments specific to each service may also appear. For example:
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If available on Netflix Instant Play, “Watch now!” will show up.
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Hulu sometimes links to external content, “Not on hulu!” will identify this.
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iTunes prices will be displayed
An array of services can be passed to the MWhich instance to limit the search.
Only want to search Netflix and Hulu?
m = MWhich::Client.new(:services => [:netflix, :hulu]) m.search("Knight Rider") # => {:hulu=>["episode: I Love the Knight Life", "episode: Knight and the City", "episode: Fly By Knight", "episode: Fight Knight", "episode: Exit Light, Enter Knight", "episode: Knight to King's Pawn", "episode: Day Turns Into Knight", "episode: Don't Stop the Knight", "episode: Knight Fever", "episode: Knight of the Zodiac"], :netflix=>["Series: Knight Rider", "Series: Knight Rider"]}
This is obviously imperfect, but does provide an initial abstracted search.