
Show HN: Showgoers – Watch Netflix with friends remotely - eremzeit
http://showgoers.tv/
======
gfodor
Cool stuff -- at AltspaceVR we support the same concept with Netflix, YouTube,
Twitch, etc, but as avatars within a virtual space (ideally in VR.) You can
hang out while watching netflix with voice chat, body tracking, etc. This was
a big challenge for us to get working well, so I can sympathize with the
authors :)

[http://altvr.com](http://altvr.com)

Just install our browser plugin, go to a netflix vid, hit "watch in
AltspaceVR", and you'll have a virtual space dedicated for that netflix movie.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/altspacevr/ijjkiof...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/altspacevr/ijjkiofdllfjjpociicclnleonjknagc)

~~~
teirce
I feel like I'm the only one who is annoyed when people plug their products in
someone else's post. I understand you're just trying to increase your
userbase, but it just seems disrespectful.

~~~
gfodor
I see where you're coming from but we're not really competing. If we were
competing I agree it'd be pretty lame. We're a totally different experience
for a similar use case. If the OP requests in the thread to do so I'll remove
the comment but I also thought it might result in a back in forth on the
tricks for doing this, which is actually pretty tough.

~~~
philtar
1) The problem is that your comment offered nothing extra. All it was was a
plug. The other people who plug usually provide some interesting information.

2) If you claim your product isn't the same, then why bring it up?

------
chubasco
The Netflix app on the Xbox 360 used to do this. And you and your friends
could put on your headsets and watch the same thing on Netflix while chatting.

~~~
TheGRS
I was pretty disappointed when they ditched that feature, my friends and I
used it pretty extensively as we were all attending different colleges, but
still loved to play games and chat online. It was buggy for sure, especially
when you added in disparities in lag (which was very common back then).

IIRC Microsoft maintained this functionality however and not Netflix, which is
probably why it was eventually discontinued and as far as I can tell Netflix
has expressed no interest in making their own similar feature.

~~~
moistgorilla
This and the top 100 game show thing are some of my best memories from using
the xbox 360

~~~
cyanbane
Agreed Top 100 was a great live mass(ive?) multiplayer gameshow. I hope to see
something similar to it again some day.

~~~
ouring1986
How was that played? I'm having trouble googling it.

~~~
foldor
Try googling by it's name of "1 vs 100". The game played out where one person
was randomly chosen as the main contestant who answered trivia questions. If
they failed a question they were booted.

The kicker to the game was, 100 other randomly selected players were playing
against you answering the same questions. If they got it wrong, and the
contestant got it right they were eliminated and the contestant continued.

The goal of the main contestant was to outlast the 100 players, and the more
they outlasted the better prizes (usually MS Points) they won. The goal of the
100 was to outlast the main contestant to also win prizes (usually less than
the main).

All other players watching the game could participate for fun and play along
for no reward. It was actually pretty fun and the events all happened live
with an announcer and everything.

------
wcummings
The far less polished solution I came up with for syncing viewing with my
friends: [https://github.com/wcummings/vlc-irc-
rc](https://github.com/wcummings/vlc-irc-rc)

~~~
liedra
Ha, my long distance relationship survived with a good old fashioned "3, 2, 1,
go!" :)

~~~
DINKDINK
/think better delay pressing start by the latency amount ;]

------
stephengillie
In the tradition of declaring something new as "X for Y", I declare this is
"Cytube for Netflix". Or it will be, when you add chat functionality.

It's a really neat idea, and it's basically second-best to watching a video in
the same room as someone else. It's really fun to watch shows with other
people, have discussions about the show, and share the experience.

References (I didn't make these):

[https://github.com/calzoneman/sync/wiki/CyTube-3.0-User-
Guid...](https://github.com/calzoneman/sync/wiki/CyTube-3.0-User-Guide)

[https://Cytu.be](https://Cytu.be)

~~~
eremzeit
Yeah it's like Cytube. My use case was that I'm in a long-distance
relationship and we both are huge movie buffs. YouTube just simply doesn't
have the content that we want. Netflix does but it doesn't allow embeds so it
took a bit more trickery :)

------
bomatson
This reminds me of when my wife and first started dating long distance - Skype
screen sharing movies was our jam

~~~
eremzeit
Though I originally made it for me and my SO, it was surprising how many
people have told me that they also have done the whole netflix, skype and "3,
2, 1, go" combo. Its interesting to think about things we could make that
would better allow shared experience or emotional intimacy with people over
distance.

~~~
nebuduck
This is pretty much exactly what myself and fiancee did - though for us, the
'3, 2, 1, go' became part of the tradition, and we took it in turns to make up
'alternative countdowns' for programmes. Interesting the way that technical
limitations can also translate to shared experiences.

Of course, the biggest issue was that netflix offerings in the US were very
different to those in the UK, so we'd spend about an hour where one of us
tried to find dubiously legal ways to watch a programme the other could watch
fine on netflix.

------
vsakos
I recently made a similar desktop app to watch movies with my gf. It has only
video sync and text based chat.

Check the screenshot: [http://i.pics.rs/64I0n](http://i.pics.rs/64I0n)

Maybe I will open source it when it's done. Btw I used Qt and libVLC.

~~~
CardenB
PLEASE open source this! I will use it and might even help you finish it.

~~~
vsakos
To be honest, it's pretty bad, you can't imagine. Everything is in one single
C++ file (+ the main.cpp), the chat is a webkit widget (it was the easiest and
fastest solution), there is no error checking or anything so it can crash any
time, etc etc...

Actually, this is my first C++ project, I don't even know C++ (only a bit C
from high school).

~~~
CardenB
let me refactor it!

------
rory096
As I said over on /r/netflix, great app, and the implementation is hands down
better than rabb.it's RTC method.

Did you start after Netflix switched to HTML5 video? I'm curious how you
might've dealt with the old flash player- I basically gave up on any actual
control of Netflix in my side project because it was too black-boxy.

~~~
eremzeit
Yeah, the HTML5 was key. It's way easier to listen to player events without
really interacting with Netflix-specific stuff. I probably would have given up
if I was doing it with silverlight. Actually, this is why this is only a
chrome extension because Netflix uses silverlight in Firefox.

~~~
rory096
Wow right it was Silverlight... I think I raged so hard I blocked that out of
my memory.

Not that the flash on Hulu or Amazon are any better. I did have some luck with
YouTube's old player and injecting their js->flash API, but still, HTML5 was a
damn relief.

------
kyle_martin1
I'm in a long distance relationship and have been working on a project to do
just this! I've been thinking about open-sourcing it.

I have video chat, a synced shared web browser, and support for Netflix &
Hulu.

If anyone is interested:
[https://www.distanceflix.com](https://www.distanceflix.com)

------
ninja_to_be
Interesting stuff! I enjoy watching movies with friends at the cinema hall
together and discuss about the movies soon after. Recently when I made a
decision to move abroad, I was wondering if there was a feature that would
give us a similar experience of watching a movie together.

I was thinking of using Skype screen-sharing with friends, where one user
plays the movie and acts as the movie-host taking control of the pause/play,
seeking controls and others watching the movie on Skype via the host's screen.
Doing this provides us with the option of chatting real-time about the movie
too - like how we'd do when seated next to each other in the cinema hall. The
issue with this is that it would take up a lot of bandwidth to stream a movie
and then share it with others simultaneously.

This - Showgoers - claims to solve many of these issues, so I'd definitely
give it a try. One main downside is that Netflix still isn't available for
users in my home-country India. And with limited movie-collections on Netflix
and the other on-demand video services, I'd almost-never again be able to get
the experience of watching a 'newly-released' movie at the cinema hall with a
bunch of close friends.

------
tthayer
Does this do something like rebroadcasting the stream, or does it merely sync
your place on a show using their own Netflix account?

~~~
melvinram
I'd assume it just syncs the place. Otherwise, there would be a whole legal
component to this that would likely result in a swift shutdown.

~~~
eremzeit
Actually, there's another product that does that and somehow gets away with
it. They actually open netflix on a virtual machine and use a ton of hacks to
make it look like its you controlling it. The performance is horrible though
because there is two hops.

[https://rabb.it/](https://rabb.it/)

------
brickmort
The concept seems very similar to Rabbit: [http://rabb.it](http://rabb.it)

~~~
eremzeit
I've messed with rabbit before. I wasn't a fan because in their implementation
actually open netflix on a virtual machine GUI and use browser tricks to try
to make it seem like you're just controlling the computer like its your
desktop. The performance is horrible though because there is two hops, from
netflix to their servers, and their servers to you.

------
kristopolous
I had a web app to do this a few years ago (2011?) For thematic music video
content at [http://80smtv.com/#80smtv](http://80smtv.com/#80smtv) (still up
but a ghost town).

Here's the source
([https://github.com/kristopolous/emptyv](https://github.com/kristopolous/emptyv))
... most of it was written during the 3 or so weeks that it had lots of
traffic, coming from all places, Poland.

I worked hard on the anarchistic anonymous vj feature as a social experiment.
It was interesting but not traction building.

One day I'll build something that can sustain traffic. One day...

------
camilo_u
There's another solution called [https://rabb.it/](https://rabb.it/), but it
also has HBO, Hulu and a bunch of other stuff, seems like a better
alternative.

~~~
eremzeit
My girlfriend and I tried using rabbit but we weren't happy with the
performance. Their implementation is actually to open netflix on a virtual
machine GUI and use browser tricks to try to make it seem like you're just
controlling the computer like its your desktop. The performance tends to be
bad because there is two hops, from netflix to their servers, and their
servers to you.

~~~
tete
Also used it with my girlfriend. Didn't cause any problems, sitting on
different continents (EU, US).

The only problems I experienced were with the sound slider.

------
BHSPitMonkey
What happens when one client stops to buffer?

------
tantalor
Add support for [http://www.google.com/cast/](http://www.google.com/cast/) and
I'm in.

------
flurdy
Sounds a good idea, social TV in general sounds good, but think I just would
find it annoying. "What, another toilet break!".

Zeebox/Beamly also had/have some good social features but I think they even
struggled for people to actually use it. After the initial curiosity people
just want to veg in front of the box. I think.
[http://beamly.com](http://beamly.com)

------
click170
For plex users, if your friends can access your plex server, this is trivial.

One of you starts watching a movie, the others start watching the same movie
and it asks them "would you like to resume from X". Just say Yes and you're
all watching the movie in sync.

I love that you can do this with Netflix now though, this seems like one if
those features that could have (was?) In the original release.

~~~
pimlottc
Does that keep them in sync if someone pauses, jumps back, seeks, etc?

------
brysonr
This would be a lot cooler if it weren't necessarily a chrome extension and
was rather a native app for windows and mac...and it'd be even better if it
had video chat included along with a embedded chat client. Something along the
lines of [http://distanceflix.com](http://distanceflix.com)

------
lawl
Heh, I had the same idea for a while, but using HTML5 and streaming it to
friends directly via P2P. But I was too lazy to implement it and afraid of
getting into troubles with the MAFIAA.

Just using netflix is definitly suitable for the masses too :)

------
chenja
Great idea. I used to always just count down so we could start Netflix at the
same point, and then sync up after a bit by pausing and restarting
occasionally, this is a very elegant solution!

------
deckar01
We used to watch TV with my grandma over the phone.

Instead of commercial breaks they could have intermissions like old movie
theaters allowing people to smoke and chat.

------
booruguru
Is there anything like this for VLC or some other desktop video app?

~~~
megawac
Used this one way back
[http://addons.videolan.org/content/show.php/Syncplay+interfa...](http://addons.videolan.org/content/show.php/Syncplay+interface+module+for+VLC?content=159160)

------
mdevere
you should also check out Let's Gaze.
[https://letsgaze.com/#/](https://letsgaze.com/#/)

it works for YouTube and local files.

------
jstx
Is this OSS? If not, are there any plans to add Plex to it?

~~~
johnpowell
Plex already does this. If you go to now playing it will let you start playing
where someone else on your server is at.

------
s369610
just add webrtc voice chat to complete the experience

------
JCordeiro
Very cool. Thanks for sharing :D

------
dhruvarora013
Love it! You should OSS this!

------
ripaujla
This is Nice, Will use.

------
enedil
If only Netflix was avaliable in Poland...

------
ndesaulniers
_pops champagne cork_

DRM loses again!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3EMvZrFR4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3EMvZrFR4)

