Feature Request: Link to digital copies from Vudu or Amazon Prime

General Discussions
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Of course with many discs these days a digital copy is included. I would love to be able to designate within Plex Media Server when I have a copy of a title available via one of those services. I will sometimes make a reference in the notes section for a title. What would be really nice is to be able to launch that Vudu or Amazon copy (or iTunes once Plex is available on Apple TV) directly from within Plex such that the Vudu app is then opened on a Roku and directly on that title.

 

I guess a corresponding feature request would be to be able to add movies to your library that you don't actually have on a local hard drive. Then Plex could serve as an aggregator of all your "owned" media, whether or not you have it on a local hard drive or it resides within Vudu, etc. 

 

This would also be useful if perhaps you own a DVD quality version on a local hard drive but perhaps purchased the HD version from Vudu, rather than purchasing the blu-ray. You could keep the DVD quality version on a hard drive but be able to browse and launch the HD version onto Vudu. Could also function as a space saving measure (keep an SD quality on the hard drive, but have the option to watch the HD version via Vudu).

 

Anyway, just some thoughts.

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This will likely never happen due to the DRM on those files

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He’s not asking for Vudu or Amazon movie copies to be stored within Plex. He’s wanting Plex to be a library aggregator, so that it knows what media he owns across what services, so then if he opts to watch a movie that is in his Vudu library, Plex would launch the Vudu app with that movie preselected.

Essentially what he’s wanting, is what Android TV already does, where it aggregates media into the home page of the device, or Xbox One’s media aggregation without being limited by a specific app (excluding Netflix, as they haven’t added support).

It’s a great goal, but you would need a plugin within Plex server to handle the indexing of the external services, and then you’d need awareness on the Android device (or Roku, etc) of what apps are available that would be able to launch the media.

jcretrop, as far as aggregating what your media library is, Trakt.tv at least gives you a way to manage your library (within it’s own database), mark items as watched, rate items, etc. Plex already has a Trakt plugin to sync up your Plex library to Trakt, and mark items as watched automatically, etc.

Really I think you’d be better off to try to get Trakt to let you store where in your library each piece of media is stored (i.e. - Plex, Vudu, Amazon), and then a Trakt-based app for Android/Roku could act as your media hub, where you can then select to watch a program, and at that point Plex or Vudu, etc, would be launched.

What would be really interesting, is to use the Google Cast (Chromecast) API to handle the launching of media streams, rather than having to know a specific app to launch. Hmmm…

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This is possible. The Kaleidescape already supports downloading Vudu movies and playback so in theory the Vudu player supports some sort of API calls wether it’s just built into the Kaleidescape version or not is a good question. I would say not since my Roku4 had a play now link external to Vudu for Star Wars that fired the movie right up.

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Ultraviolet service was suppose to do this but Disney never supported it. So pretty much Ultraviolet has been a failure. Disney has since relaunched their streaming media service which offered their own digital locker “KeyChest”. Disney has been far more successful and gotten all the Ultraviolet partners on board and more. Disney relaunched their stream service as “Movies Anywhere”. It supports the following services allow you put all your movies in one place as well as put all the movies you have purchased in other places into every service. So you bought “Mulan” on Disney and “Star Wars” on Google, You would end up with Star Wars in Disney and Mulan in Google. The supported companies/services are:
iTunes
Google Play
Amazon Prime Video
Vudu
FandangoNOW

The only service that supported Ultraviolet that doesn’t support Movies Anywhere/KeyChest is Flixster because they are owned by Fandango now, which supports KeyChest.

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Does Movies Anywhere have an API that would allow Plex or a Plex plug-in, index all the movies in your account?
Then, would it be possible for Plex to use deep links to launch a movie in Vudu/GooglePlay/Amazon/iTunes?

What I would like to eventually have is Plex to be the default interface for the TV. The whole family has no problem navigating Plex to find TV shows and movies and videos from the Plex Channels. They do however complain about having to switch to the Amazon Prime, Vudu, and Netflix apps.

I know some sources have resisted allowing deep links to their libraries, but my dream is for Plex to be the home screen for all the TVs in the house.

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This is a convincing argument to buy media. I use Vudu for long distance trips to play media on tablets. Vudu would be wise to expand the disk and digital program. Right now it is bit funky with 4K titles seldom offered or ignored.

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Hey all. I stumbled across this while searching for a solution to this problem. It leads me to believe there is an API because this guy used to export a list of his movies.

In it he references “https://api.vudu.com/api2/” . I believe it is a valid url because it does error with authentication errors. I don’t want to supply my creds yet to the api because I have not been able to verify this is in-fact a vudu url. MY limited knowledge on DNS tells me it is because the main domain does show vudu.com, what I am not sure about is whether or not it possible for this to be some hidden redirect to gain access to my personal info.

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Also check out guide box. http://demo.guidebox.com/

I checked into it and got this response:

“Just to let you know that pricing starts at $249/month for access to our API. We are happy to give you a free 30 day trial to determine if the Guidebox API is right for you.”

But if you look at the Demo, they are doing what I would think is exactly what we want plex to do. Unfortunately $249/Month is more than I am willing to pay.

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+1 from me.
I’d love for plex to be able to open (e.g) iTunes movie in itunes.

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Does trakt still work with Plex? I just installed it on PMS and all I get are 502 errors returned.

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I know this is an older thread, but I also would like to give my +1 to this idea. In this digital age, it is a very useful feature that would highly benefits both sides. Customers of PLEX would get easy access to purchased content on their favorite vendors i.e. VUDU, Amazon, etc. The Vendors would most likely get more purchases since the user can easily access them through their home HTPC center PLEX! So PLEX… I hope your listening. This would be a great feature to implement in the near future if possible. If need be set minimums on the home hardware required… by all means if its needed. I for one though would love to see this come about.

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