Movie Deeplink for Netflix Android TV app (com.netflix.ninja)

Question

I have seen solutions on how to do movie deeplinking for Netflix for the mobile Netflix app, but for the Android TV version of the app those same solutions don't seem to be working.

I have tried using an Intent with action.VIEW and passing the normal Netflix URL such as: http://www.netflix.com/watch/{movieId} or with the nflx:// protocol.

For the android TV app only the nflx:// protocol seems to do anything where it opens the app and then it just stays at the main menu instead of playing the movie. Using the http:// protocol opens to netflix in the browser where it just asks you to download the phone or tablet app.

Has anyone been able to figure this out?

score 10 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 17 '16 at 19:27

I wanted the same, so I spent some time digging. It had to be possible because Netflix series and movies show up in the Android TV launcher search results and can be launched from there. Apparently there are intent extras in that intent and they are the missing piece. The biggest problem was that there is no easy way to capture those intent extras (logcat doesn't show the extras), still I found a way. The following code does what you want:

Intent netflix = new Intent();
netflix.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
netflix.setData(Uri.parse("http://www.netflix.com/watch/70202141"));
netflix.putExtra("source","30"); // careful: String, not int
netflix.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK|Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
getActivity().startActivity(netflix);

Alternatively, through adb:

adb shell am start -c android.intent.category.LEANBACK_LAUNCHER -a android.intent.action.VIEW -d http://www.netflix.com/watch/70202141 -f 0x10808000 -e source 30 com.netflix.ninja/.MainActivity

This way I can launch right into a movie or series and it automatically starts playing. To launch into the screen without automatic playback, use /title/ instead of /watch/. Tested on netflix ninja 3.3.1 build 1513 for Android TV on arm.

This is not working for me on FireTV. How did you capture the intent extras? — prestomation, Apr 30 '17 at 06:33
@prestonmation I found out that it only works on Fire TV 2 Gen and Fire TV Stick 2 Gen, this happen because the Netflix version is different than the Fire TV 1 Gen and Fire TV Stick 1 Gen — innovaciones, May 15 '17 at 17:08
how did you managed to grab the intent extras? why is it "source" and "30"? did you decompiled the atv launcher app? — StackerSapper, Dec 08 '22 at 11:16

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 01 '16 at 00:21

Netflix recently added universal search support to Android TV, which means there had to be some way to deep link to shows and movies. So I found a few flags you need to set to correctly open the show page. It seems like there are also extras which could be used to automatically start playing.

public void OpenNFX() {
    Intent netflix = new Intent();
    netflix.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);
    netflix.setData(Uri.parse("http://www.netflix.com/watch/70291117"));
    netflix.setFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_NEW_TASK|Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
    getActivity().startActivity(netflix);
}

Movie Deeplink for Netflix Android TV app (com.netflix.ninja)

2 Answers2

Linked