Bookmarklets are cool and all that, but what I have really always wanted the autoplay functionality for Netflix to do is emulate the ‘Sleep Timer’ found on most TVs. That is, I want it to play for some amount of them, and when done, shut everything off. I know I am not the only person around who has used the function on the TV for years while going to sleep. I have known that this is not possible using just a bookmarklet, but I never got the energy up to actually figure out how to make one. One of the reasons is that I have always known that calling something external like the Shutdown/Sleep command on the computer would be a huge pain. This new HTML5 video Netflix is using for Chrome though made it just a bit too tempting.
The core functionality works basically the same way as this one, since Chrome extensions just use Javascript. I had to figure out how to do all the fancy stuff that makes it an extension, AND add the stuff to allow it to interact with the system to call the Sleep command.
And here it is: Netflix Autoplayer – Chrome Extension
IMPORTANT:
For the ‘Sleep’ functionality to work, once you have installed the extension, you must download the install.bat file that you will see a link for at the bottom of the dialog for the extension. You must run this (and I believe you might need administrator privileges when you do) it creates a couple files that are needed and adds a registry entry. Really, in general I would say you should not do something like that. You shouldn’t be running random things people on the internet tell you to. If you want the ‘Sleep’ to work though, that’s what you need to do. If you understand how .bat files work, it is actually really small, so you can check out what it is doing.
Once you have done the above you can actually edit one of the files it creates, it is located at:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Netflix-Autoplay\shutdown.bat
And by default should have the following:
:: Lock
::rundll32.exe User32.dll,LockWorkStation
:: Shutdown
::Shutdown.exe -s -t 00
:: Hibernate
::rundll32.exe PowrProf.dll,SetSuspendState
:: Sleep
rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,1,0
As you can see, ‘Sleep’ is what it does by default, but I have entries for Hibernate, Shutdown, and Lock all listed, just uncomment the one you want and comment the others back out…Hell if you want you could really put anything you like in that file and make it run anything when the timer gets to zero.
Chrome Web Store Link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/netflix-autoplayer/adegickccmlojbmbmemgjakpoammfmkg?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon
Github Link: https://github.com/rtpmatt/Netflix-Autoplay-Chrome-Extension
Hope you enjoy!