Hulu True Deeplinking

Configuration
1

Has anyone had any luck with true deep linking Hulu. I’m not just talking about starting a media player and switching the source to Hulu. That’s easy and readily achievable. What I’m looking for is the ability to direct Hulu to a specific network, like The Weather Channel, as part of an automation or script.

I’m currently running 4 Roku TV’s as media players and have a subscription to Hulu. The typical start up sequence is:

  1. Turn on Media Player
  2. Set source to Hulu and delay until Hulu is ready
  3. Select the user from the Hulu Menu. We have 2, plus there is an option to add a user.
  4. This is where it gets wonky. Select the correct Network. In my case I want a specific network, not a particular show or series.

I can do the first 3 steps using the remote.send_command service calls, but the desired channel is not typically in the same sequence of key commands from day to day. Meaning if the sequence was Left, Left, Down, Select, Down, Select EVEREY DAY this would be an acceptable solution, but it isn’t. With 4 TV’s and one Hulu account the Recently Watched and Live TV list order changes daily.
Therefore I would like to do something like this:

hulu_direct_to_history:
  alias: Hulu Direct to History Channel
  sequence:
    - service: media_player.play_media
      enabled: TRUE
      target:
        entity_id: media_player.kitchen_roku_tv
      data:
        media_content_id: 2285
        media_content_type: app
        extra:
          content_id: the-history-channel-bf84c00e-26c4-4c19-b4f2-e113fd4ebbc8
          media_type: live

However this fails. The content ID was acquired using the Hulu website on my PC. I can log in, select a network and watch whatever is on at the time. Using the information found on the Roku integration page, the URL is parsed down to a content_id of:

the-history-channel-bf84c00e-26c4-4c19-b4f2-e113fd4ebbc8

from the full URL of:

https://www.hulu.com/network/the-history-channel-bf84c00e-26c4-4c19-b4f2-e113fd4ebbc8

I suspect that the Roku TV’s post a similar content ID to the one the web page uses, but in every case where I get the data from the website, parse it and send it with the above code, it fails.

I’ve tried:

        extra:
          content_id: the-history-channel-bf84c00e-26c4-4c19-b4f2-e113fd4ebbc8
          media_type: live

        extra:
          content_id: the-history-channel
          media_type: live

        extra:
          content_id: bf84c00e-26c4-4c19-b4f2-e113fd4ebbc8
          media_type: live

        extra:
          content_id: network/the-history-channel-bf84c00e-26c4-4c19-b4f2-e113fd4ebbc8
          media_type: live

None work. :<(

Does anyone have a suggestion or alternative solution? Any help would be appreciated.

2

Any luck here? I’m trying to do the same on Apple TV.

3

Unfortunately, no. I dug around with WireShark but could never get anything I could code to link an action directly to a specific channel. Super disappointing since it seems like it should be do-able especially since I can click a link on Hulu on my pc and jump right to that channel.