
Netflix To Come To Linux Via HTML5 - taylorbuley
http://www.thechromesource.com/netflix-plug-in-for-chrome-and-chrome-os-is-on-the-way/
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naner
This doesn't make any sense. Netflix will not (cannot) stream anything without
DRM protection due to licensing agreements. The video element from HTML5
obviously doesn't have any mechanisms for content protection. Perhaps Netflix
is producing a NPAPI video player plugin for Linux browsers but that would
mean they are not using the HTML5 video element.

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abscondment
I wonder if it's feasible (legally and technically) to encrypt the stream
between their servers and the plugin, but have the plugin send a local,
unencrypted version to the built-in HTML5 plumbing.

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koenigdavidmj
That is no more secure than just sendimg a plain stream, as a sufficiently
inclined user could man-in-the-middle that stream.

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jrockway
What's the point of DRM when I can just connect gdb to this process and suck
the video right out of memory after it's been encrypted? Or, what's the point
of DRM when I can just write my own video driver?

Wait, what's the point of DRM again? I can already get every movie ever made
for free in HD on the Internet.

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jbk
Exactly. The important part is on the "video driver" part.

People have asked us to implement DRM in VLC since a long time, over and over.
At the end it is impossible, because when an code interface is know, you can
always switch one part and dump the stream; the part being a filter, a video
renderer or just a video driver.

This is why HDCP was implemented (and failed, btw) to have a chain of trust.

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yid
Right, but the lower down in the stack they go, the more they deter the
"casual" hacker. I think they want to bring down the sheer number of pirates
to a level where the vast majority of media won't be pirated.

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jrockway
This doesn't make sense, though. You can just share your account credentials
and activate your friends' TVs. Then they can watch all the video they want.

Similarly, people don't pirate movies by having a close friend rip Netflix
streams. They go on The Pirate Bay and download the torrent. Preventing piracy
means you need to prevent people from ripping the disks or streams in the
first place... but the people who do that aren't "casual hackers", they are as
hardcore as priates get. And if just one person figures out how to do it, it's
broken forever. (I assume there are plenty of programs available to rip Blu-
Ray disks now, since the key for each disk is known and publicly available. It
only takes one person to do that, and then the DRM is nothing but a waste of
CPU cycles and engineering talent.)

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dasil003
I wouldn't go authorizing other people's devices with your Netflix account
willy-nilly, because I'm pretty sure they'll cut you off pretty quick.

To your point about the security of DRM, that's an overly idealistic view of
things. It's simply not true that the one person with expertise to break an
almost-perfect DRM is going to rip every movie and torrent it. Hell it's
trivial to rip any DVD and that's more than Netflix quality already. The
studios are not the blundering idiots that the hacker community would like to
believe; they realize all this, but they're not just going to roll over and go
DRM-free just because of an absolutist argument. Instead they're going to keep
pushing the envelope (and paying!) for ever-improved DRM to cut down on piracy
as much as they can. It may be a losing battle, but if it is it's lose-lose
for them so they'll keep fighting it.

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veyron
How are the torrent videos made available in the first place? Are people just
ripping DVDs?

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aidenn0
Rips of DVDs and blu-rays are the most common (and high-quality) way for
anything that has been put on a disc. Note that this may still be before
commercial release, as screeners are made available for critics et. al.

For movies that are newly in the theater, the movie is captured with a video
camera. This varies in quality from some guy pointing a cam-corder at the
screen with a microphone (worst quality) goes up when they hook the audio
directly in using the system for the hard-of hearing (often called a telesync,
though it's a bit of a misnomer) and is even better when done from a tripod in
the projection room.

Something that is still done, but is more rare, is to take the film and run it
through a piece of dedicated equipment for converting from film to video,
caled a telecine.

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juiceandjuice
My guess is this is using NativeClient to manage the DRM.

You don't need Silverlight to implement the DRM stack for PlayReady. Once you
license it, you can implement the DRM stack any way you want, be it hardware,
software, etc... otherwise this wouldn't work on iPhone either.

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ysangkok
This doesn't even work in Chrome unless you enable it. They are not using
this, it would make them to dependent on an immature technology.

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juiceandjuice
Netflix doesn't work in Chrome on Linux period, what makes you so sure they
won't use it in the future when they are ready to release? Despite being
immature, it's a very logical choice.

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ysangkok
There are more Firefox/Windows users than there are Chrome/Linux users.

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chaselee
This means I can finally get rid of the part of my laptop I call a Netflix
player...aka Windows 7.

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sixtofour
This will be great, I won't have to downshift to Windows to watch a Netflix
movie.

Hopefully the quality will be better in HTML5 than Netflix's current offering.
While the price is right, dark scenes are pixelated in NF movies over cable
internet.

I have recently watched a few movies over Google's Youtube movie service, and
Amazon's. Both use flash, and both have much better quality, at least on my
laptop. As I watch a movie on flash I wonder why NF can't figure out how to
get equivalent quality.

And there's also Silverlight, which freezes up my laptop on about 10-20% of
attempts to watch a NF movie. Be good to have that gone.

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d135-1r43
They should come to Europe before they come to Linux ;)

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jevinskie
Netflix has already used HTML 5 for the movie browsing interface on the PS3
(with a custom webkit build IIRC). I highly doubt that they are using <video>,
they wouldn't stream the video without some kind of DRM. Unless perhaps the
plugin allows use of <video> with DRM content. My guess is that the plugin
handles all of the video playback with some kind of <object>.

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wahnfrieden
They are in fact not using <video> for the PS3 player. Here's a source:
[http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/why-we-choose-
html5-for-...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2010/12/why-we-choose-html5-for-
user.html)

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dasil003
This is fascinating. How does the DRM work?

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wahnfrieden
This is probably what the plugin is for. It wasn't clear to me whether this is
a normal Chrome extension, or a "full" plugin on the order of Flash or Java.
In either case, it's likely not pure W3C HTML/JS.

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chacha102
According to the byline, this article was posted well over a month ago. While
it might still happen, it would be really hard to pin a time frame on it,
considering that Google I/O has come and passed.

Still would be looking forward to this though.

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MatthewPhillips
Why don't they just use flash? Hulu uses it without a problem. It's obviously
secure enough. It's available on most computers, including Chrome (and Chrome
OS). What's the fuss about?

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michael_h
On my netbook, hulu/flash uses 100% of the cpu to produce unwatchable video in
full screen, while netflix (today) uses around 10% and looks just fine.

On my linux desktop, flash in full screen is even worse than my netbook.

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th0ma5
Thank you for posting this. Linux Flash is insane, and it is crazy that Adobe
can have any respect for putting it out the for download in the state it seems
to be perpetually in. It is nuts specifically because Compiz can zoom into
this video fullscreen without issue, but hitting a fullscreen button 9 out of
10 times is cause for flicker and tearing. The only two instances I've had
some good success are 1) Google Video and surprisingly 2) Amazon Prime.

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ramidarigaz
Excellent! I've been holding off on renewing my Netflix subscription for just
this reason. Maybe it's time to reactivate?

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adamjernst
Their iPad app is also clearly HTML5. Sadly this means the UX is pretty
crappy.

