
Netflix ditches Silverlight with support for HTML5 video in IE11 - mindstab
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/06/26/netflix-ditches-silverlight-with-support-for-html5-video-in-ie11-available-today-with-windows-8-1-preview/
======
isomorphic
Quoting Netflix, from the article:

    
    
      We expect premium video on the web to continue to shift away from using proprietary plugin technologies to using these new Premium Video Extensions.
    

Quoting the article:

    
    
      According to Netflix, Microsoft made this possible by implementing three features in its still-unfinished IE11:
    
      The Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) using Microsoft PlayReady DRM.
    
    

Netflix is using some doublespeak here. Yes, Silverlight was a "proprietary
plugin", but they've just shifted to using proprietary DRM with proprietary
extensions to HTML5. They got rid of the plugin--great! But they've replaced
one proprietary experience with another.

~~~
jiggy2011
They will still be rendering the interface and probably the video with
standard HTML5 components, in fact even the DRM - Browser mechanism is
standardized. It's just that the DRM code itself may be proprietary. So this
is still a step forward.

~~~
mtgx
In what way is it a step forward? Okay, they can now use default video codecs
in their proprietary plugin, instead of the same codec being used in Flash.

So does that make it anymore cross-platform than Flash was? And now instead of
having "one" monolithic proprietary plugin, it's now more "decentralized" and
you'll have to use "many" such proprietary plugins from Netflix, from Hulu,
from Amazon, and many others, that may or may not be cross-platform.

Why is the news only about IE (11 even). Does it work in Chrome and Firefox,
too?

~~~
makomk
Well, the good news is that as an end-user you'll probably only have one
monolithic proprietary chunk of code that's even conveniently integrated into
your web browser. The bad news is that you'll have to hope that all the DRMed
video sites you're using support the proprietary scheme your particular
browser and platform use. In this case, it's Microsoft's PlayReady DRM.

Also, the codec used is actually part of the proprietary blob, and there are
no requirements as to which codecs or containers a particular DRM scheme
supports, so in theory every DRM scheme could require a different,
incompatible proprietary codec and they'd still all be 100% standards
compliant.

~~~
jlgreco
There is also no reason to think that these binary blobs will be built for
platforms that the video providers have not given two shits about in the past.
Anyone who is supporting this stuff because they think it will get them
Netflix on a GNU/Linux desktop (not ChromeOS or Android) is crazy. That's not
what this does, and they don't care about supporting us.

~~~
gizmo686
Isn't ChromeOS running on GNU/Linux?

~~~
jlgreco
ChromeOS runs on a Linux kernel, but the entire experience is very different
from what you would normally expect from a Linux distro. I call the more
recognizable distros "GNU/Linux" to differentiate.

------
mtgx
The "good news" is that they are using web crypto, and knowing how many will
try to crack Netflix's streaming now, this means the developers behind web
crypto will be getting a lot of feedback and "bugs" to fix, and eventually
make web crypto stronger, and maybe some day we can finally use it for e-mail
and storage services.

~~~
gue5t
This doesn't make sense, because you have to have the key to play the video.
Cryptography and security practices are the medical science to DRM's snake
oil, and I don't really expect this usage will help security at all.

A "known key" attack isn't an attack at all, cryptographically speaking.

In addition: it doesn't even look like they're meaningfully using "web crypto"
APIs, but rather the much-debated proposed DRM blob APIs.

~~~
lukifer
I only know the basics of crypto, but couldn't the key be hidden and itself
encrypted within the machine code for IE, and then authenticated via HTTPS? I
would think this is mainly a problem for open-source browsers, which would
require closed-source plugins.

~~~
gizmo686
The user has access to the machine code for IE.

However, you are onto the right track. One proposed solution to DRM (that I
believe was impleneted with DVD and/or blueray) is to establish a chain of
trust in the hardware. The idea would be that you send an encrypted signal to
the monitor, and the monitor has a tamper resistant decryption chip with its
own key.

Obviously, this only gets you so far, as once someone cracks the chip (or
acquires the master key through other means, as happened with DVD), then the
entire scheme is broken.

Ultimatly the problem is that you need to provide the user with enough
information for them to be able to view the decrypted content, while at the
same time not let them know the decrypted content. The real question is how
difficult/expansive can you make it to bypass. Unfourtantly, in every system I
am aware of, once one person figures it out, it become cheap and easy for
every else; and coming up with a new crypto-system is a great way to get the
academic community to try and break it.

~~~
bradydoll
The hardware DRM you are talking about, is HDCP. It is required for Blu-ray.

~~~
gizmo686
Thanks.

For anyone interested, it looks like HDCP has been broken on pure crypto
grounds [1]. As much as I agree that this type of DRM is fundamentally not
possible, I'm still kind of surprised that their was a direct attack on the
crypto.

[1]
[http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/pubs/hdcppaper.ps](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~scrosby/pubs/hdcppaper.ps)

------
fatjokes
Thank god. I hate Silverlight. It's so resource intensive.

EDIT: I just felt like ranting against Silverlight some more. The _only_
reason I use Silverlight is because of Netflix. I run it in Chrome on my Mac
Air. Besides being buggy and resource hungry, it also doesn't stop my Mac from
dimming even when watching a video in fullscreen, unlike YouTube videos, etc.
(Could this be because it doesn't use the graphics card?) I watched a movie on
it the other day and the audio/video kept going out of sync due to lag (not a
network problem) and I had to reload the page every 5 minutes. Aaargh! Death
to Silverlight!

~~~
rubberband
Are you implying that Flash is any less resource intensive or buggy?

~~~
kenbellows
Where did he mention Flash? HTML5 video is the alternative being discussed
here, and it's far less resource intensive and buggy (depending on the video
format), from my experience at least.

~~~
jspaur
To be fair, he mentioned Youtube, which even in Chrome uses Flash by default.

~~~
bestdayever
[http://www.youtube.com/html5](http://www.youtube.com/html5) granted it
doesn't always work.

------
kevincrane
Are "Premium Media Extensions" also plugins? Because if so this didn't really
get much better. It still means Linux users could be on the backburner until
someone decides we can watch too. Until Mozilla and Google are on board this
doesn't necessarily seem better from a "universally available" standpoint.

~~~
jlgreco
Yes. There is no reason to think that things which did not work on Linux
before will suddenly start working just because this API is being crammed into
HTML5.

~~~
mikeryan
I'm not necessarily saying that Linux will ever be a high priority, but having
to only provide a PlayReady Media Extension for a few browsers on Linux is a
much more reasonable effort then providing the whole Silverlight or Flash
runtime.

~~~
jlgreco
They would have no control over the rest of the stack. If netflix created a
linux build of a DRM binary that worked with their service then it would
become the tool of choice for everyone that wanted to rip/upload to usenet the
latest Netflix exclusive content. Also they frankly just don't care about
linux users.

If this were something that they were interested in having, they would have
had Netflix on Chrome on 'regular GNU desktop' Linux _months_ ago when it
started working with Chrome on a Linux kernel with ChromeOS.

~~~
tmzt
If an extension to XvMC or the proprietary ATI/Nvidea equivalent supported a
protected path for media content, which could theoretically bypass the kernel
by sending ciphertext directly to the renderer, then Widevine or another DRM
system could be supported on GNU/Linux.

~~~
jlgreco
Seems possible, though theoretical. I would not expect to see this unless
somebody was paying for it (no particular reason for ATI/Nvidia/Whoever to go
out of their way to support such a thing), meaning that I will not expect to
ever see it in "normal" Linux distros (perhaps in "ChromeOS style" locked down
distros being marketed with their own completely separate branding).

Proprietary graphics stuff in Linux has always been a world of hurt anyway
(despite the lower performance it was a _godsend_ when progress on the radeon
drivers started to accelerate). I would expect few Linux users to be thrilled
about compromising their streamlined modern Linux installation to watch
netflix when a separate Roku or smartphone would do. (I know I would never go
for this proposal. It would not be worth the grief to be plunged back into
2005. Not on the computer that I try to get work done on...)

------
driverdan
Here's the EFF's formal objection to including DRM in HTML specs:
[https://www.eff.org/pages/drm/w3c-formal-objection-html-
wg](https://www.eff.org/pages/drm/w3c-formal-objection-html-wg)

------
codereflection
This is interesting. Google still hasn't completely converted over to HTML5
video for YouTube. You've been able to opt in to the trial for years now
([http://www.youtube.com/html5](http://www.youtube.com/html5)). But it seems
that more than half the videos I watch are still using the crappy old Flash
player.

Content wise, YouTube has way more content to convert to be able to take
advantage of HTML5. I wonder if Netflix is having to convert video on the
backend for this as well. Or if they're just using a base format that allows
for delivery over Silverlight and HTML5 without having to re-encode and store.
But they wouldn't really be re-encoding on the fly though, would they? That
would seem to be hugely resource intensive. Does anyone know more about how
they're doing this on the backend?

~~~
lloeki
> _But it seems that more than half the videos I watch are still using the
> crappy old Flash player._

That's because of the ads. With things like ClickToFlash or youtube-dl, you
notice that most videos are actually available as MPEG4 and/or WebM.

~~~
Daiz
The Flash player is playing the exact same H.264 video that you could get with
the HTML5 player.

~~~
codereflection
Then why do they bring up the Flash player when I've opted in to the HTML5
preview?

~~~
Daiz
For ads (and DRM).

~~~
MatthewPhillips
The HTML5 player can play ads too...

------
ebbv
Nice Frank Lutz-ian reterming of HTML5 video DRM extensions as "premium
extensions".

~~~
isomorphic
Netflix is indeed using some slippery and perhaps contradictory wording that
has passed through at least one marketing filter.

Although we may interpret "premium" to connote "better", the usage meaning
"something you have to pay" is accurate.

Perhaps we could take back the language and start referring to the extensions
as "Media Fee Extensions"?

~~~
mtgx
I think it has nothing to do with being paid - it's not like you pay for the
plugin itself. Plus, they wouldn't want you to think about having to pay for
it anyway.

I think in this case it's just a meaningless word introduced to make it sound
better than the "proprietary plugins" like Silverlight and Flash. I think
their alternatives were naming it like "Awesome Viewing Experience Extension"
or "Netflix True HD Vision Extension", or something like that.

In each case they wouldn't mean what they normally mean, and would be used in
a misleading way just to give you a "good feeling" about having DRM on the
web.

~~~
ebbv
The issue is there's already accurate words to describe these extensions; DRM.

But the accurate words have negative connotations so they avoid them on
purpose and try to use positive ones which may be _technically_ accurate but
wouldn't be how anyone would normally choose to describe them. This is the
definition of spin.

~~~
Daiz
I think we should just all start calling these extensions either something
like "Digital Restriction Extensions" (DRE for short) or just plain and simply
"DRM Extensions". If misleading garbage like "Premium Media Extensions" were
left to the likes of Netflix press releases, reporting on the subject would be
much more truthful.

------
Zikes
Netflix will be taking advantage of EMEs for HTML5 DRM in IE11.

Microsoft has not confirmed IE11 will be supported in any OS other than
Windows 8.1.

Older versions of IE, including IE10 on Windows 7, will still require
Silverlight, meaning it still will not die.

If this is to be a nail in Silverlight's coffin, it's a very tiny one.

Edit: Per freehunter's comment below, Microsoft has confirmed eventual IE11
support for Windows 7.

~~~
freehunter
Many sites are reporting that Microsoft _has_ confirmed IE11 support for
Windows 7 [1]. The question is when, not if.

[1] [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043129/internet-
explorer-11-...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2043129/internet-
explorer-11-will-land-on-windows-7-someday.html)

~~~
mtgx
Is Microsoft really releasing a new version of IE with support for only 2
major (8.1, 8.2, etc are just service packs anyway) versions of Windows back?

I guess that's good for everyone, though, since it means IE won't have a huge
market share anymore.

~~~
mynameisvlad
I really don't think it's as big of a problem as you're trying to make it out
to be.

~~~
Zikes
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems)

~~~
mynameisvlad
Your point? XP is essentially on life support at this point, and even that
ends in a year. General support for XP ended in 2009. At that point, not
supporting it in terms of software compatibility would be fine in my books.

------
wamatt
The ideological debate is potentially interesting: Does DRM belong in HTML5?

(and yes, it's hard not to view the Netflix/MS situation cynically)

That said, ditching that godawful Silverlight plugin, is probably a welcome
change from the customer experience perspective.

------
jdangu
Incidentally, that puts another nail in the coffin for Adobe Flash, which is
still widely used for DRM'd video streaming.

~~~
scribu
I never thought I would say this, but I think I would prefer Adobe Flash and
other browser plugins instead of making DRM a built-in feature of the web.

~~~
randallu
At least as a browser vendor you just had to implement NPAPI to get Flash --
EME requires contracts and money.

------
mortenjorck
Am I the only one who, given the vast proliferation of mobile and TV-connected
devices with Netflix clients over the past few years, can't even remember the
last time they used the Silverlight app to stream something?

~~~
jaredmcateer
I used it every day because I find all HTPC media center implementations of
netflix to be lacking so I use it straight through the browser.

------
mindstab
And so in a small part the MSIE team is back to "creating" new "standards" for
the web because they were the first on board so the get more input to the
final product. I hate to say it (in part because I'm not 100% sold on web DRM,
tho netflix on Linux will be nice...) but by being sticks in the mud over the
issue Google and Mozilla are now going to be following IE's lead for probably
the first time in a while

~~~
ndesaulniers
Also, standardizing EME will not bring Netflix to Linux (the most common
misunderstanding around EME). Please name one CDM for a Linux distro other
than ChromeOS. Widevine is available only in ChromeOS, and Playready is only
available in Windows. So looks like you have to buy one of those Operating
Systems to have Netflix.

------
dave1010uk
Can we stop calling video that uses extensions "HTML5 video" (even if it may
be part of the HTML spec)? I suggest we call it "EME video".

------
frankcaron
I'm curious. With all the railing around Flash and its obsolescence, is
Silverlight destined to go the same route?

I don't hear much about it anymore, particularly in the enterprise and the
video provider space in which I currently work, where things like Verimatrix
and Azuki are mentioned far more often than Flash/Silverlight.

Anyone have any intel on any major projects that use Silverlight aside from
Netflix?

------
adamconroy
As pointed out by many, this is even more proprietary than any plugin.
Microsoft are fricken idiots, they are trying to be hip and open standards etc
but nobody is going to buy it, at the same time they are annoying everyone who
couldn't care less and probably don't even know what a plugin is, on top of
disenfranchising legions of developers.

~~~
humbledrone
You say nobody is going to buy it, but doesn't this article show that Netflix
"bought" into it?

~~~
adamconroy
Sorry for the ambiguity. My intention was to communicate that I didn't think
anyone would buy the idea that MS is hip and an open-standards advocate.

------
tomphoolery
Nice!! I've been holding out on downloading a new version of Silverlight
because I heard this was just around the corner. Now I get to uninstall the
last MS product on my machine!

~~~
Daiz
>Now I get to uninstall the last MS product on my machine!

...Except you'd have to install Windows 8.1 and use IE11 in order to use the
"wonderful" HTML5 Netflix with their proprietary DRM blob that has even less
compatibility than Flash and Silverlight.

------
jebblue
This works great on Linux, this is true HTML5 support (or they say it's HTML5
- and it works):

[http://www.videojs.com/](http://www.videojs.com/)

------
bsg75
What does this mean for anything not running IE11?

~~~
dstorey
Netflix already support ChromeOS on Samsung Chrome books using this method.
Only that Chrome doesn’t support an end to end solution, as it doesn’t support
the Crypto API, so Netflix rolled their own. They also support a different DRM
plug-in.

As this involves three different specs, which are all from the W3C, this means
that it will work in any browser that implements them, and supports the DRM
that Netflix uses.

Microsoft and Google are already on board. I expect Opera will inherit this
from Blink/Chromium. As both YouTube and Netflix support this already, I
wouldn’t be surprised to see WebKit and Firefox/Gecko implement it eventually.

------
jebblue
Can you say you are supporting HTML5 if you just get in bed with Microsoft?

~~~
dstorey
I don‘t see why not. Two of the editors of the HTML5.1 spec are Microsoft
representatives:
[http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/](http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/)

~~~
jebblue
If you have to say they will support HTML5 but only on xyz browsers or OS'es
then it's like a gas station saying they support Regular but only for Ford and
General Motors cars. The reason I can say that is any _other_ site that claims
HTML5, works fine on my Chrome browser on Ubuntu.

------
shmerl
Netflix was and remains DRMed, which is enough of a reason to avoid them.

------
ck2
This means netflix might finally come to the raspberry pi!

Far more exciting than IE11

~~~
Daiz
No, it won't. As far as compatibility goes, EME is even worse than something
like Silverlight. This should be evident just from the fact that in order to
use HTML5 Netflix, you either need a) IE11 on Windows 8.1 or b) an official
Google Chromebook with Google-provided image and which hasn't been rooted. In
comparison, even Silverlight has a pretty amazing track record as far as
compatibility goes.

~~~
dstorey
EME, MSE, and Web Crypto are very new specifications. They’re just starting to
be rolled out in browsers. They’re not going to be rolled out everywhere
overnight.

H.264 video codec is on pretty much every major browser now, including
Firefox. This wasn’t the case when browsers first supported the video element.
It is a similar situation to EME and friends today. Including the potential
licensing fee (I assume vendors have to licence the DRM module to plug into
EME or get it from the underlying OS in the same way to how they have to
licence H.264, but I'm not sure about this area)

------
alanbyrne
Does this mean it will now support Surround Sound?

------
denibertovic
there's really too much of this going on lately...i hate the path on which we
are on....it's a slippery slope.

------
downrightmike
About effing time

------
lupinglade
About time. Now if they only added some good movies...

------
Sonicmouse
Exchange one crappy plugin for another... Way to innovate.

