netflix does not work on linux

[slm4996]

I have authorized my netflix account in my profile, yet I see no netflix option in boxee.

I read somewhere that it was supposed to be added after the 8th of december but am now thinking that it is going to be pushed out till the January release.

Anybody know anything I don't?

[agentlame]

I have authorized my netflix account in my profile, yet I see no netflix option in boxee.

I read somewhere that it was supposed to be added after the 8th of december but am now thinking that it is going to be pushed out till the January release.

Anybody know anything I don't?

boxee can not support netflix in linux until netflix works on linux.

which, from the looks of it, is a year off, at best.

[gsacks]

Part I:
There is another product out there in beta (can't remember the name right now) that runs in Windows and can stream Netflix to other devices through a Upnp service. Would it be possible to play the stream in linux Boxee if it is going through a windows copy of Boxee that is connected to Netflix.

I have my HTPC running Ubuntu 8.04 and Boxee, but I'm waiting for my invite to the Windows Boxee to run on my desktop XP system in my home office. In my set-up, it would be a perfectly acceptable alternative for the short term to have my linux boxee connect to my windows boxee to get the netflix stream. I'm not even going to sign up for Netflix until I have a viable solution to play it on linux somehow.

Part II:
You indicated that it might be over a year until Netflix has native linux support. I think I saw a statement from them that they planned linux support in 2009. Has that plan changed, or is it just your informed opinion that they aren't going to be able to pull it off.

Thanks

[agentlame]

you're thinking of this: http://www.themediamall.com/playon
i wouldn't recommend it, as it's a hack; and i'm sure netflix isn't happy about it.


the timeline of 'one year' wasn't even given by netflix, it was given by the mono guys. they say that moonlight will be able to run netflix by the end of 2009... personally, i'm skeptical.

[gsacks]

Thanks for clearing that up. Yes, I was referring to 'themediamall'. I wasn't suggesting connecting Boxee to that product, but rather setting up a stream between two instances of Boxee, a windows host and a linux client. That's probably still not 'kosher' with Netflix probably though.

I guess I just need to follow the progress of moonlight. Is it a fair assumption that if they DO get moonlight to the point where it can play netflix on linux, that Boxee will integrate it fairly quickly thereafter?

I'd really hate to have to get another copy on windows and switch my HTPC to that OS just to get Netflix. (Hate it so much that I won't do it)

[juanfermin]

you're thinking of this: http://www.themediamall.com/playon
i wouldn't recommend it, as it's a hack; and i'm sure netflix isn't happy about it.


the timeline of 'one year' wasn't even given by netflix, it was given by the mono guys. they say that moonlight will be able to run netflix by the end of 2009... personally, i'm skeptical.

The Mono - Moonlight implementation of Silverlight is actually more like a Partnership between Microsoft and Novell, and is covered under the technology exchange agreement that they have.

The new Beta of Moonlight can actually run pretty much everything that Silverlight 2.0 can EXCEPT for DRM encrypted streams. The lead Developer has basically stated that unless MS ports the DRM to Linux, it won't happen.

Keep in mind that the reason Flash 10 DRM works on Linux, is because Adobe themselves ported it to Linux. It's a proprietary system that encrypts protected Media. Without it, not a Single movie house or TV station would allow Hulu to host their shows, because they would be afraid that someone would steal it. It's the same reason that this implementation CAN'T be open source.

What bothers me about Netflix is that they recently changed their DRM from a proprietary Active X component, similar to what Fox uses on their Website, to Silverlght, when Flash 10 was definitely available as an option, and of course, would work just fine on Linux. Why they decided to go this route, I'm not sure, but it definitely looks like a snub to the Linux Community that they COULD have gone with something that works on our systems, but chose not to.

I could be mistaken, it could be that Adobe doesn't have the functionality that Silverlight has, such as the ability to limit an account to running only one instance at a time, who knows.

The point is though, is that now that they are on Silverlight, the only way we will see it is if Microsoft decides to go ahead and port the DRM component of Silverlight and give it to the Moonlight guys. They've already done this for Apple, (Of which MS owns a huge chunk of... Remember when Apple almost went under?) So technically it's definitely feasible, the question is do they want to do this for Linux, a system that they don't make any money off of in any way (Unless it goes through Novell or Xandros).

[efether]

Okay, It's been reported above (in various spotty posts) that what I'm about to describe is a "Hack", but personally don't care...works great --

1. Download and run PlayOn on a Windows machine. It costs $40 USD, but it's 60% cheaper than the Roxio player. I run it on a Windows VM on my ESX server that I use for my home server. That way I'm not running two machines to get this working. You can also run both PlayOn Server and Boxee on the same Windows machine, but you'll need to set up Processor Affinity (via Task Manager) so PlayOn and Boxee don't both run on the same core (assuming a Multi-Core processor). Both apps are Single-threaded and need to be put on separate cores or it will be very choppy).

2. Enable the uPnP client in the guisettings.xml file of Boxee. Here's an excerpt of my file for uPnP --

<upnp>
<client>true</client>
<musicshares></musicshares>
<pictureshares></pictureshares>
<renderer>true</renderer>
<sep1></sep1>
<server>false</server>
<videoshares></videoshares>
</upnp>

3. Start Boxee
4. Go under Settings->Media Sources -> Network Sources -> Add Source. PlayOn should show up and will list the various web streams available. I had to add them individually.
5. Someone better at XML than I can put together an Application for this, but for now...go to BROWSE and you'll see the streams you added in step 4 above. Including Netflix, Amazon, CBS, Hulu, etc. There's some overlap, so just pick the streams your missing.

Works great. No problems to date, and very smooth play on a 2.8GHz Single-Core Celeron with 2GB of ram that's running both MythTV and Boxee (I added Boxee to my MythTV menu so it's a do-all DVR).

I hope this helps.

-Eric

[Roanoke]

I have enabled Netflix streaming via the boxee website, but I can't seem to find it anywhere in my client. Using ubuntu 8.10.

[agentlame]

netflix does not work on linux; as a result, it is not included in the linux build of boxee.

[Roanoke]

Ah, shame. Are there plans to make it work?