netflix does not work on linux

[jdeslip]

Original Article: http://www.berkeleylug.com/?p=99
Digg It: http://digg.com/linux_unix/How_bad_d...tflix_on_Linux

How bad do you want Netflix on Linux? Do you want it enough to beg Microsoft for it?

Miguel de Icaza recently revealed in his blog, http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009...omment-9068857, that Netflix won’t be coming with Moonlight 2.0 (as was largely anticipated) unless Microsoft actively intervenes and ports its DRM stack to Linux.

Miguel suggested that we put some pressure on Netflix and Microsoft directly, asking that they do this. There was a thread created on the Silverlight forum pleading with Microsoft to port its DRM stack over. So far, the responses on the thread vary between desperate sob stories and cookie cutter anti-MS attacks.

What is the solution to this mess? Clearly, Netflix shouldn’t have chosen an engine that doesn’t have cross-platform support for its streaming video service. But, what can Linux Netflix users do now? Well, you could cancel your account, as many are suggesting. But, I like the Netflix regular disc service too much for that. You can run an XP virtual machine in VirtualBox. This works quite well. However, firstly, it isn’t really linux, and secondly, it doesn’t really help people running Boxee or MythTV (i.e. me). netflix_logo1

Is it better to compromise our principles a bit to get a service we really want? Should we boycott Netflix until they change services? Perhaps we should just spin around in circles and cry because we are so confused… Ok, that is just me, again.

[rufusmcd]

agentlame wrote

"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."


I know this will make me sound bad but who cares if netflix is happy about it or not? I pay for netflix and if I can find a way to watch it then hurray for me and shame on them for being in ms back pocket!

[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

[sdnick484]

Great explanation Eric. I just wanted to add that I use VirtualBox as my VM for hosting PlayOn, and it runs quite well.

[brewster1134]

so its been about a year...

any predictions on when netflix will support linux? are we close?

[jheylin]

So I just got the Boxee Beta invite, installed it on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, and it's running good. Haven't pushed it, but so far so good.

I keep hearing that Netflix is now supported by Boxee or XBMC for Linux, but have yet to actually see it in action.

On Beta it even brings up results in the movie browsing for Netflix movies, but clicking on them yields nothing.

I keep seeing screenshots of a Netflix App but no such one exists in the App library. What to do?

[koensayr]

From reading the last few posts here, its clear there is an issue with Microsoft not porting their DRM system over to Linux. Netflix seems to have chosen this Microsoft DRM to run on their streaming service. One point I don't see discussed here is Tivo:

TiVO is built on top of Linux, and still Netflix's streaming service works nicely TiVO. So surely somebody has figured out how to make the DRM work under a Linux kernel. Thoughts?

[agentlame]

From reading the last few posts here, its clear there is an issue with Microsoft not porting their DRM system over to Linux. Netflix seems to have chosen this Microsoft DRM to run on their streaming service. One point I don't see discussed here is Tivo:

TiVO is built on top of Linux, and still Netflix's streaming service works nicely TiVO. So surely somebody has figured out how to make the DRM work under a Linux kernel. Thoughts?

TiVo and Roku use hardware-based decoding of MS' DRM.

[jreock]

In the mean time, the best way to get Netflix to your Linux machine is to *gulp* pay for PlayOn and connect to it through XBMC's UPNP interface ... Works perfectly, actually plays faster than the normal Netflix channel on Mac/Winders...