Has anyone here been able to view Netflix movies on CentOS? (It requires Internet Explorer, and I'm wondering what the workaround is for Firefox)
Rogelio wrote:
Has anyone here been able to view Netflix movies on CentOS? (It requires Internet Explorer, and I'm wondering what the workaround is for Firefox)
There is none. Their "movies you can instantly watch" can *only* be watched with IE *and* Windows Media Player 11, which leads me to the conclusion that they are under heavy DRM (Digital Restriction Management) - which isn't available for anything else than Windows.
In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd respect that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though.
Ralph
Ralph Angenendt wrote on Sun, 4 May 2008 10:22:11 +0200:
In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd respect that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though.
I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very low bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly porn sites using it. I thought it had died out since long.
Kai
Kai Schaetzl wrote:
I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very low bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly porn sites using it. I thought it had died out since long.
I believe there are two entirely separate things called "netflix"..
Morten Nilsen wrote on Sun, 04 May 2008 12:55:08 +0200:
I believe there are two entirely separate things called "netflix"
Yepp, must be so.
Kai
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Kai Schaetzl maillists@conactive.com wrote:
Ralph Angenendt wrote on Sun, 4 May 2008 10:22:11 +0200:
In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd respect that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though.
I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very low bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly porn sites using it. I thought it had died out since long.
Kai
Netflix only started doing on demand movies about a year ago, and from what I remember when I had the service it wasn't all that bad. It looked great on a laptop, and on my 720p 37" HDTV it looked better than normal tv, but not as good as an HD program.
I agree with Ralph, complain to them, I know I did. Unfortunately they probably don't think there are enough Linux users to justify providing service to us. I'm just really surprised they haven't provided service to Mac users, the new Quicktime format actually has better compression rates than any of the WMV/WMA formats.
On May 4, 2008, at 9:23 AM, Matt Shields wrote:
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Kai Schaetzl maillists@conactive.com wrote:
Ralph Angenendt wrote on Sun, 4 May 2008 10:22:11 +0200:
In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd respect that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though.
I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very low bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly porn sites using it. I thought it had died out since long.
Kai
Netflix only started doing on demand movies about a year ago, and from what I remember when I had the service it wasn't all that bad. It looked great on a laptop, and on my 720p 37" HDTV it looked better than normal tv, but not as good as an HD program.
I agree with Ralph, complain to them, I know I did. Unfortunately they probably don't think there are enough Linux users to justify providing service to us. I'm just really surprised they haven't provided service to Mac users, the new Quicktime format actually has better compression rates than any of the WMV/WMA formats.
Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios are apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV shows and movies downloaded.
I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some Netflix shows on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a small laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up to my TV directly.
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Kevin Krieser k_krieser@sbcglobal.net wrote:
On May 4, 2008, at 9:23 AM, Matt Shields wrote:
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Kai Schaetzl maillists@conactive.com
wrote:
Ralph Angenendt wrote on Sun, 4 May 2008 10:22:11 +0200:
In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd respect that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though.
I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very low bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly porn sites using it. I thought it had died out since long.
Kai
Netflix only started doing on demand movies about a year ago, and from what I remember when I had the service it wasn't all that bad. It looked great on a laptop, and on my 720p 37" HDTV it looked better than normal tv, but not as good as an HD program.
I agree with Ralph, complain to them, I know I did. Unfortunately they probably don't think there are enough Linux users to justify providing service to us. I'm just really surprised they haven't provided service to Mac users, the new Quicktime format actually has better compression rates than any of the WMV/WMA formats.
Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios are apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV shows and movies downloaded.
I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some Netflix shows on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a small laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up to my TV directly.
Quicktime absolutely supports DRM, so what's the problem? It's a cheap company that's looking to get the most bang for the littlest buck. It wouldn't have taken much to have their system ask for the users choice of player (WMP or QT), so the other remaining issue is time to convert films to digital format and storage. Since the conversion is probably automated it shouldn't have taken that much extra time. So the only issue is disk space, which means that Netflix was too cheap to spend the extra money to store a QT version of the films so they could get the Mac users. From what I remember of the Netflix downloads they were looking for a cheap way to get ahead of Blockbuster. They looked good, but they did as little as possible, which included a limited availability of movies.
And for those that say it's more complicated than I state, I have built a site from ground up(programming and video encoding) which hosted independent films in WMV and QT formats. For me the most complicated part was converting films that were not on optical media (like DVD), because if they were sent on tape format (DVCPRO, DV, BetaCam, etc) you were limited to the speed of playback, whereas digital you can rip faster. When it came to storage, even at high def quality storage was still cheap. Even bandwidth for streaming was quite cheap.
On Sun, May 04, 2008, Matt Shields wrote:
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Kevin Krieser k_krieser@sbcglobal.net wrote:
....
Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios are apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV shows and movies downloaded.
I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some Netflix shows on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a small laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up to my TV directly.
Quicktime absolutely supports DRM, so what's the problem? It's a cheap company that's looking to get the most bang for the littlest buck. It wouldn't have taken much to have their system ask for the users choice of player (WMP or QT), so the other remaining issue is time to convert films to digital format and storage. Since the conversion is probably automated it shouldn't have taken that much extra time. So the only issue is disk space, which means that Netflix was too cheap to spend the extra money to store a QT version of the films so they could get the Mac users. From what I remember of the Netflix downloads they were looking for a cheap way to get ahead of Blockbuster. They looked good, but they did as little as possible, which included a limited availability of movies.
Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible with video stuff), Macs have no problem viewing Windows media play files using the free flip4mac program.
Bill
Bill Campbell wrote:
Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios are apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV shows and movies downloaded.
I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some Netflix shows on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a small laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up to my TV directly.
Quicktime absolutely supports DRM, so what's the problem? It's a cheap company that's looking to get the most bang for the littlest buck. It wouldn't have taken much to have their system ask for the users choice of player (WMP or QT), so the other remaining issue is time to convert films to digital format and storage. Since the conversion is probably automated it shouldn't have taken that much extra time. So the only issue is disk space, which means that Netflix was too cheap to spend the extra money to store a QT version of the films so they could get the Mac users. From what I remember of the Netflix downloads they were looking for a cheap way to get ahead of Blockbuster. They looked good, but they did as little as possible, which included a limited availability of movies.
Unless I'm missing something (entirely possible with video stuff), Macs have no problem viewing Windows media play files using the free flip4mac program.
Netflix has its own add-in to windows media player that probably provides the authentication. I don't think it will work with anything else.
On May 4, 2008, at 10:42 AM, Matt Shields wrote:
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Kevin Krieser <k_krieser@sbcglobal.net
wrote:
On May 4, 2008, at 9:23 AM, Matt Shields wrote:
On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 6:31 AM, Kai Schaetzl <maillists@conactive.com
wrote:
Ralph Angenendt wrote on Sun, 4 May 2008 10:22:11 +0200:
In other words: They don't want your money. If I were you, I'd respect that. Make yourself heard over at Netflix, though.
I remember about the Netflix format from before 2000. It's a very low bandwidth format with really bad quality. AFAIK it was mainly porn sites using it. I thought it had died out since long.
Kai
Netflix only started doing on demand movies about a year ago, and from what I remember when I had the service it wasn't all that bad. It looked great on a laptop, and on my 720p 37" HDTV it looked better than normal tv, but not as good as an HD program.
I agree with Ralph, complain to them, I know I did. Unfortunately they probably don't think there are enough Linux users to justify providing service to us. I'm just really surprised they haven't provided service to Mac users, the new Quicktime format actually has better compression rates than any of the WMV/WMA formats.
Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios are apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV shows and movies downloaded.
I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some Netflix shows on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a small laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up to my TV directly.
Quicktime absolutely supports DRM, so what's the problem? It's a cheap company that's looking to get the most bang for the littlest buck. It wouldn't have taken much to have their system ask for the users choice of player (WMP or QT), so the other remaining issue is time to convert films to digital format and storage. Since the conversion is probably automated it shouldn't have taken that much extra time. So the only issue is disk space, which means that Netflix was too cheap to spend the extra money to store a QT version of the films so they could get the Mac users. From what I remember of the Netflix downloads they were looking for a cheap way to get ahead of Blockbuster. They looked good, but they did as little as possible, which included a limited availability of movies.
And for those that say it's more complicated than I state, I have built a site from ground up(programming and video encoding) which hosted independent films in WMV and QT formats. For me the most complicated part was converting films that were not on optical media (like DVD), because if they were sent on tape format (DVCPRO, DV, BetaCam, etc) you were limited to the speed of playback, whereas digital you can rip faster. When it came to storage, even at high def quality storage was still cheap. Even bandwidth for streaming was quite cheap
If what you are talking about is Apple's Fairplay, then yes, there is a DRM that works on the mac. It also works on Windows too.
And, apparently, Apple won't license it to NetFlix since NetFlix is a competitor, and Apple would rather people go through iTunes.
Another good reason why many people like open source solutions.
Matt Shields wrote:
Apparently the problem with the Mac is the DRM again. The studios are apparently all worried that people will keep copies of the old TV shows and movies downloaded.
I have an old Mac Mini that I would like to use to watch some Netflix shows on (better than sitting in front of a computer, or watching it on a small laptop), but until it is supported I can't. The Mini is hooked up to my TV directly.
Quicktime absolutely supports DRM, so what's the problem? It's a cheap company that's looking to get the most bang for the littlest buck.
They claim to be working on mac/xbox/ps3 support but I don't think they have a target date.
And for those that say it's more complicated than I state, I have built a site from ground up(programming and video encoding) which hosted independent films in WMV and QT formats. For me the most complicated part was converting films that were not on optical media (like DVD), because if they were sent on tape format (DVCPRO, DV, BetaCam, etc) you were limited to the speed of playback, whereas digital you can rip faster.
It's probably more complicated to get the OK from the studios when streaming commercial content and everyone may be waiting on silverlight. The current netflix system not only has drm that is only playable with the windows program, but they can tell if the speed of your download is faster than a real-time playback and will cancel your account if they think you are saving downloaded copies instead.
Meanwhile, XP under vmware or parallels will work on a mac if you happen to have a copy - not sure about linux. But the selection they make available for streaming probably isn't worth setting up a system that way. It is a small fraction of what they offer as dvds through the normal service.
Rogelio wrote:
Has anyone here been able to view Netflix movies on CentOS? (It requires Internet Explorer, and I'm wondering what the workaround is for Firefox)
I wonder if IE + Win Media Player under (a recent version of) Wine would be able to play the Netflix on demand movies.
-
Bill Campbell -
Florin Andrei -
Kai Schaetzl -
Kevin Krieser -
Les Mikesell -
Matt Shields -
Morten Nilsen -
Ralph Angenendt -
Rogelio