[CentOS] Watching Netflix movies on CentOS

[Kevin Krieser]

On May 4, 2008, at 10:42 AM, Matt Shields wrote:

> On Sun, May 4, 2008 at 11:02 AM, Kevin Krieser <k_krieser at 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 at 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.