Netflix Using HTML5 Video For ARM Chromebook 232
sfcrazy writes "Netflix is using HTML5 video streaming instead of using Microsoft's Silverlight on Chromebooks (which now supports DRM for HTML5). Recently Google enabled the much controversial DRM support for HTML5 in Chrome OS to bring services like Netflix to Chromebooks using HTML5."
Still no word on general support for GNU/Linux, but x86 or ARM, what's the difference? (If you're ok with DRM at least.)
Don't say "no" ; say "yes, but..." (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm totally ok with DRM, provided that it's very clear how to implement it, and I don't need to sign any contracts or otherwise agree to keep any trade secrets. Just write up the RFC, send it to IETF, and we'll all get to work on our your-DRM-compatible players. Everybody wins.
Chrome sync is dangerous. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yesterday I was showing to my friend and logged into my gmail account in Chrome running in his windows box. Impressed him with my two factor authentication, text message to my phone and all that. But made the mistake of clicking yes to "synch" when prompted by chrome.
It brought all my bookmarks on to his machine!. So I deleted them in his machine, then they were also gone from my account in my Chromebook. Not only that all HIS bookmarks were on my machine. I deleted them. Then I found all my saved web passwords were on his machine! This screw up after bragging about two factor authentication. He uninstalled Chrome and reinstalled to get rid of all remnants of anything. I lost my bookmarks. Apparently this is a common problem with Chrome and google synch and it has been widely reported and complained about. Still the dialog asking for synch did not give any warning that my passwords and bookmarks and auto-completes are being downloaded into a new machine. I am very disappointed by Chrome and google.
Luckily he is a friend, and I never store any serious passwords in my gmail account. So no serious harm done. Now where is that AC who called me a shill?
Re:HTML5 with DRM, or Silverlight... (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't have the right to break the law because you think they're stupid.
I have the right to break whatever law I damn well please, but I knowingly accept the risk. Let's put this into perspective. Breaking copyright law is not (yet) the same as theft or violent crime. It's more like riding your bike on the sidewalk or installing a purchased copy of Windows on two computers in your house. The media companies certainly have the right to control their content and to sue you for violating their copyrights, but they do not (yet) have the right to charge you with a crime and lock you up in jail for seeding a torrent.
In most places in the world, however, it is a (severe) criminal offense to possess marijuana. But that doesn't stop people from smoking it, thereby demonstrating the futility of the law and the harmlessness of the drug. (Note that the use of other drugs, like crack and meth, have had the opposite effect and elicited stricter penalties and, in some cases, public health programs.) Same goes for DRM; we keep downloading to show media conglomerates what we want content distribution to look like. I know I'm no alone here; I would gladly pay for the level of service that usenet provides, even with all the headache of PAR files and buggy fetchers/parsers. What they offer, however, is a hodgepodge of websites and half-baked software tied to various hardware platforms and myriad "This content is not available in your region" messages.
Give me XBMC with flat-rate and micropayment back ends that don't categorically exclude some studios/networks/distributors and watch me pay for what I currently get for free.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Interesting)
Netflix is a subscription-based service provider which streams content to you. In this scenario, to what end does DRM inhibit your experience or tread on your right as a consumer? I am legitimately curious, because while I am very anti-DRM in most scenarios, I fail to see the issue with a DRM-lock on content designed and intended to only be streamed.
1) Arbitrary region blocks. I can't use my US-based subscription outside of the USA. That might not be a big deal to you, but it is a deal-breaker for me. If I have residence in the US, an American credit card, a mailing address, a physical house, citizenship, then why the f**** can't I watch movies when I'm abroad? And what alternative do I have if, for example, I live half the year in South America? Dubbed movies over satellite? Spanish language soap operas? Football! Football! Football! Or the Pirate Bay...
2) Distribution agreements. The reason Netflix uses DRM is not because they want it or their customers want it, it is because the rights holders want it. Thus, in order for Netflix to contract with a studio/network/distributor, they must implement DRM and they can only stream content; there is no such thing as "intended to only be streamed." It is an arbitrary constraint demanded by rights holders. That means that an entire studio/network/distributor can also remove all of their content from Netflix because, say, they were acquired by a cable company that wants you to stream their content through some box that their hardware partner wants to sell you. And that brings me to point 3...
3) Fragmentation. Why the f*** can't I watch everything on everything? Hardware limitations? Software limitations? No, DRM. Let's say I download a movie "illegally" and store it on a dirt-cheap RAID array in the closet that is connected to my router. Now I can watch said movie using a cross-platform suite like XBMC on any device in my house and when I stop playing on one, it picks up where I left off on another. I can also use something like Emit to stream that movie to my phone anywhere on Earth. If I am going to be somewhere without Internet, like a 12-hour plane flight, I can cross my fingers and hope that they have a decent selection of movies, or just copy my downloaded movie to my tablet, which brings me to point 4...
4) Gouging. Media companies want me to pay for the right to view their product. And they want me to either pay for each viewing or for each way of viewing separately. They don't care that I watched Spaceballs about a hundred times in the theater, bought Spaceballs the VHS and then Spaceballs the DVD and then (the 25th Anniversary) Spaceballs the Blu-Ray; they want me to pay again to watch it on my i-thing and once more on my Android thing and again on the next device I buy. That is gouging, otherwise known as collusion (because the media companies negotiate price structures and squeeze small competitors through bodies like the MPAA).
5) The never-ending "copyright." It isn't enough to turn a profit on foreign box office sales; they want a 25-year-old movie to continue to generate revenue for them in perpetuity throughout the universe. When it comes time to force my son to watch my favorite movies from the 80's, we wont' have a VHS player, a DVD player, a Blu-ray player, Silverlight will be dead, and whatever gizmos are capable of playing movies will demand that I pay, once again, for something that should have fallen into the public domain. Of course, those gizmos will be perfectly able to play the non-DRM encumbered, x264-standard encoded movie in an open-source MKV container that I downloaded all those years ago. Do you know why "It's a Wonderful Life" continues to pop up on TV so regularly? It's basically because someone forgot to copyright it. What is so different about Spaceballs? And look at the Star Wars franchise, where Lucas managed to hang on to unprecedented control over his creative works (a "mistake" that 20th Century Fox made exactly once.) Robot Chicken can do