8 ms·

Chrome extension to play Netflix in 1080p

117 points by ryanlol 9y ago

archildress 9y ago
Am I the only one who didn't realize my Chrome streams weren't already in 1080p?
- rapfaria 9y ago
  I doubt the majority of users even realize that. But since this is streamed media, does it really matter if it's 720p or 1080p in the end? I see artifacts in both versions. All the more reasons to watch Planet Earth on blu-ray.
  - gruez 9y ago
    or "obtain" a remux.
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    Planet Earth II is glorious, a real feast for the senses and the mind. I saw part of it in 4K and almost cried a little; certainly I teared up a bit. So worth the hardware.
  - ac29 9y ago
    >does it really matter if it's 720p or 1080p in the end For what its worth, a lot of 3rd party content is actually restricted to 480p (at least in Linux/Chrome). That, is definitely noticeable.
  - ryanlol 9y ago
    It is possible to pull some very high quality streams out of Netflix if you try hard enough.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    Bluray rips are always the best quality sure. But it can take up to a year for a show to come out on BD. And then there are the Netflix Original shows that don't even get physical release.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  Frankly HDTV, much like 3DTV, has been a bust from day one. And i expect 4K to go the same way. The only people that "notice" are those with a private movie theater room.
  - gruez 9y ago
    You don't notice that HD (even 720p) is visibly better than SD?
  - loeg 9y ago
    720p is easily visibly better than SDTV. I have more trouble telling 1080p from 720p, unless I'm very close to a large screen (computer monitor). I doubt I could tell the difference between 1080p and 4k, even on a 4k monitor.
  - Sharlin 9y ago
    You mean you think people will go back to 480p?! I'm sorry but that ship sailed about ten years ago and it would have been a ridiculous statement even then. And 4K is certainly not just a fad either, however tiny the perceived difference for most people.
  - xbmcuser 9y ago
    If you can't tell the difference between 720p, 1080p and 4k. Get a better tv/display. I was the same couldn't tell much difference till I got 4k hdr tv and played blueray files on it shit is different. Though maybe I notice it more because of hdr.
    - izacus 9y ago
      I'm guessing a lot of these comments are due to how streaming video works. 4K content on both Amazon and Netflix is very bitstarved - they stream at 15Mbit at most (might be better these days), which is VERY low for 4K content (for comparison, 4K Blu-Rays are usually encoded in something like 60-100Mbit/s). It's no surprise that there's not much visible difference between 1080p and 4K content in this case. Could be similar for HD content as well - if you have a poor internet connection, you might not even be getting 1080p.
- Sharlin 9y ago
  No. However small the difference in practice, I feel cheated.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  It’s not like their normal 1080 streams are that high quality. Even their 4k streams have some noticeable compression.
- obsurveyor 9y ago
  I only noticed recently as they seem to have gotten even more aggressive about it. I often watch things fullscreen at 4K at my desk(49" TV being used as a monitor, it's basically 2x2 24" monitors) and 1080p streams, like Amazon, still look great but recently Netflix took a nose dive in quality and I couldn't figure out why. Using the Windows 10 app instead of my browser fixes the issue.
- bearbearbear 9y ago
  No, the whole resolution pushing thing is just a part of the push to make consumers buy more shit. It's no longer sufficient to produce a good product and then make money off of return maintenance and replacement sales, you have to force consumers to buy the same product repeatedly in ever shorter intervals. So instead of dropping a product with major innovations and improvements, you give the product a tiny spec bump every six months and then hard sell it like it's going to cure the wanton desire of the human ego.
- clouddrover 9y ago
  Netflix should make it clear what the resolution of your current video is. I like to see the detail of the video playback. Like you, I paid for the HD membership assuming that I'd get 1080p video in Firefox but I subsequently discovered that Firefox is only given a maximum of 720p. I see in this thread there's a Firefox version of the extension so I'll try that. If I watch Netflix in Safari I get 1080p video and I've been using Safari exclusively for Netflix because of this. Here's the Netflix system requirements page where they outline the maximum resolution for each browser: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 You can also see the details of your currently playing video by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D (and press again to dismiss it). It'd be nicer of Netflix if they made this information accessible via a menu item rather than an obscure keyboard shortcut.
Freak_NL 9y ago
The fact that gaining access to the 1080p stream is so trivial makes it hard not to suspect Netflix (or the content studios supplying them with content) from deliberately providing a poorer experience for users of open platforms — Netflix refuses to serve anything over 720p to users of Chrome and Firefox (or derivatives) — in order to goad you into using their proprietary clients. User/software freedom apparently is a threat to their business model. It sucks being labelled an untrustworthy customer despite paying for 1080p content.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  It sucks even more when, as in my case, their app stopped working on my Sony Android TV a year ago and just won't start again (even after resetting everything). My only option now is to use the browser version in a small Linux PC I have attached to my TV, but the resolution was noticeably worse - will try this extension though.
- floo 9y ago
  I am very surprised this actually works. I would guess that somebody would have figured this out earlier if it's always been this easy. Maybe it's a new development in widevine/netflix and they were getting it ready for release?
  - tbranyen 9y ago
    Just look at the code, it's determining that h/w accel exists in Chrome OS. If it's not in this path it gets 720p as the highest resolution. This isn't some widevine/netflix joint effort that recently got leaked or something.
    - floo 9y ago
      Yes fair point, that's the only thing happening client side. But somebody else mentioned that widevine on chrome os and chrome are different. So I wouldn't have expected their servers to accept those 1080p requests for chrome's version. Edit: says so on Github: ChromeOS apparently has a different DRM implementation than chrome, even though both use Widevine.
sammko128 9y ago
This is pretty cool. Much simpler than what I did to get 1080p working some time ago. I pulled out the widevine so directly from a CrOS image, replaced the one I had installed and spoofed my User-Agent.
- adtac 9y ago
  This sounds really interesting (and more future-proof; Netflix can just choose to change the JS file with the extension technique). Can you please go into more detail on how you pulled out widevine from a CrOS image?
  - sammko128 9y ago
    Sure. I figured out the relevant library was libwidevinecdm.so, normally located in /usr/lib/chromium/libwidevinecdm.so on Arch Linux with the chromium-widevine AUR package installed. I created a CrOS installation image for an x86_64 chromebook (not sure which one, I looked up a list of x86_64 ones a picked at random) using the official chrome extension (at the time, this was only possible to do from a Windows machine, not sure what the situation is rn). I mounted the rootfs of the installation image and located the libwidevinecdm.so file. I believe it was somewhere in /opt/google or something like that. This is probably the location on Google Chrome installs under GNU/Linux as well. Then I just replaced my libwidevinecdm.so with the new one. Spoofed my user agent to something containing CrOS and it magically worked. I was quite surprised then :D. Anyway, if you don't feel like doing that (you should do it), trust me (which you should not) and are ok with a (probably) relatively old version of the binary (I don't know whether it still even works, I haven't used netflix in quite some time now), you can get it here: https://transfer.sh/pYsRz/libwidevinecdm.so https://transfer.sh/pYsRz/libwidevinecdm.so SHA256: d84e87d89d8e95ccfcd3dd86157dfd608a022e1e8bee397c3d4541a162bab5c2
loeg 9y ago
I thought Netflix streamed in 4k now. Does it really restrict some devices to 720p? And, why?
- filmgirlcw 9y ago
  4K is only on certain TVs and set-top boxes/consoles (and you have to pay extra) and on Windows 10 in Edge and the Netflix app for Windows. It is a HVEC thing, so I’m not sure why macOS High Sierra can’t do it in Safari, but it can’t. You also need a Kaby Lake CPU or later (though if you have an Nvidia GTX 1050 or higher that works too).
- Sharlin 9y ago
  > I thought Netflix streamed in 4k now. If you have the most expensive subscription AND have hardware that has enough DRM builtin (eg. on a PC you need a Kaby Lake processor AND the native client or Edge (or Safari apparently)). If you have the "HD" subscription, then it can be HD or full HD also depending on DRM details.
- clouddrover 9y ago
  Yes. I don't know but I assume for reasons of DRM: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
ad_hominem 9y ago
One thing I've always found annoying when playing Netflix in Chrome on Linux/Ubuntu is if you hit ctrl+alt+shift+s to get into the debug menu, the available bitrates are always lower than what you see available when running Windows (for the exact same title). I figured that out when some movie I had started watching on Windows had a noticeable quality degradation when I later booted into Ubuntu to finish watching. But at least Netflix lets me watch videos in HD. Amazon Prime always plays in SD, citing some kind of HDCP violation, even though I'm using the closed-source Nvidia drivers and using a DisplayPort connection from my monitor to graphics card. It's obviously discriminating against Linux because if I boot into Windows I can play Prime videos in HD no problem.
verifex 9y ago
Since the README.md doesn't explain how to actually install an unpacked Chrome extension, for the layman, I'll explain it here because it's quick and easy. 1. Download all the files for the extension into a directory. 2. Open chrome > Extensions window 3. Click "developer" checkbox 4. Click "Load unpacked extension" and select the directory where you downloaded the extension files. 5. Tada, extension should show up in the extension page.
- floo 9y ago
  There's also https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cankofcoohmbhfpcemhmaaeennfbnmgp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cankofcoohmbhfpcem...
braindongle 9y ago
JS novice here. Is this an idiomatic way to conditionally perform an operation in JS? It saves typing, but if(){} is much more explicit. a && this.oo.push(x.V.TH);
- adtac 9y ago
  That's minification. The actual source code almost certainly does `if (a) { ... }`, but the minifier will shorten that into `a&&...`, thereby saving multiple bytes. Accumulate this over different if-clauses, and you're looking at serious savings.
  - braindongle 9y ago
    Ah, I see. Thanks. Interesting. The minifier must be smart enough to know that you're not doing anything with the return value, since the two aren't equivalent in that respect. false && console.log('foo'); //false if(false){ console.log('foo') }; //undefined
- rcfox 9y ago
  Not for user-written code, but most websites run their Javascript through tools to condense it so that the download size is smaller.
dicroce 9y ago
I'm curious if anyone has created a headless browser Netflix ripper?
ddevault 9y ago
This is exactly why movie and television piracy is still big. If you pirate, you get high quality, ad-free video files that you can play on any device, anywhere, any time, forever. You can get any video resoultion and audio quality you want, and many (toggleable) subtitles which can be extended with third-party subtitles in post for languages the creators didn't bother to translate to. Every movie and TV show ever made is available through piracy, too. All for the low price of $0. Or you can pay >$100/year to get stupid bullshit like this. It won't work on most devices, requires proprietary software to play back, can't be used offline in most cases, has questionable audio and video quality, is locked to specific regions, and will vanish when Netflix can't renew the contract.
- KozmoNau7 9y ago
  Some ripping groups (particularly Russian ones) have started putting ads in front of the videos, and super-imposed logos in the corners. Pretty brazen, if you ask me.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    How dare they try to capitalize on the content I steal... If I wanted shady conglomerates with a loose relationship to morals and ethics to get my money I'd just be paying the MPAA directly!
    - KozmoNau7 9y ago
      Copyright infringement, not stealing. But yes, I found it extremely ironic.
- esistgut 9y ago
  I am a paying customer for Netflix and Primevideo and I just had to pirate the Altered Carbon tv series because I play it on a ultrawidescreen monitor (21:9, 3440x1440) and the Netflix web player is putting black bars all around the videos (horizontal and vertical black bars). This is because the video is supposed to be played on 16:9 with horizontal black bars only. With the pirated version I can just tell MPV to apply an autocrop script and use much more space on my monitor.
tankenmate 9y ago
I'm not entirely sure but I think Netflix might have just "fixed" this. After finishing one stream I got an error screen telling me to reload the page. After that the next stream switched back to 720p.
wdr1 9y ago
Out of curiosity, is there a good reason for Netflix to do this? I.e., why would they be interested in providing 1080p to Safari but not Chrome, even if Chrome can do 1080p?
- bzbarsky 9y ago
  The most likely reason is that they have contractual agreements about how easy it is to be able to get at the data by unauthorized parties (read "the person watching the video") for various resolutions. For example, their contracts could say that for 1080p the playback mechanism has to guarantee security all the way to screen (e.g no playback over digital video cables that don't support the requisite encryption primitives). Generally this requires support from the OS and hardware, and the relevant playback application using the relevant OS functionality. This is why you get 1080p in IE and Safari, but Safari only on OS X 10.0.3 or later. You get 4K in Edge. You get 1080p on ChromeOS (where things are locked down in ways that prevent the viewer from exfiltrating data), but not in Chrome. Similarly, last I checked, you could get higher resolution videos from the iTunes store on iOS or Apple TV than you could on desktop MacOS, because the latter is not as locked-down. That was a few years ago, though.
dingo_bat 9y ago
I basically pay for Netflix and still download Marvel show episodes from our famous sailor-themed website. Why? Because Netflix won't let me watch the show offline and I want to watch uninterrupted during my long commute.

117 points by ryanlol 9y ago

archildress 9y ago

Am I the only one who didn't realize my Chrome streams weren't already in 1080p?

rapfaria 9y ago
I doubt the majority of users even realize that. But since this is streamed media, does it really matter if it's 720p or 1080p in the end? I see artifacts in both versions. All the more reasons to watch Planet Earth on blu-ray.
- gruez 9y ago
  or "obtain" a remux.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  Planet Earth II is glorious, a real feast for the senses and the mind. I saw part of it in 4K and almost cried a little; certainly I teared up a bit. So worth the hardware.
- ac29 9y ago
  >does it really matter if it's 720p or 1080p in the end For what its worth, a lot of 3rd party content is actually restricted to 480p (at least in Linux/Chrome). That, is definitely noticeable.
- ryanlol 9y ago
  It is possible to pull some very high quality streams out of Netflix if you try hard enough.
- Feniks 9y ago
  Bluray rips are always the best quality sure. But it can take up to a year for a show to come out on BD. And then there are the Netflix Original shows that don't even get physical release.
digi_owl 9y ago
Frankly HDTV, much like 3DTV, has been a bust from day one. And i expect 4K to go the same way. The only people that "notice" are those with a private movie theater room.
- gruez 9y ago
  You don't notice that HD (even 720p) is visibly better than SD?
- loeg 9y ago
  720p is easily visibly better than SDTV. I have more trouble telling 1080p from 720p, unless I'm very close to a large screen (computer monitor). I doubt I could tell the difference between 1080p and 4k, even on a 4k monitor.
- Sharlin 9y ago
  You mean you think people will go back to 480p?! I'm sorry but that ship sailed about ten years ago and it would have been a ridiculous statement even then. And 4K is certainly not just a fad either, however tiny the perceived difference for most people.
- xbmcuser 9y ago
  If you can't tell the difference between 720p, 1080p and 4k. Get a better tv/display. I was the same couldn't tell much difference till I got 4k hdr tv and played blueray files on it shit is different. Though maybe I notice it more because of hdr.
  - izacus 9y ago
    I'm guessing a lot of these comments are due to how streaming video works. 4K content on both Amazon and Netflix is very bitstarved - they stream at 15Mbit at most (might be better these days), which is VERY low for 4K content (for comparison, 4K Blu-Rays are usually encoded in something like 60-100Mbit/s). It's no surprise that there's not much visible difference between 1080p and 4K content in this case. Could be similar for HD content as well - if you have a poor internet connection, you might not even be getting 1080p.
Sharlin 9y ago
No. However small the difference in practice, I feel cheated.
dawnerd 9y ago
It’s not like their normal 1080 streams are that high quality. Even their 4k streams have some noticeable compression.
obsurveyor 9y ago
I only noticed recently as they seem to have gotten even more aggressive about it. I often watch things fullscreen at 4K at my desk(49" TV being used as a monitor, it's basically 2x2 24" monitors) and 1080p streams, like Amazon, still look great but recently Netflix took a nose dive in quality and I couldn't figure out why. Using the Windows 10 app instead of my browser fixes the issue.
bearbearbear 9y ago
No, the whole resolution pushing thing is just a part of the push to make consumers buy more shit. It's no longer sufficient to produce a good product and then make money off of return maintenance and replacement sales, you have to force consumers to buy the same product repeatedly in ever shorter intervals. So instead of dropping a product with major innovations and improvements, you give the product a tiny spec bump every six months and then hard sell it like it's going to cure the wanton desire of the human ego.
clouddrover 9y ago
Netflix should make it clear what the resolution of your current video is. I like to see the detail of the video playback. Like you, I paid for the HD membership assuming that I'd get 1080p video in Firefox but I subsequently discovered that Firefox is only given a maximum of 720p. I see in this thread there's a Firefox version of the extension so I'll try that. If I watch Netflix in Safari I get 1080p video and I've been using Safari exclusively for Netflix because of this. Here's the Netflix system requirements page where they outline the maximum resolution for each browser: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 You can also see the details of your currently playing video by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D (and press again to dismiss it). It'd be nicer of Netflix if they made this information accessible via a menu item rather than an obscure keyboard shortcut.

Freak_NL 9y ago

The fact that gaining access to the 1080p stream is so trivial makes it hard not to suspect Netflix (or the content studios supplying them with content) from deliberately providing a poorer experience for users of open platforms — Netflix refuses to serve anything over 720p to users of Chrome and Firefox (or derivatives) — in order to goad you into using their proprietary clients. User/software freedom apparently is a threat to their business model. It sucks being labelled an untrustworthy customer despite paying for 1080p content.

danmaz74 9y ago
It sucks even more when, as in my case, their app stopped working on my Sony Android TV a year ago and just won't start again (even after resetting everything). My only option now is to use the browser version in a small Linux PC I have attached to my TV, but the resolution was noticeably worse - will try this extension though.
floo 9y ago
I am very surprised this actually works. I would guess that somebody would have figured this out earlier if it's always been this easy. Maybe it's a new development in widevine/netflix and they were getting it ready for release?
- tbranyen 9y ago
  Just look at the code, it's determining that h/w accel exists in Chrome OS. If it's not in this path it gets 720p as the highest resolution. This isn't some widevine/netflix joint effort that recently got leaked or something.
  - floo 9y ago
    Yes fair point, that's the only thing happening client side. But somebody else mentioned that widevine on chrome os and chrome are different. So I wouldn't have expected their servers to accept those 1080p requests for chrome's version. Edit: says so on Github: ChromeOS apparently has a different DRM implementation than chrome, even though both use Widevine.

sammko128 9y ago

This is pretty cool. Much simpler than what I did to get 1080p working some time ago. I pulled out the widevine so directly from a CrOS image, replaced the one I had installed and spoofed my User-Agent.

adtac 9y ago
This sounds really interesting (and more future-proof; Netflix can just choose to change the JS file with the extension technique). Can you please go into more detail on how you pulled out widevine from a CrOS image?
- sammko128 9y ago
  Sure. I figured out the relevant library was libwidevinecdm.so, normally located in /usr/lib/chromium/libwidevinecdm.so on Arch Linux with the chromium-widevine AUR package installed. I created a CrOS installation image for an x86_64 chromebook (not sure which one, I looked up a list of x86_64 ones a picked at random) using the official chrome extension (at the time, this was only possible to do from a Windows machine, not sure what the situation is rn). I mounted the rootfs of the installation image and located the libwidevinecdm.so file. I believe it was somewhere in /opt/google or something like that. This is probably the location on Google Chrome installs under GNU/Linux as well. Then I just replaced my libwidevinecdm.so with the new one. Spoofed my user agent to something containing CrOS and it magically worked. I was quite surprised then :D. Anyway, if you don't feel like doing that (you should do it), trust me (which you should not) and are ok with a (probably) relatively old version of the binary (I don't know whether it still even works, I haven't used netflix in quite some time now), you can get it here: https://transfer.sh/pYsRz/libwidevinecdm.so https://transfer.sh/pYsRz/libwidevinecdm.so SHA256: d84e87d89d8e95ccfcd3dd86157dfd608a022e1e8bee397c3d4541a162bab5c2

loeg 9y ago

I thought Netflix streamed in 4k now. Does it really restrict some devices to 720p? And, why?

filmgirlcw 9y ago
4K is only on certain TVs and set-top boxes/consoles (and you have to pay extra) and on Windows 10 in Edge and the Netflix app for Windows. It is a HVEC thing, so I’m not sure why macOS High Sierra can’t do it in Safari, but it can’t. You also need a Kaby Lake CPU or later (though if you have an Nvidia GTX 1050 or higher that works too).
Sharlin 9y ago
> I thought Netflix streamed in 4k now. If you have the most expensive subscription AND have hardware that has enough DRM builtin (eg. on a PC you need a Kaby Lake processor AND the native client or Edge (or Safari apparently)). If you have the "HD" subscription, then it can be HD or full HD also depending on DRM details.
clouddrover 9y ago
Yes. I don't know but I assume for reasons of DRM: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742

ad_hominem 9y ago

One thing I've always found annoying when playing Netflix in Chrome on Linux/Ubuntu is if you hit ctrl+alt+shift+s to get into the debug menu, the available bitrates are always lower than what you see available when running Windows (for the exact same title). I figured that out when some movie I had started watching on Windows had a noticeable quality degradation when I later booted into Ubuntu to finish watching. But at least Netflix lets me watch videos in HD. Amazon Prime always plays in SD, citing some kind of HDCP violation, even though I'm using the closed-source Nvidia drivers and using a DisplayPort connection from my monitor to graphics card. It's obviously discriminating against Linux because if I boot into Windows I can play Prime videos in HD no problem.

verifex 9y ago

Since the README.md doesn't explain how to actually install an unpacked Chrome extension, for the layman, I'll explain it here because it's quick and easy. 1. Download all the files for the extension into a directory. 2. Open chrome > Extensions window 3. Click "developer" checkbox 4. Click "Load unpacked extension" and select the directory where you downloaded the extension files. 5. Tada, extension should show up in the extension page.

floo 9y ago
There's also https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cankofcoohmbhfpcemhmaaeennfbnmgp https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cankofcoohmbhfpcem...

braindongle 9y ago

JS novice here. Is this an idiomatic way to conditionally perform an operation in JS? It saves typing, but if(){} is much more explicit. a && this.oo.push(x.V.TH);

adtac 9y ago
That's minification. The actual source code almost certainly does `if (a) { ... }`, but the minifier will shorten that into `a&&...`, thereby saving multiple bytes. Accumulate this over different if-clauses, and you're looking at serious savings.
- braindongle 9y ago
  Ah, I see. Thanks. Interesting. The minifier must be smart enough to know that you're not doing anything with the return value, since the two aren't equivalent in that respect. false && console.log('foo'); //false if(false){ console.log('foo') }; //undefined
rcfox 9y ago
Not for user-written code, but most websites run their Javascript through tools to condense it so that the download size is smaller.

dicroce 9y ago

I'm curious if anyone has created a headless browser Netflix ripper?

ddevault 9y ago

This is exactly why movie and television piracy is still big. If you pirate, you get high quality, ad-free video files that you can play on any device, anywhere, any time, forever. You can get any video resoultion and audio quality you want, and many (toggleable) subtitles which can be extended with third-party subtitles in post for languages the creators didn't bother to translate to. Every movie and TV show ever made is available through piracy, too. All for the low price of $0. Or you can pay >$100/year to get stupid bullshit like this. It won't work on most devices, requires proprietary software to play back, can't be used offline in most cases, has questionable audio and video quality, is locked to specific regions, and will vanish when Netflix can't renew the contract.

KozmoNau7 9y ago
Some ripping groups (particularly Russian ones) have started putting ads in front of the videos, and super-imposed logos in the corners. Pretty brazen, if you ask me.
- bonesss 9y ago
  How dare they try to capitalize on the content I steal... If I wanted shady conglomerates with a loose relationship to morals and ethics to get my money I'd just be paying the MPAA directly!
  - KozmoNau7 9y ago
    Copyright infringement, not stealing. But yes, I found it extremely ironic.
esistgut 9y ago
I am a paying customer for Netflix and Primevideo and I just had to pirate the Altered Carbon tv series because I play it on a ultrawidescreen monitor (21:9, 3440x1440) and the Netflix web player is putting black bars all around the videos (horizontal and vertical black bars). This is because the video is supposed to be played on 16:9 with horizontal black bars only. With the pirated version I can just tell MPV to apply an autocrop script and use much more space on my monitor.

tankenmate 9y ago

I'm not entirely sure but I think Netflix might have just "fixed" this. After finishing one stream I got an error screen telling me to reload the page. After that the next stream switched back to 720p.

wdr1 9y ago

Out of curiosity, is there a good reason for Netflix to do this? I.e., why would they be interested in providing 1080p to Safari but not Chrome, even if Chrome can do 1080p?

bzbarsky 9y ago
The most likely reason is that they have contractual agreements about how easy it is to be able to get at the data by unauthorized parties (read "the person watching the video") for various resolutions. For example, their contracts could say that for 1080p the playback mechanism has to guarantee security all the way to screen (e.g no playback over digital video cables that don't support the requisite encryption primitives). Generally this requires support from the OS and hardware, and the relevant playback application using the relevant OS functionality. This is why you get 1080p in IE and Safari, but Safari only on OS X 10.0.3 or later. You get 4K in Edge. You get 1080p on ChromeOS (where things are locked down in ways that prevent the viewer from exfiltrating data), but not in Chrome. Similarly, last I checked, you could get higher resolution videos from the iTunes store on iOS or Apple TV than you could on desktop MacOS, because the latter is not as locked-down. That was a few years ago, though.

dingo_bat 9y ago

I basically pay for Netflix and still download Marvel show episodes from our famous sailor-themed website. Why? Because Netflix won't let me watch the show offline and I want to watch uninterrupted during my long commute.