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I have impression DRM vendors REALLY want you to buy a smart TV. Except F1 that is just stupid. I used to watch all stuff I wanted on a MacMini attached to a

I have impression DRM vendors REALLY want you to buy a smart TV. Except F1 that is just stupid. I used to watch all stuff I wanted on a MacMini attached to a dumb TV. Suddenly, Netflix stopped working on all browsers except chrome. Then F1TV did the same, not only that some people found out it COULD work on other browsers, but after an specific update, they added code where it detects what browser you are using, and if it is not the browser and OS they want, the whole website refuses to work. I then decided to replace the aging MacMini with a Raspberri Pi to see if I could solve this problem, but as I researched I found out that it wouldn't solve it either, Google makes the Widevine DRM, and seemly lately it has been notorious for doing silent changes that break it on all platforms except official Chrome versions on Windows, Android and Chrome OS, people using Pi for media wrote a bunch of posts all over the internet with warnings like: "Oh, Netflix will work on the Pi some 3 months per year, it will start working after someone manages to make Widevine work with Chromium, and then after some weeks working Google will make a silent update and break it again for several months until someone figure out how to make it work with Chromium again" Also I am still bitter that the DRM race led to the death of 3D sound cards and some cool stuff that was possible with analog video on Windows versions before Vista. EDIT: about F1 being stupid: most DRM streaming apps have a SmartTV version. Formula 1 official doesn't. They want you to use Chrome on a PC. I just cannot understand what is wrong with them, why not allow people to watch Formula 1 on a TV like most normal people would want to?

smolder 5y ago
What do you mean about the death of 3D sound cards? Do you mean surround sound, like 5.1, etc? That's still a thing, and not incompatible with DRM.
dgan 5y ago
This is not only Netflix. French media do the same using exactly the same Widevine DRM, which simply doesn't work on Firefox. My sister couldn't watch some replays of her shows on my laptop because she couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  Wait... I first heard of widevine last week when I tried watching netflix on my work's laptop (debian), using firefox. It didn't work so I googled, found out about widevine and special settings. I tweaked some chrome/chromium parameters but it didn't work. All this in a private window. Once I used Netflix in a normal window (Firefox or chromium) it worked. Worth a try ?
  - Anon_troll 5y ago
    I don't think Firefox and Chrome run extensions/plugins in private windows without you first allowing them to run. That might be the case here.
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    Widevine is more or less the "industry standard" for in-browser video DRM. Basically everyone uses it.
arpa 5y ago
Netflix has made a significant dent in piracy, but DRM will fix that...
- deadbunny 5y ago
  Netflix made a dent in piracy when they were the only game in town. With the fracturing of streaming services leading to the very thing Netflix solved piracy will be on the rise again.
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    You mean you don't sign up for all of Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+, AppleTV+, HBO Max, Peacock, ESPN+, and Amazon Prime?? You really should, it's so convenient juggling subscriptions and apps for everything individually. But don't stop there. You want some documentaries? Throw in Curiosity Stream, it's pretty cheap and you'll get Nebula for free! You'll want BBC Select too, though. Oh, you like Anime? Here's Crunchyroll. A horror fan? Don't forget to sign up for Shudder! Or you could just log into your VPN and go to Pirate Bay. I mean, if you were a dirty awful criminal.
    - google234123 5y ago
      Haven't people usually paid about 40-60$ a month for TV? I don't see the issue.
      - deadbunny 5y ago
        Ignoring the price issue for a moment. This is not a better situation. We have gone from one platform with all content with adverts (cable), to one platform with a lot of more relevant content and no adverts (Netflix), to N platforms with some content and some adverts (platform dependent). Even if you were subscribed to every single streaming service it's now a nightmare to manage, not only do you have N payments you now have N different apps to search/browse. Say you have 4 shows you like release on a Monday across 3 different apps. You now have to navigate your way through multiple different apps (with wildly different UIs) just to watch the things you want. With some nice automated piracy they just download get indexed by your platform of choice (Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, Raw filesystem etc..) and they are all available in one place with minimal fucking about. Sure you could achieve the same with some kind of unified stream aggregator UI (kodi can do this already to an extent) but that'll never fly long term with all providers as the streaming companies would miss out on that sweet sweet userdata (only having what was watched/when/how long) and control. The only real benefit streaming platform have right now is the lack of ads vs. cable. But remember when cable launched? It didn't have ads either and I wouldn't expect streaming providers to remain ad free either. I give it 5 years before at least 50% have ads somewhere whether in the UI or before/during/after streams. So then we're back to piracy providing the best service to the consumer, ad free, unified UI, and most importantly all the content. I'm honestly unsure why the music industry hasn't splintered into a million streaming services and Spotify reigns supreme. While Spotify is terrible for Artists it is a bargain for consumers. Imagine having to load up 2+ separate applications to listen to a single artists back catalogue simply because they changed labels at some point.
danShumway 5y ago
> I used to watch all stuff I wanted on a MacMini attached to a dumb TV. Suddenly, Netflix stopped working on all browsers except chrome. How is this possible? I was told that standardizing DRM interfaces in the browser would stop Netflix from forcing users to download native apps instead of using regular browsers and open streaming technology. > Google makes the Widevine DRM, and seemly lately it has been notorious for doing silent changes that break it on all platforms except official Chrome versions on Windows, Android and Chrome OS So wait, standardizing DRM interfaces didn't do anything to increase platform/browser availability for the actual DRM implementations that are only licensed to be used with certain browsers and on certain devices? No one could have predicted this. Utterly shocking. It's almost like the standardization process for web DRM changed literally nothing about Netflix/Chrome's plans, and really only existed to provide a PR boost and the veneer of respectability to an outcome that they were always going to pursue anyway regardless of what the standard was. Oh well, live and learn. And by "learn", I of course mean make the exact same arguments verbatim the next time we want to standardize DRM interfaces on image tags and then accuse critics of wanting the open web to die.
Shorel 5y ago
>Also I am still bitter that the DRM race led to the death of 3D sound cards and some cool stuff that was possible with analog video on Windows versions before Vista. I share your bitterness about this same issue.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  Honest question, as someone who's (probably) too young: What where these 3D sound cards and - just from the name - isn't that what Dolby Surround (etc) does?
  - johnchristopher 5y ago
    In the 90's I chalked it up to "surround or 5.1 marketing" but it might have been something else https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/3d-audio https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/3d-audio
    - chha 5y ago
      Yeah, there were several manufacturers who produced soundcards that basically offered two channels of sound, but where elements creating sound on-screen could be positioned as in a 3-dimensional world. I had a Packard Bell with an A3D[1] card, and I remember being fascinated by the demos they supplied. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor#A3D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor#A3D
      - detaro 5y ago
        And how did DRM get in the way of that?
      - account42 5y ago
        Just with Creative's effects extensions, you can do virtual 3D sound in Software just fine now: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Surround_sound#Binaural_sound:_HRTF https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Surround_sound#Bi... Next step would be to simulate and actual 3D sound environment but with GPGPU compute I don't think that needs dedicated hardware either.
chha 5y ago
Not sure if this is valid in all cases; avid user of Netflix and F1 fan here. I only use Firefox on Linux to watch them
google234123 5y ago
Did DRM really kill sound cards or did motherboards/gpus/cpus just get better default embedded audio solutions?

smolder 5y ago

What do you mean about the death of 3D sound cards? Do you mean surround sound, like 5.1, etc? That's still a thing, and not incompatible with DRM.

dgan 5y ago

This is not only Netflix. French media do the same using exactly the same Widevine DRM, which simply doesn't work on Firefox. My sister couldn't watch some replays of her shows on my laptop because she couldn't figure out why it wouldn't work

johnchristopher 5y ago
Wait... I first heard of widevine last week when I tried watching netflix on my work's laptop (debian), using firefox. It didn't work so I googled, found out about widevine and special settings. I tweaked some chrome/chromium parameters but it didn't work. All this in a private window. Once I used Netflix in a normal window (Firefox or chromium) it worked. Worth a try ?
- Anon_troll 5y ago
  I don't think Firefox and Chrome run extensions/plugins in private windows without you first allowing them to run. That might be the case here.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  Widevine is more or less the "industry standard" for in-browser video DRM. Basically everyone uses it.

arpa 5y ago

Netflix has made a significant dent in piracy, but DRM will fix that...

deadbunny 5y ago
Netflix made a dent in piracy when they were the only game in town. With the fracturing of streaming services leading to the very thing Netflix solved piracy will be on the rise again.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  You mean you don't sign up for all of Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+, AppleTV+, HBO Max, Peacock, ESPN+, and Amazon Prime?? You really should, it's so convenient juggling subscriptions and apps for everything individually. But don't stop there. You want some documentaries? Throw in Curiosity Stream, it's pretty cheap and you'll get Nebula for free! You'll want BBC Select too, though. Oh, you like Anime? Here's Crunchyroll. A horror fan? Don't forget to sign up for Shudder! Or you could just log into your VPN and go to Pirate Bay. I mean, if you were a dirty awful criminal.
  - google234123 5y ago
    Haven't people usually paid about 40-60$ a month for TV? I don't see the issue.
    - deadbunny 5y ago
      Ignoring the price issue for a moment. This is not a better situation. We have gone from one platform with all content with adverts (cable), to one platform with a lot of more relevant content and no adverts (Netflix), to N platforms with some content and some adverts (platform dependent). Even if you were subscribed to every single streaming service it's now a nightmare to manage, not only do you have N payments you now have N different apps to search/browse. Say you have 4 shows you like release on a Monday across 3 different apps. You now have to navigate your way through multiple different apps (with wildly different UIs) just to watch the things you want. With some nice automated piracy they just download get indexed by your platform of choice (Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, Raw filesystem etc..) and they are all available in one place with minimal fucking about. Sure you could achieve the same with some kind of unified stream aggregator UI (kodi can do this already to an extent) but that'll never fly long term with all providers as the streaming companies would miss out on that sweet sweet userdata (only having what was watched/when/how long) and control. The only real benefit streaming platform have right now is the lack of ads vs. cable. But remember when cable launched? It didn't have ads either and I wouldn't expect streaming providers to remain ad free either. I give it 5 years before at least 50% have ads somewhere whether in the UI or before/during/after streams. So then we're back to piracy providing the best service to the consumer, ad free, unified UI, and most importantly all the content. I'm honestly unsure why the music industry hasn't splintered into a million streaming services and Spotify reigns supreme. While Spotify is terrible for Artists it is a bargain for consumers. Imagine having to load up 2+ separate applications to listen to a single artists back catalogue simply because they changed labels at some point.

danShumway 5y ago

> I used to watch all stuff I wanted on a MacMini attached to a dumb TV. Suddenly, Netflix stopped working on all browsers except chrome. How is this possible? I was told that standardizing DRM interfaces in the browser would stop Netflix from forcing users to download native apps instead of using regular browsers and open streaming technology. > Google makes the Widevine DRM, and seemly lately it has been notorious for doing silent changes that break it on all platforms except official Chrome versions on Windows, Android and Chrome OS So wait, standardizing DRM interfaces didn't do anything to increase platform/browser availability for the actual DRM implementations that are only licensed to be used with certain browsers and on certain devices? No one could have predicted this. Utterly shocking. It's almost like the standardization process for web DRM changed literally nothing about Netflix/Chrome's plans, and really only existed to provide a PR boost and the veneer of respectability to an outcome that they were always going to pursue anyway regardless of what the standard was. Oh well, live and learn. And by "learn", I of course mean make the exact same arguments verbatim the next time we want to standardize DRM interfaces on image tags and then accuse critics of wanting the open web to die.

Shorel 5y ago

>Also I am still bitter that the DRM race led to the death of 3D sound cards and some cool stuff that was possible with analog video on Windows versions before Vista. I share your bitterness about this same issue.

Sebb767 5y ago
Honest question, as someone who's (probably) too young: What where these 3D sound cards and - just from the name - isn't that what Dolby Surround (etc) does?
- johnchristopher 5y ago
  In the 90's I chalked it up to "surround or 5.1 marketing" but it might have been something else https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/3d-audio https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/3d-audio
  - chha 5y ago
    Yeah, there were several manufacturers who produced soundcards that basically offered two channels of sound, but where elements creating sound on-screen could be positioned as in a 3-dimensional world. I had a Packard Bell with an A3D[1] card, and I remember being fascinated by the demos they supplied. [1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor#A3D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor#A3D
    - detaro 5y ago
      And how did DRM get in the way of that?
    - account42 5y ago
      Just with Creative's effects extensions, you can do virtual 3D sound in Software just fine now: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Surround_sound#Binaural_sound:_HRTF https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Glossary:Surround_sound#Bi... Next step would be to simulate and actual 3D sound environment but with GPGPU compute I don't think that needs dedicated hardware either.

chha 5y ago

Not sure if this is valid in all cases; avid user of Netflix and F1 fan here. I only use Firefox on Linux to watch them

google234123 5y ago

Did DRM really kill sound cards or did motherboards/gpus/cpus just get better default embedded audio solutions?