Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

techblog.netflix.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 524 posts

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#131

Post by mozumder »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #9
jasonmp85 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the world was better when Flash and Silverlight were the media of choice for delivering video.

It was indeed, since people had started recognizing the problems with Flash and Silverlight, and they'd have been much easier to kill off. DRM should have stayed second-class, leaving the way open for competitors to offer a first-class web experience as long as they left DRM behind.

Sorry, but Hollywood has the upper hand here.

Hollywood has no desire to enter an open platform. They're completely happy if none of their movies are online, ever. Really. They already have a massively profitable distribution system in the theaters.

The problem is that people want to watch Hollywood movies on their computer, including people that use Linux. So what do you tell those people to do? Tell them run Windows? Have them go watch it in the theater? And they have copyright controls that can force offline sites that host copyrighted content in various countries.

So DRM is the tech industry's way to kiss these people ass. It may be flawed or may not work, but it's still ass-kissing. They're the artists, they get to decide what they do with their art. The consumer has no right to an artists creation. Their only choice is to pay up or ignore it.

And you'll find that this happens to other art mediums as well. There are many, many art galleries that won't sell certain works of art if they deem your ownership as insufficient. Literally - the customer is wrong.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#132

Post by greenhouse_gas »

jasonmp85 wrote: post #3
cyborgx7 wrote: post #2

Translation: Netflix successfully lobied DRM into what is supposed to be the OPEN web standard, to the point where even Firefox couldn't afford not to support it. Dark days for the free exchange of information enabled by the web.

Yes, the world was better when Flash and Silverlight were the media of choice for delivering video.

The thing is that there is (for all intents and purposes) no difference between ECE and plugins.

Actually, ECE is a plugin. The only difference is that it helps web-designers switch plugin providers.

That's it. No more security. No more standardization.

As a user, you still depend on the goodwill of the ECE provider throw you a bone. If you use a slightly niche OS (say, OpenBSD on ARM), you're out of luck.

If Adobe decides that it's not worth their time to develop a plugin for PaleMoon, they won't and you're out of luck (or will MS let their ECE plugin run on Linux, or Google's run on FF?). You (as a user) won't be able to switch to another provider. It all depends on the provider.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#133

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #100
Touche wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaning anyone can implement the technology that can show a web page. You can't show Netflix's web page, unless they preapprove of your DRM.

And that's different from a web page that won't allow you to access it without a password, how? In both cases, a business decision by a third party limits what you're able to access. I understand that you don't want to run code Netflix approves of and that you're not permitted to read in its original source form. And that's fine, a good reason not to subscribe to Netflix. But how is that any more an offense to "the o…

[deleted]

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#134

Post by snissn »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #118
azakai wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, the DRM is still not standard. Only the interface to it is. Every browser must still deal directly with the DRM provider and hope to reach an agreement with them, both technically and financially. As a result, only certain platforms are supported. New browsers face a new barrier to entry, in particular - the exact opposite of how the Web is support to work. Second, this is worse in the sense that Netflix, Goog…

From another comment, don't necessarily think of the dilemma of a netflix user, or internet browser, instead think of the of the blow to the openness of the next person that wants to make a brand new web browser. For the new browser to fully compete, they now /NEED/ to set up a closed relationship with netflix, the drm provider, the other browsers. If it was an open standard, they could simply code the crypto algorithms that the standard needs and not need to get permission for the closed drm formats.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#135

Post by problems »

wildmusings wrote: post #116
zanny wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't, and they knew that. They knew the adoption rates for out-of-browser proprietary content viewers were awful. That is why they dedicated resources to usurp the open web. If Mozilla had fought back, we might have progressed towards the death of the obsolete content model big media wants to keep in place and prevent change in the market. It would have at least been a step in the right direction - instead, the…

Or more realistically, if Mozilla had fought back, more people would simply have stopped using Firefox.

Yeah, the problem started when people decided installing a browser from an ad agency seemed like a good idea.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#136

Post by zabuni »

kmicklas wrote: post #89
futurix wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the choice is between proprietary apps or DRM for multimedia content inside open web environment, I'd rather have the latter. Yes, in ideal world there will be DRM-free streaming - but unfortunately that's unrealistic.

> but unfortunately that's unrealistic. Why is it unrealistic? Hollywood just needs to be pushed harder. It worked for music no?

It worked for music because they were stupid enough to put all their eggs in one basket, iTunes and iPods, and then got screwed when Apple wanted to sell electronics more than music and wouldn't raise their prices. Movies aren't in the same situation.

Movies are a great deal more fractured, and they will remain fractured. The movie studios will not let Netflix turn into the iTunes for movies.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#137

Post by Faaak »

ghughes wrote: post #84
linsen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can in the sense of pointing a video camera at the screen and recording it. But if you want to capture the pixels before they are converted into light, HDCP may prevent you from doing so [1]. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCP

Nope, there's a company in Shenzhen that makes a plug-and-play bypass device: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/warner-bros-sues...

And you could always in the last resort hook up to the DLP projector screen copy the outputted data just before light.

Very messy but it should work.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#138

Post by [deleted] »

Touche wrote: post #124
tptacek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's different from a web page that won't allow you to access it without a password, how? In both cases, a business decision by a third party limits what you're able to access. I understand that you don't want to run code Netflix approves of and that you're not permitted to read in its original source form. And that's fine, a good reason not to subscribe to Netflix. But how is that any more an offense to "the o…

> And that's different from a web page that won't allow you to access it without a password, how? It works the same regardless of what browser or OS you are using.

[deleted]

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#139

Post by yuhong »

mozumder wrote: post #131
JoshTriplett wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was indeed, since people had started recognizing the problems with Flash and Silverlight, and they'd have been much easier to kill off. DRM should have stayed second-class, leaving the way open for competitors to offer a first-class web experience as long as they left DRM behind.

Sorry, but Hollywood has the upper hand here. Hollywood has no desire to enter an open platform. They're completely happy if none of their movies are online, ever. Really. They already have a massively profitable distribution system in the theaters. The problem is that people want to watch Hollywood movies on their computer, including people that use Linux. So what do you tell those people to do? Tell them run Window…

I wonder why Hollywood was taken over by lawyers in the first place. Yes, I am going back to before Sony vs Universal.

Re: Update on HTML5 Video for Netflix

#140

Post by sidlls »

notyourwork wrote: post #96
sidlls wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stuff on the web should just work on all browsers. How did we get to this point, seriously? This isn't any different from the compatibility issues across desktop operating systems. You wouldn't expect a mac desktop app binary to "just work" when double-clicked on a Windows OS. I know, the web supposedly has a standard that should make this argument null, but the fact is browsers are basically being used as though t…

> This isn't any different from the compatibility issues across desktop operating systems. You wouldn't expect a mac desktop app binary to "just work" when double-clicked on a Windows OS. It actually is a completely different issue. The web is a standard, browsers implement that standard. It isn't perfect but its not the same intention as different OS architecture.

Yes, hence my comment about the argument being made null by the existence of a standard--but that's only in theory. In practice, often because of OS-driven constraints (e.g. the desktop vs Android version of any given browser), different tradeoffs with respect to the quality, breadth, and depth of implementation differ.

The point is this: the existence of a standard doesn't guarantee uniformity in implementations.

Post reply on HN