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

The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

da.vidbuchanan.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 293 posts

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#221

Post by kuon »

Netflix quality is crap on Linux, I just torrent everything as it is simpler and I can use a player that allow me to put the subtitles where I want. I know I say this bluntly but I came to a point where I cannot get all this nonsense about not trusting the user. I buy music on band camp that I do not "distribute". I do not believe removing DRM would yield to higher unauthorized distribution.

Also do not be fooled by resolution, low bitrate 1080p can look worse than 480p, and many services are quietly throttling bandwidth.

High quality 1080p should be 8-10mb/s.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#222

Post by heleninboodler »

andsoitis wrote: post #216
Zuiii wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not. It’s enough to deter casual piracy. There is some value in that. Casual pirates wouldn't bother right-clicking in the first place unless it's to store a local copy that they won't even know how to share effectively (since they're casual). The only thing DRM achieves for netflix is deterring new customers and hurting existing ones.

> The only thing DRM achieves for netflix is deterring new customers and hurting existing ones. Out of their more than 231 million subscribing households around the world, I don't think more than 5,000 feel the way you think. Even if 55,000 felt that way it doesn't matter.

This. DRM is a courtesy lock on a bathroom door. It makes ripping content enough of a hassle that only people who are willing to put some effort in will bother, and those people are going to find a way around it no matter what. It doesn't have to be unbreakable to have some value to the content owner.

If we accept that enabling DRM on some of their content has some value to Netflix, which it obviously does, and we accept that it doesn't impose unacceptable user experience tradeoffs, which it obviously doesn't, then it is rational for them to enable it on all of their content.

There is probably a hypothetical cost/benefit break-even point where it actually degrades the user experience a little and thus is only acceptable in cases where it is absolutely needed, but it seems unlikely this is significant enough to even be quantifiable.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#223

Post by heleninboodler »

musicale wrote: post #178
ben174 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not worthless though, because if it didn't exist - some browser extension would appear the next day which adds a nice little download right next to the play button.

> a nice little download right next to the play button This is obviously what we would actually want.

But we are talking about Netflix's motivations, not ours. And Netflix does not want this download button.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#224

Post by tcmart14 »

MBCook wrote: post #211
alwayslikethis wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most pirates are not subscribed in the first place. They just download something someone else had removed DRM from, which also makes it a superior experience. It only takes one pirate with a decent computer to encode a good DRM-free copy for it to be shared via BitTorrent. It is pointless to deter casual piracy when one "professional" pirate is enough to free the content.

> It is pointless to deter casual piracy when one "professional" pirate is enough to free the content. For the piracy scene, sure. It’s irrelevant. But for normal people the difference is huge. They may not know how to pirate content, where to go to find it, or be willing risk downloading it and getting in trouble (scary FBI warnings and ISP letters). But once it’s trivial due to the lack of protection it will be all…

The way I like to put it is with an phrase your hear sometimes in the lock picking community. Locks actually don't really offer much protection. Their main function is to "keep an honest man honest."

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#225

Post by icelancer »

vel0city wrote: post #204
rowanG077 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Photocopy is obviously lossy since there is a very noisy digital-analog-digital conversion going on. But a capture card is capturing a digital signal. There should be no loss except for video decoding/encoding artifacts.

You're not understanding how lossy compression encoders work. Try recompressing a JPEG a few dozen times. Or take an MP3 and export it from Audacity, open the export, export as MP3 again a dozen times and see what it sounds like. All those artifacts keep getting amplified every time you re-encode until it's practically just the artifacts. Every time you render and recompress you're losing information, it's lossy comp…

Thought for sure it was going to be the legendary Hank Hill JPEG meme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEzhxP-pdos

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#226

Post by steve1977 »

vel0city wrote: post #204
rowanG077 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Photocopy is obviously lossy since there is a very noisy digital-analog-digital conversion going on. But a capture card is capturing a digital signal. There should be no loss except for video decoding/encoding artifacts.

You're not understanding how lossy compression encoders work. Try recompressing a JPEG a few dozen times. Or take an MP3 and export it from Audacity, open the export, export as MP3 again a dozen times and see what it sounds like. All those artifacts keep getting amplified every time you re-encode until it's practically just the artifacts. Every time you render and recompress you're losing information, it's lossy comp…

But the loss happens during re-encoding, not during capture.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#227

Post by AnthonyMouse »

hunter2_ wrote: post #158
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not worthless, actively harmful to the user experience, and therefore actively harmful to the bottom line.

But I doubt the harmed people will feel materially less harmed if some tiny fraction of content isn't in harm's way while the rest still is.

It's in their interest to get rid of all the DRM, so it's a matter of setting an example. If they try to get Hollywood to stop demanding it while they're still doing it themselves, they look like hypocrites and fools. If they stop they can demonstrate the worthlessness of it and the success of their content without it and try to get others to follow.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#228

Post by AnthonyMouse »

MBCook wrote: post #171
freeplay wrote: post #115

Widevine has been privately cracked/bypassed. The method hasn't been made public as it would obviously get patched rather quickly (if it even can be patched). That's why Netflix content is available almost immediately on any decent tracker. The quality would not look nearly as good if it was grabbed using a capture card. Like others have mentioned, it's security theater for the content owners who most likely require…

Just because piracy is possible doesn’t mean they should make it as easy as it can be for users. There’s value in even minor hurdles. They clear think it’s worth it.

> Just because piracy is possible doesn’t mean they should make it as easy as it can be for users.

> There’s value in even minor hurdles.

The hurdles only exist for the people who are paying them. It makes piracy more attractive relative to paying, by making the experience you get when you pay worse.

> They clear think it’s worth it.

They're corporations. Management is under pressure to be seen doing something about piracy and the DRM vendors saw an opportunity to sell them some snake oil.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#229

Post by lern_too_spel »

_a9 wrote: post #207
freeplay wrote: post #115

Widevine has been privately cracked/bypassed. The method hasn't been made public as it would obviously get patched rather quickly (if it even can be patched). That's why Netflix content is available almost immediately on any decent tracker. The quality would not look nearly as good if it was grabbed using a capture card. Like others have mentioned, it's security theater for the content owners who most likely require…

It's not even private anymore. Anyone can easily find tools on GitHub or other sites[0] that can download widevine'd content. It's easy to find L3 keys on GitHub too. There are public sites[1] that get the decryption keys but using their own keys on the backend if you cant find keys or don't know how to dump the keys. There is an all-in-one tool[2] that lets anyone with 0 knowledge of DRM to dump content from practic…

The all-in-one tool only decrypts Widevine L3, which is the lowest security Widevine protocol according to TFA. 4k content is only available with Widevine L1. The others don't say which level they support, but I assume it's the same.

Re: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux

#230

Post by botanical »

vel0city wrote: post #204
rowanG077 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Photocopy is obviously lossy since there is a very noisy digital-analog-digital conversion going on. But a capture card is capturing a digital signal. There should be no loss except for video decoding/encoding artifacts.

You're not understanding how lossy compression encoders work. Try recompressing a JPEG a few dozen times. Or take an MP3 and export it from Audacity, open the export, export as MP3 again a dozen times and see what it sounds like. All those artifacts keep getting amplified every time you re-encode until it's practically just the artifacts. Every time you render and recompress you're losing information, it's lossy comp…

But JPEG purposely discards information to save space. A digital stream is copied directly, only a codec would subject it losing information
Post reply on HN