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Netflix Downloads

media.netflix.com

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Re: Netflix Downloads

#81

Post by fastball »

izacus wrote: post #62
greg7gkb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who would license content to a company without any DRM protection?

Your question implies that there's any practical use for that DRM in streaming services. There's not and it does nothing useful but annoy users. Anyone with ounce of motivation can easily bypass and extract the media content, so the only thing DRM does is piss of paying users which can't watch content on flaky connections, flights, travel and alternative operating systems. Meanwhile on torrent sites you find Netflix…

Not true.

An important use for DRM in regards to streaming services is to prevent people on shared networks from getting access to the data. For instance, if I was in a college dorm with dorm-wide wifi, and I was watching my de-DRM'd Netflix, anyone on the dorm intranet could snoop my packets and get the data being transmitted to me by Netflix, for free.

That is nigh on impossible to do when the content is encrypted with DRM.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#82

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

greg7gkb wrote: post #59
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #35

While this is great and very usable, especially for people with limited data plans, I can't help but feel disappointed that simple offline caching of content is still considered a major feature in 2016. Without DRM, this would be a no-brainer.

Who would license content to a company without any DRM protection?

I appreciate the legal reasons for DRM. My point was just that it keeps being an obstacle for technical innovation, however simple, which is depressing.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#83

Post by Dylan16807 »

maxerickson wrote: post #74
Dylan16807 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A streaming service is perfectly viable without DRM, especially if downloading is speed limited after a while. If you want to make copies at playback speed, well, you could do that with DRM too and it hasn't made the system collapse.

Which DRM free streaming service has the most customers? (let's say they have to be at least sort of like Netflix, with minimal advertising and comedy/drama shows)

I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. There are only a few big studios, and they all happen to be wrapped up in inertia and paranoia. But that's just how the dice came out, it's not because DRM provides actual value. If they wanted to perform a realistic market assessment we could be DRM-free in a snap.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#84

Post by izacus »

logicallee wrote: post #75
izacus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You imply that there's speed throttling when streaming. There's not and it makes no difference if you're connecting to a streaming endpoint or just getting a downloaded file. (Which you can confirm by fast availability of streamed content on torrent sites or if you actually test the streams.)

Thanks. Are you saying you could "stream" a 50 minute episode in 3 minutes even before this announcement? Your second statement (about torrent sites) implies that everyone was already "downloading" content and NetFlix's servers were happy to serve the streams as a single very fast download without regard to how long it should takes clients to consume that (i.e. no throttling) - is this correct?

Yeah, at the end of the day, the player is also downloading and caching chunks. Usually faster than playback as well - precaching ahead so line fluctuations don't make your video stutter.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#85

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

fastball wrote: post #81
izacus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question implies that there's any practical use for that DRM in streaming services. There's not and it does nothing useful but annoy users. Anyone with ounce of motivation can easily bypass and extract the media content, so the only thing DRM does is piss of paying users which can't watch content on flaky connections, flights, travel and alternative operating systems. Meanwhile on torrent sites you find Netflix…

Not true. An important use for DRM in regards to streaming services is to prevent people on shared networks from getting access to the data. For instance, if I was in a college dorm with dorm-wide wifi, and I was watching my de-DRM'd Netflix, anyone on the dorm intranet could snoop my packets and get the data being transmitted to me by Netflix, for free. That is nigh on impossible to do when the content is encrypted…

To be fair, simple end-to-end encryption of non-DRM'd material would accomplish the same.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#86

Post by maxerickson »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #83
maxerickson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which DRM free streaming service has the most customers? (let's say they have to be at least sort of like Netflix, with minimal advertising and comedy/drama shows)

I'm not sure what that's supposed to prove. There are only a few big studios, and they all happen to be wrapped up in inertia and paranoia. But that's just how the dice came out, it's not because DRM provides actual value. If they wanted to perform a realistic market assessment we could be DRM-free in a snap.

The point is that 'viable' means something. Overcoming inertia and paranoia is providing actual value.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#87

Post by izacus »

fastball wrote: post #81
izacus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question implies that there's any practical use for that DRM in streaming services. There's not and it does nothing useful but annoy users. Anyone with ounce of motivation can easily bypass and extract the media content, so the only thing DRM does is piss of paying users which can't watch content on flaky connections, flights, travel and alternative operating systems. Meanwhile on torrent sites you find Netflix…

Not true. An important use for DRM in regards to streaming services is to prevent people on shared networks from getting access to the data. For instance, if I was in a college dorm with dorm-wide wifi, and I was watching my de-DRM'd Netflix, anyone on the dorm intranet could snoop my packets and get the data being transmitted to me by Netflix, for free. That is nigh on impossible to do when the content is encrypted…

Never in my times of working for content provider / transport was that even remotely the reason for DRM.

It was always passing the legal buck ("It wasn't us that let those evil evil pirates steal your series, we did all we could, look at that DRM software certificate!").

Snooping packets in dorm rooms? No.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#89

Post by Spivak »

fastball wrote: post #81
izacus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question implies that there's any practical use for that DRM in streaming services. There's not and it does nothing useful but annoy users. Anyone with ounce of motivation can easily bypass and extract the media content, so the only thing DRM does is piss of paying users which can't watch content on flaky connections, flights, travel and alternative operating systems. Meanwhile on torrent sites you find Netflix…

Not true. An important use for DRM in regards to streaming services is to prevent people on shared networks from getting access to the data. For instance, if I was in a college dorm with dorm-wide wifi, and I was watching my de-DRM'd Netflix, anyone on the dorm intranet could snoop my packets and get the data being transmitted to me by Netflix, for free. That is nigh on impossible to do when the content is encrypted…

What? You're just talking about TLS. This has absolutely nothing to do with client-side DRM modules.

Re: Netflix Downloads

#90

Post by rudolf0 »

izacus wrote: post #87
fastball wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. An important use for DRM in regards to streaming services is to prevent people on shared networks from getting access to the data. For instance, if I was in a college dorm with dorm-wide wifi, and I was watching my de-DRM'd Netflix, anyone on the dorm intranet could snoop my packets and get the data being transmitted to me by Netflix, for free. That is nigh on impossible to do when the content is encrypted…

Never in my times of working for content provider / transport was that even remotely the reason for DRM. It was always passing the legal buck ("It wasn't us that let those evil evil pirates steal your series, we did all we could, look at that DRM software certificate!"). Snooping packets in dorm rooms? No.

Not to mention that even if it were an issue, TLS would be a much easier and cheaper solution.
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