Netflix instant movies under linux

[Modelworks]

For the past couple weeks I have been on the fence of converting totally to linux or staying with windows. Most of my applications have native linux versions, Maya, xsi.

There were a few things that bugged me, one was not being able to watch netflix movies online.
It rquires drm, windows media .
I tried
wine
vmware

Nothing worked well.

Stumbled upon virtualbox from http://virtualbox.org
Installed winxp sp2 pro 32 bit as the OS.
Its working great.
Using about 70% off one core on a E4500@3.66ghz
Host OS is Fedora 8 64bit, 4GB ram

I had no sound at first until I set virtual box to pulse mode.

windows actually boots on virtualbox in about 8 secs, actually I think xp works better than it does on a seperate install.

So now I got a window with movies playing off netflix and the rest of the system still acts like nothing is going on, works at same speed.

Thats all I need to get rid of windows as my default os.
Hope this helps someone else.

 

[Nothinman]

That's still pretty sad that the only solution was to run Windows inside of a VM.

 

[spanky]

i saw an article on digg yesterday and it mentioned virtualbox. seems like a pretty cool program.

 

[ch33zw1z]

VirtualBox worked great when I had OpenSUSE 10.3 as host, and Windows XP as guest. I used it for the same thing, Modelworks.

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
That's still pretty sad that the only solution was to run Windows inside of a VM.

Yeah, I tried everything else.
I wish there was a linux only solution but its got all that drm crap attached to it.

 

[tatteredpotato]

The problem is that Netflix Online relies on not just IE, but WMP11 for the DRM management, so even if you have IE and the plugin you still don't have the DRM. Netflix has announced OS X support, so hopefully that will carry over to linux.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
The problem is that Netflix Online relies on not just IE, but WMP11 for the DRM management, so even if you have IE and the plugin you still don't have the DRM. Netflix has announced OS X support, so hopefully that will carry over to linux.

is microsoft developing their drm solution (silverlight?) for linux? that seems to be the leading candidate for os x at the moment, since i don't see apple giving up their solution.

edit: unfortunately netflix seems to have their hands tied by the studios on the DRM issue.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: Modelworks

Originally posted by: Nothinman
That's still pretty sad that the only solution was to run Windows inside of a VM.

Yeah, I tried everything else.
I wish there was a linux only solution but its got all that drm crap attached to it.

Its better than nothing, and it's free

 

[Nothinman]

is microsoft developing their drm solution (silverlight?) for linux?

Last I heard silverlight was a flash replacement and had nothing to do with DRM.

 

[Brazen]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

is microsoft developing their drm solution (silverlight?) for linux?

Last I heard silverlight was a flash replacement and had nothing to do with DRM.

That's how I see it too, but it would be easy and highly possible to include some DRM also.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

is microsoft developing their drm solution (silverlight?) for linux?

Last I heard silverlight was a flash replacement and had nothing to do with DRM.

it's the leading contender for bringing netflix streaming to mac (in beta right now) because it supports DRM, which will make the studios happy.

Microsoft's Silverlight video technology appears to be the most promising solution which will support cross-platform (PC and Mac) DRM-encoded video. Silverlight is available in beta for Mac from Microsoft.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
That's still pretty sad that the only solution was to run Windows inside of a VM.

Indeed, I would love to watch NetFlix on my PS3 (either via PSN or Yellow Dog Linux). But, if they wont officially support x86 Linux, I doubt they will support ppc / cell Yellow Dog Linux:laugh:

The PS3 does not have nearly enough ram to run windows xp in a VM (if it can even be done in Yellow Dog Linux).

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Nothinman
That's still pretty sad that the only solution was to run Windows inside of a VM.

Indeed, I would love to watch NetFlix on my PS3 (either via PSN or Yellow Dog Linux). But, if they wont officially support x86 Linux, I doubt they will support ppc / cell Yellow Dog Linux:laugh:

The PS3 does not have nearly enough ram to run windows xp in a VM (if it can even be done in Yellow Dog Linux).

There are also rumors that Netflix will release a disc for the 360 and PS3 that will allow access to the Netflix online from the console. Rumors come from a survey, and there will be like a $3 charge for the disc.

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Nothinman
That's still pretty sad that the only solution was to run Windows inside of a VM.

Indeed, I would love to watch NetFlix on my PS3 (either via PSN or Yellow Dog Linux). But, if they wont officially support x86 Linux, I doubt they will support ppc / cell Yellow Dog Linux:laugh:

The PS3 does not have nearly enough ram to run windows xp in a VM (if it can even be done in Yellow Dog Linux).

There are also rumors that Netflix will release a disc for the 360 and PS3 that will allow access to the Netflix online from the console. Rumors come from a survey, and there will be like a $3 charge for the disc.

aren't they developing their own set top box? seems like that'd be a conflict if they are charging a service fee for the box.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
There are also rumors that Netflix will release a disc for the 360 and PS3 that will allow access to the Netflix online from the console. Rumors come from a survey, and there will be like a $3 charge for the disc.

I called NetFlix (just for the heck of it, I knew it was a long shot) and the person that I talked to knew nothing about it, I assume this is where the rumor started?

 

[erikistired]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
There are also rumors that Netflix will release a disc for the 360 and PS3 that will allow access to the Netflix online from the console. Rumors come from a survey, and there will be like a $3 charge for the disc.

I called NetFlix (just for the heck of it, I knew it was a long shot) and the person that I talked to knew nothing about it, I assume this is where the rumor started?

ahhh yeah a survey != reality.

 

[Netopia]

Just an FYI for everyone. I tried to get into NetFlix to watch another episode of Heroes last night. I got a box that popped up which said that I had tried to watch on more than 4 computers, and that I should call the number shown in order to speak to tech support to make sure no one was hijacking my account.

In fact, I knew that I had watched from two desktops at my house, and also my laptop... but that was it. I called, and I waited on hold (speaker phone while doing other things) for about 1 1/4 hours before a tech came on.

Long story short... the part of the deal with the movie industry is that any one account cannot have more than 4 registered viewing devices (presumably computers... but they say devices) in any one year. After one entire year from the use of the first device, you can use other devices and the first four used with replace the original four. The only problem with this is that I knew FOR A FACT that only three devices had been used.

Apparently, there is some info sent back to NetFlix which they use to identify the computers. The guy was able to tell me the video card in each device used (maybe he had more info... don't know). The problem was, that two of the "devices" were the same computer (our family's main computer) but from different desktop logins. I explained the situation and asked if he could remove one of them. Sadly, he couldn't. He said that the recording industry had basically shackled them and they had no control of the registry of devices, they could only look at the listings for trouble shooting! I strongly suggested that they plaster this all over the site, so that families might consider WHICH computers they want to be able to watch, since there is a limit.

This isn't directly relevant to the discussion, but since people were trying to do workarounds, I thought I would let them know about this so they didn't inadvertently lock themselves out of their own service!

Joe

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: Netopia

Apparently, there is some info sent back to NetFlix which they use to identify the computers. The guy was able to tell me the video card in each device used (maybe he had more info... don't know). The problem was, that two of the "devices" were the same computer (our family's main computer) but from different desktop logins. I explained the situation and asked if he could remove one of them. Sadly, he couldn't. He said that the recording industry had basically shackled them and they had no control of the registry of devices, they could only look at the listings for trouble shooting! I strongly suggested that they plaster this all over the site, so that families might consider WHICH computers they want to be able to watch, since there is a limit.

Joe

I just ran into this also.
After a couple attempts under linux and then using windows for netflix the site now has me blocked. Saying

Instant watching message

Your Netflix account has been used to watch movies instantly from 4 different
computers.

For your security, please contatct Customer Service at 1-866-402-2616 to confirm that
your account is not being accessed by unauthorized parties.

They need to make this VERY clear on the site.
Thing is all viewing was done from that same pc, just different OS.

If they can't restore the viewing on, instant viewing, I'll cancel the account.
They can complain then to the MPAA how they are losing revenue.


Edit
Just got off the phone with netflix.
They gave me one device back.
They told me that there is a registry key that you need to copy before changing your os.
Each time the player is run on a pc for the first time it generates a device key and puts it in the registry.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Netflix\Movie Viewer]

Your key for your account device id is in the ID key.

I recommed you backup that key.

 

[Nothinman]

That's pretty retarded that they store the key in HKCU and not HKLM.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

That is quite sad. It looks like MovieLink is not any better in this regard.

Btw, just wanted to throw this out there. OpenSUSE 10.3 comes packaged with a yast2 xen module (yup, gui implementation as well as command line) that makes it easy to run virtualized guest operating systems. So as long as you have a processor with Intel's VT extension or AMD's SVM then you can run Windows.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: Netopia
Just an FYI for everyone. I tried to get into NetFlix to watch another episode of Heroes last night. I got a box that popped up which said that I had tried to watch on more than 4 computers, and that I should call the number shown in order to speak to tech support to make sure no one was hijacking my account.

In fact, I knew that I had watched from two desktops at my house, and also my laptop... but that was it. I called, and I waited on hold (speaker phone while doing other things) for about 1 1/4 hours before a tech came on.

Long story short... the part of the deal with the movie industry is that any one account cannot have more than 4 registered viewing devices (presumably computers... but they say devices) in any one year. After one entire year from the use of the first device, you can use other devices and the first four used with replace the original four. The only problem with this is that I knew FOR A FACT that only three devices had been used.

Apparently, there is some info sent back to NetFlix which they use to identify the computers. The guy was able to tell me the video card in each device used (maybe he had more info... don't know). The problem was, that two of the "devices" were the same computer (our family's main computer) but from different desktop logins. I explained the situation and asked if he could remove one of them. Sadly, he couldn't. He said that the recording industry had basically shackled them and they had no control of the registry of devices, they could only look at the listings for trouble shooting! I strongly suggested that they plaster this all over the site, so that families might consider WHICH computers they want to be able to watch, since there is a limit.

This isn't directly relevant to the discussion, but since people were trying to do workarounds, I thought I would let them know about this so they didn't inadvertently lock themselves out of their own service!

Joe

Thanks for the heads up so the rest of us don't have to learn the hard way!

 

[Deeko]

Has anyone tried compiling/running this on the PS3 yet?

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Deeko
Has anyone tried compiling/running this on the PS3 yet?

The PS3 probably does not have enough ram to run the virtual machine with an XP install viewing a streaming video in Linux. (or can this VM even get the Windows XP running on a platform other than x86?)

 

[Nothinman]

Well a full blown emulator would be able to run Windows on the PS3 but it'll be slow as hell. Take a look at qemu, it supports emulating mulitple architectures so try booting something like an Alpha Linux installer on x86 and see how quick it is. =)

 

[Deeko]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: Deeko
Has anyone tried compiling/running this on the PS3 yet?

The PS3 probably does not have enough ram to run the virtual machine with an XP install viewing a streaming video in Linux. (or can this VM even get the Windows XP running on a platform other than x86?)

I would assume it wouldn't run, or not well anyway...just curious if anyone had tried it or not. I might give it a shot this week sometime just to see what happens.