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Ask Slashdot: Linux Friendly Video Streaming?

Posted by timothy on from the chromebox-works-with-netflix-at-least dept.

earthwormgaz writes "I've set up a Linux XBMC + MythTV with FreeView machine for the lounge at home. It works pretty well for Linux, although things crash here and there. The Mrs wants LoveFilm or Netflix, but it seems they're Silverlight and not Linux friendly. Is there anyone doing streaming film and TV with Flash or something else that works on Linux? Failing that, is there anyway to download a film for £4-6 say, as just an AVI file or something, legally?"

5 of 147 comments (clear)

  1. netflix is fine on linux by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is a Netflix App for Linux that runs through Wine. It works perfectly fine.

    --
    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  2. Re:There are plenty of embedded media players by fat_mike · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm going to spread much Roku love. Amazon instant video, Netflix, Hulu, just about every church sermon in the country, The Blaze, all your premium cable channels, etc. And its a cute little hockey puck.

  3. Re:amazon by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm afraid I can't let you do that Dave.

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  4. Re:amazon by duphenix · · Score: 5, Informative

    Delete your ~./adobe folder and try again. I'd link to where I first saw this solution if I could remember it. I have to do this every few months, whenever Amazon "updates" the player.

  5. Flash Access requires libhal, hald by tlambert · · Score: 5, Informative

    Flash Access requires libhal, hald

    This has been known since Feb 2011, which Amazon started encoding new content for TV shows using the newer version of Flash Access.

    The Flash Access Component requires that the local machine support Libhal and hald, even though they are deprecated by over 7 years now by the OpenDesktop project.

    It uses the information gathered from this interface to create a machine unique identifier, which it then uses as a content crypto key on the stream, and then you can play Amazon, Youtube, and Google Play content just fine.

    Otherwise it bitches that your Flash is "out of date", when what it really means is that it can't install the Flash Access component because the libraries and supporting components used in the installation success test aren't there.

    Most streaming applications won't support Linux because it doesn't require signed system components, and without that, the can't protect their content from piracy, commercial skipping, and so on when they stream to Linux systems; it's too easy to interpose libraries, system calls, and so on and take unencrypted digital content and rip it to some mp4 or other container file format.

    This is also why the components from Provo, Utak for abc.com, nbc.com, and cbs.com have never been ported to Linux, and probably never will be.