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Watch an Original NES Run Netflix

Posted by samzenpus on from the watch-and-play dept.

sarahnaomi writes with this story about a NES running Netflix. I don't know how you get Netflix to play on an original Nintendo, but it's been blowing my mind for the last 18 hours or so. Netflix posted the video with painfully little explanation. I have tried in many ways to get in touch with the Netflix developers who did what you see above, but no one is getting back to me, so here are some wild speculations."

80 comments

  1. Hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Why post silly bait and hoaxes on Slashdot? The only way this would be possible would be stripped guts and a NES case.

    We're not that stupid, but clearly the editors are.

    1. Re:Hoax by Dahamma · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes, it was more or less a hoax. It was just a hardcoded few pages of static data and a small chunk of one "video" embedded in the ROM.

    2. Re:Hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why post silly bait and hoaxes on Slashdot? The only way this would be possible would be stripped guts and a NES case.

      We're not that stupid, but clearly the editors are.

      You do not need to strip the NES. The NES uses carts which directly connect to the internal bus of the system. You can put whatever chips you want inside the cart to extend the functionality of the base system. It's actually far less impressive than it seems since they probably just stuck a wifi chipset into the cart with a SoC CPU that does the work and feeds the output to the NES video chipset.

      Or it could just be a canned smoke and mirrors demo, depends how lazy/incompetent they were.

    3. Re:Hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the wires from the display (which has next to no chance of having a connector the NES could actually plug in to) go straight to the right. The NES probably isnt even plugged in.

    4. Re:Hoax by prelelat · · Score: 1

      I would say it was more of a proof of concept. The developers go into detail on how they were going to get the pi to stream, convert and write new frames to the cart.
      https://news.ycombinator.com/i...

      It seems like it's quite possible with enough time you could do it, but why would you. They proved a concept and there's not much point in continuing really.
      https://news.ycombinator.com/i...

    5. Re:Hoax by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      All the wires from the display (which has next to no chance of having a connector the NES could actually plug in to) go straight to the right..

      You sure about that? A month ago I plugged in my old NES right into my home theater system. It was enough to verify that my old NES was truly dead, but I did get perfectly viewable video. If your HT system or monitor has a composite port (I've had Dell monitors that accepted composite signals, then the NES will work without any converters. Otherwise, you'd need a small composite -> VGA converter box.

      Yes, most people used the TV-style RF connection, but the North American NES also had two RCA-style ports on the side: one for composite video, the other for monaural audio. Super-new TVs won't have those exact ports, but a good-quality receiver (which they might have even had in the video, hidden under the table) will take a composite and RCA signal and upsample it for the outgoing HDMI.

    6. Re:Hoax by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Why would you need a proof of concept for something that is almost completely useless? It's not like they are going to now put the effort into making it a "real product". As far as "hacks" go, it's pretty hokey.

    7. Re:Hoax by prelelat · · Score: 1

      I agree it is useless, I wouldn't even say it's almost completely useless. I do see the appeal in doing it though, doing crazy hacks like that can be fun. So I would say it was for entertainment value. It is interesting to see that the Nintendo could handle any kind of video like that.

      But yes very useless.

  2. umm.... it is called homebrew by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its a homebrew cart with the video and images hardcoded into the chip. There is no networking being done with the video streaming. One of the videos even leaks that when the one developer says something to the effect of "In all its 2 bit glory, as that is all that would fit in 512k".

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    1. Re:umm.... it is called homebrew by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 4, Informative

      You win the internet today

      From on update to the linked story:
      "The original plan we had was to stick a Raspberry Pi in the cart to handle networking and video conversion," one of the devs wrote. "Due to time and resource constraints we ended up building a standalone rom."

      --
      Wherever You Go, There You Are
    2. Re: umm.... it is called homebrew by Lije+Baley · · Score: 1

      Network, pfft. It would be a legit Netflix offering if they could manage to stuff it in one of those floppy envelopes and mail it.

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      Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
    3. Re:umm.... it is called homebrew by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They should add a color touch screen to that cartridge. Maybe throw in some wifi & cellular radios, and a microphone and speakers so you can use it as a phone. It's amazing what you can do with those old NES machines.

    4. Re:umm.... it is called homebrew by Talderas · · Score: 1

      The more impressive part of the story could have been identified by just stripping "Netflix" from the headline.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
  3. FAKE by Anon-Admin · · Score: 1

    How the hell do you connect an "Unmodified" original NES to the network? They did not even have network capabilities.

    1. Re:FAKE by insanecarbonbasedlif · · Score: 1

      How the hell do you connect an "Unmodified" original NES to the network? They did not even have network capabilities.

      Don't know if they really did it or if it's rigged, but couldn't they put a wi-fi dongle in the cartridge?

      --
      Just because I doubt myself does not mean I find your position compelling.
    2. Re: FAKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither did Sega's Genesis, but Sega Channel was real. My uncle had it, and I played on it a lot.
      All the networking stuff (modem) was built into the cart.

    3. Re:FAKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, the system may me unmodified, but they could certainly have a system to send information to the card for the NES to stream.

    4. Re:FAKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they had network capabilities, but no one knew it because there were no widely-available networks back then. You never know unless you try.

    5. Re:FAKE by nomel · · Score: 1

      You can use the controller signals as a data connection on the super nintendo. I'm assuming you could do it on an NES also.

    6. Re: FAKE by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Then the cart is processing more data with an OS and TCP/IP stack than the NES can handle on its own would be my guess. The NES is just acting like a dumb terminal processing a real basic raster feed.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    7. Re:FAKE by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they could use a full computer, adapted to run off the cartridge's power, and have the network plug into that, and it just feeds the video through the cartridge to the screen. It'd be easier and cheaper to just plug the TV into the cartridge, but riles up more geeks to imply that the Nintendo is somehow "doing" something in this exercise.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    8. Re:FAKE by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

      use the Expansion Port

      http://enio.chykn.com/wiki/ind...

    9. Re:FAKE by faedle · · Score: 2

      Yes there were. People were using dial-up modems on the Atari 2600 (see: Gameline), the Commodore 64 (see: QuantumLink) and others. BBSes existed as far back as the late 1970's.

      The NES had no hardware for any kind of networking, dial-up modem or otherwise.

    10. Re:FAKE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the kind of person that browses Slashdot now.

      Why are you still on Slashdot, non-stupid people?

    11. Re:FAKE by Loconut1389 · · Score: 1

      You could in theory with a custom cart and reading a couple special memory addresses as serial data or something.

    12. Re:FAKE by Ichijo · · Score: 1

      It wouldn't be the first time they did something like that.

      --
      Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
    13. Re:FAKE by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      If I was going to attempt something like this, the "cartridge" would really be the IO pins from a microcontroller or Beagle Bone board. The board emulates a real cartridge. It takes source video and converts it to something displayable by the NES.

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    14. Re:FAKE by adolf · · Score: 3, Informative

      The NES had no hardware for any kind of networking, dial-up modem or otherwise.

      The NES has an expansion port on the bottom. It was never used for anything commercially, but was rumored to have been intended for a modem, and was apparently developed into an unreleased accessory to gamble at home with the Minnesota State Lottery.

      Video.

      --
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    15. Re:FAKE by khellendros1984 · · Score: 1

      NES and SNES systems used virtually the same method to communicate with their controllers (reset strobe signal, then bit-by-bit serial read of the button states). If I were building custom hardware to feed data into the system anyhow, I think that I'd implement it as a custom memory-mapper, where a write into a read-only address on the cartridge would fill the PPU's (Picture Processing Unit/GPU) memory space with the next frame of video, and the CPU's memory with the next chunk of digital audio (the NES was capable of 7-bit PCM audio samples, at up to 16KHz sample rate, although no games would actually spend that much memory on audio).

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    16. Re:FAKE by mysidia · · Score: 1

      WAIT.... it would be even cooler if they did that. You just turned the NES into a modular Blade Server chassis!

      Imagine if you could pull that off on one of the dual-cartridge systems.

    17. Re:FAKE by bn557 · · Score: 1

      I vaguely recall there being a midi adapter for that so you could do something with a Keyboard (musical type), but it's a really old memory, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

      --
      Humans are slow, innaccurate, and brilliant; computers are fast, acurrate, and dumb; together they are unbeatable
    18. Re: FAKE by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      Except no, they just put a fairly lame hardcoded demo in ROM. This is such a non story...

    19. Re: FAKE by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Yeah - have you seen Star Fox for the SNES? Same thing. Powerful DSP on the cart doing most of the heavy lifting. Still respected as an actual SNES game.

    20. Re:FAKE by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 2

      You don't.

      They made an NES program that had a Netflix-like interface, and a fuckton of, basically, static images that were flipbooked onto the screen, and stuck it onto a cartridge. It's like showing somebody a series of screenshots of a website, and claiming to be accessing the website. Or watching an animated GIF clip of a movie, and claiming to be 'streaming the movie.'

      That said, the NES did, in fact, have network capabilities. Nothing that was released outside of Japan, admittedly.

      --
      Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
    21. Re: FAKE by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      Yeah, too bad the FX Chip was expensive for what is did. I mean, by the time you could get something powerful enough to cram into a cart, such as Sega's 32x, the 16bit era was on the way out anyways.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    22. Re: FAKE by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I'd take expansion ROMS over buying a new console every few years any day. It's shameful how often consoles are pushed into obsolescence.

    23. Re: FAKE by DigiShaman · · Score: 1

      As far as computer hardware goes, consoles offers the best bang for the gaming buck. They're generational having a life of 6 years or more. PC gaming, while a superior platform IMHO, quickly becomes obsolete -per game-. Each edition of a top tier 3D game almost makes upgrading a video card a requirement; which can cost as much as a console alone. In some cases, an entire overhaul of the rig (CPU, MB, RAM, PSU...) may be required. Point is, all computing hardware advances at break-neck speeds. I'm rather surprised how well developers manage to wring out every last CPU/GPU cycle of a console towards the end of its life.

      Well, at least newer consoles allow for emulation; assuming you're willing to re-purchase the game at a fraction of the original cost.

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    24. Re: FAKE by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I'm talking about even on the Nintendo side, who only publishes one Mario game (of each type, potentially) per console. Not all games require the latest and greatest.

    25. Re: FAKE by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      I'm not so sure, there was a fair overlap between console generations, and console generations tend to last 5-7 years or more. That's a very long time to develop for any one platform. Expansion ROMs for the NES were expensive... they had to be, you were getting entirely new hardware, and they were game-specific. It's not like upgrading a computer's video card, where multiple programs can take advange of the new capabilities. If you bought five games with expansion ROMs that did the same thing, you'd be buying the same hardware five times. That's very wasteful compared to a new console, and it would pretty quickly negate the cost savings of not buying a new console. And I've yet to see the expansion ROM that could give an NES all the capabilities of an SNES, or an SNES the capabilities of a PSX. There's only so much you can do with a ROM before you're limited by system hardware anyway.

    26. Re: FAKE by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      I'm talking about even on the Nintendo side, who only publishes one Mario game (of each type, potentially) per console. Not all games require the latest and greatest.

      Most of those Mario games were created with the intention of selling new consoles and showing effects the previous console generation had no hope of doing, like Super Mario World's rotating sprites or Mario 64's 3D world.

    27. Re: FAKE by omnichad · · Score: 1

      This was more an annoyed jab at how Nintendo now drops old generations and only releases one Mario per platform (maybe one of each "type", but no guarantees). The NES was the only one to get 3 releases in the same series (technically only in Japan, since we got the rebranded Doki Doki Panic here for 2 instead).

      There hasn't been a good first-party Nintendo Wii title since the Wii U was announced. At least if you only want the classic games.

    28. Re:FAKE by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      The NES had no hardware for any kind of networking, dial-up modem or otherwise.

      Well, the NES had an expansion port that could have accommodated such. The Japanese Famicon did have modem support, but it was pretty primitive, and Nintendo of America dropped support for it after seeing the problems the Japanese console had getting this to work (same thing with the NES disk drive).

    29. Re: FAKE by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Super Mario World didn't have rotating sprites. That was Super Mario World 2 (which isn't a sequel so much as the start of a new game series). It required an extra ROM chip and it came out only a few months before the N64 was announced, so it was definitely not to sell a new console.

      There's nothing in New Super Mario Wii U that's so exciting that it truly requires new hardware over NSMB Wii. Most people who like the series don't need anything fancy but great level design.

      I realize it's all with the intention of new consoles. I only bought a Wii U because it was the only way to get new games - not because I needed something more capable. Well, ok - that and to get HDMI output, because that was a sore mistake especially in the latter refreshes of the Wii console. And I resent this money grab.

  4. Explained By Devs by Anguirel · · Score: 4, Informative

    As linked in an update to the article, the devs discuss it here.

    "The video frames were converted to tilesets and stored in the rom image. For playback, the memory mapper (MMC3) is used to swap between the frames without having to rely on too much CPU." They intended to attempt a Raspberry Pi trick, but ran out of time.

    --
    ~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
    QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
    1. Re:Explained By Devs by Myself · · Score: 1

      Been done on a PC/XT too: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/808...

    2. Re:Explained By Devs by Xyrus · · Score: 1

      I don't see what the "accomplishment" is. The video stream was decoded and tile mapped outside of the NES itself. All the NES is doing is reading the tilemaps and displaying them. You don't need to be a genius to figure out how to do that.

      In fact, they could increase the "quality" by taking advantage of the HBLANK interrupt (didn't seem like they were doing that in the video).

      Regardless, this isn't "streaming" video on a NES.

      --
      ~X~
    3. Re:Explained By Devs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the plan was to have a raspberry pi inside the cartridge which would stream the video, convert the frames into tiles, and expose the tiles through its GPIO ports, which would be mapped to part of the NES's address space through some clever wiring inside the cartridge.

      I would consider this plan legit. It's like those SNES cartridges, like Star Fox, that contained additional chips for doing 3D graphics processing, since it was beyond the system's capabilities.

  5. Um, get out more, seriously by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There have been so many demos on the Commodore 64 exploiting a new software video mode called NUFLI that basically tweaks the video chip on every video line with data from a big memory add-on.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    That NES stuff didn't even look good. It's easy to put 16G on an old computer and just stream a bunch of images to memory for the video chip to display.

    --
    Mostly random stuff.
  6. Meanwhile at Vice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Marvel at the glory of ROM hacking that has been done for decades.

    It was BLATANTLY a Netflix emulation stuffed in to a cart.
    You could even hear it in the way they talked about the selection of House of Cards.

  7. blow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Fake, they didn't even have to blow/spit in the cartridge to make it work.

  8. Game Boy video playback by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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  9. Sorry, Mario. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Princess is on another streaming service.

  10. Did everyone miss, or forget.. by ckatko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... the real 8088 Corruption demo? (8088 @ 4.77 Mhz, CGA text-mode Soundblaster)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    And the sequel, Domination (CGA in graphics mode):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    1. Re:Did everyone miss, or forget.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did miss those, and I'm impressed. I have fond memories of my old 8088. We never did have a hard drive or sound card for it, but we did splurge at get the 1200 baud modem, and later a 2400. The hardware is long gone, but I'm pretty sure I still have the old GW-BASIC manual around somewhere, the margins full of my notes. Somewhere along the lines I got my hands on a c compiler, and down the rabbit hole I went.

  11. Paging Jon Katz by hey! · · Score: 1

    Junis has something to upgrade to.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  12. Maybe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they should make their website and device UIs not suck before they spend time fucking around?

  13. It can't be done by Casandro · · Score: 1

    Any form of DRM on a simple system like the NES could be circumvented rather quickly. And since the primary purpose of Netflix is to promote DRM, they won't drop DRM from that.

    Without DRM it would obviously be rather simple, just add a network card and copy raw frames from it to the graphics chip. That's a no brainer.

    1. Re:It can't be done by Dahamma · · Score: 1

      And since the primary purpose of Netflix is to promote DRM, they won't drop DRM from that.

      I thought the original article was the dumbest thing I'd read on /. today until I read this post.

    2. Re:It can't be done by omnichad · · Score: 1

      The cartridge could have its own DRM chip. That's just easy.

      If you want to pirate your 256x240 2-bit video, go ahead. It won't have a very high fidelity. But it won't get you an HD feed, DRM-free.

    3. Re:It can't be done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The primary purpose of his post is to promote stupidity.

  14. Susan Phillips by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It will be very useful for me.
    http://www.instantvpn.eu/

  15. It's incredibly easy by DrXym · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just fake it. Start by lying you have an unmodified NES and go from there.

  16. Just what everybody needs by AntiSol · · Score: 1

    This has been making the rounds of all the tech sites in the last couple of days.

    And yet here I am unable to use netflix on my dual core 3ghz machine intel machine with 8gb RAM, being labelled "thief" because I choose not to settle for a substandard experience and because I'm not interested in re-downloading Alien every time I want to re-watch it, all because Netflix can't be bothered releasing a Linux client.

    It's nice to see they have their prorities straight.

    Before anybody suggests it: browsers are for viewing web pages, not playing videos.

    1. Re:Just what everybody needs by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Before anybody suggests it: browsers are for viewing web pages, not playing videos.

      There's no need for a Mac or Windows native client either. A desktop isn't really ideal for playing HD videos. Get a Roku. And when you're streaming, you download the show/movie every time you want to watch it anyway.

      But really, on a modern computer, running a second browser or second window just for video - especially hardware accelerated HTML5 video (which Netflix now supports) - is not a major issue. No need to install Silverlight or involve Wine. HTML and Javascript is not much worse than some other Linux UI frameworks for resources.

    2. Re:Just what everybody needs by AntiSol · · Score: 1

      A desktop isn't really ideal for playing HD videos.

      It's worked just fine for me for playing all kinds of videos, SD and HD, and music, in every format imaginable, for about 15 years now. I'd even call it "ideal" - I the same buttons on my remote mapped various functions on multiple applications via LIRC, so everything behaves consistently and works wonderfully. It looks really nice plugged into my projector and running at 1080p, and it sounds great running through my surround sound system. In fact it's better than any other experience I've ever had - you can't smoke in a cinema, and being able to skip the copyright warnings on DVDs is worth a lot - people marvel at this ability the first time they see it, and the lack of it chafes me hugely whenever I watch a movie at a friend's house. Hugs to the xine devs. It even still plays all my old VCDs (though these do look a bit blocky these days and have been mostly replaced by DVDs now).

      Get a Roku.

      So your advice is that I go out and spend money to buy new, additional, dedicated hardware to do something that I already have dedicated hardware for? Yet another device to sit next to a machine perfectly capable of doing the same job, taking up power and precious space on my desk? More cables to add to the cable soup behind my desk and more things to plug into the already-crowded input ports on my projector and hifi? I don't see any problem with that logic. I don't suppose that you happen to work for this Roku crowd?

      running a second browser or second window just for video - especially hardware accelerated HTML5 video (which Netflix now supports [webupd8.org]) - is not a major issue

      You mean apart from the lack of LIRC support, massive resource use, and pathetic framerate these "hardware accelerated" (yeah, right) solutions provide?

    3. Re:Just what everybody needs by omnichad · · Score: 1

      The Roku 3 only uses 1 watt on standby and maybe 2 watts playing HD video. It only requires one HDMI cable unless your wireless isn't up to the job. Mine's programmed into my universal remote. I do have a MythTV HTPC connected to my TV (no keyboard or mouse). Everything is LIRC on the same universal remote including starting/exiting emulators. All of my DVD and Blu-Ray movies are ripped menu-free to MKV and play from MythTV with AC3 through Lossless sound on my surround system. It's ideal in the sense that I don't need a keyboard or mouse except for maintenance. I just happen to really like the Roku and the UI. It's one of those few things where I really think a unitasking device is much more practical.

      Instead of complaining about support for Linux, I did something about it and gave myself the experience I wanted.

      I also have an older Roku at my desk and a second computer monitor. That way I have a whole dedicated screen for video while working on the PC. I don't typically watch anything I care about at my desk.

      You mean apart from the lack of LIRC support, massive resource use, and pathetic framerate these "hardware accelerated" (yeah, right) solutions provide?

      All basic LIRC support requires is keyboard shortucts. And if Netflix doesn't support any and your HTML5 browser doesn't have any built-in shortcuts, you could conceivably write a javascript bookmarklet that auto-loads with any Netflix page that would give you those controls (to interact with the video tag). If I really wanted computer-native Netflix, I might do that, but I don't.

      You must not be using HTML5 if you're not getting decent framerates or good, actual hardware decoding. You can have full hardware decode and rendering.

    4. Re:Just what everybody needs by jmac_the_man · · Score: 1

      here I am unable to use netflix on my dual core 3ghz machine intel machine with 8gb RAM, being labelled "thief" because I choose not to settle for a substandard experience and because I'm not interested in re-downloading Alien every time I want to re-watch it, all because Netflix can't be bothered releasing a Linux client...

      Before anybody suggests it: browsers are for viewing web pages, not playing videos.

      Huh? The reason you have to download the movie every time you want to watch it is because Netflix isn't a store, it's a rental service. They've always been very clear about this. Remember when they mailed DVDs? You were supposed to return those. This has nothing to do with the "lack of" a Linux native client. (HTML5 works fine on Linux, by the way. If you wanted to use Netflix rather than going to a store and buying DVDs, which is what you really want, you could do so on Linux.)

    5. Re:Just what everybody needs by AntiSol · · Score: 1

      It only requires one HDMI cable unless your wireless isn't up to the job

      Or you have a separate hifi system. But now I'm just arguing semantics for the sake of it. My point is that I'm not interested in spending money on redundant hardware.

      It's ideal in the sense that I don't need a keyboard or mouse except for maintenance.

      I don't need them either to just watch movies, play music, etc, but I like them (especially wireless ones) and use them often. This machine just happens to also double as a real computer - dev environment, web browser, all kinds of stuff. Coding from my couch is great. To each his own.

      It's one of those few things where I really think a unitasking device is much more practical

      It depends on what you want to use it for. I tend to actually multitask. The big screen helps with this, leave a documentary running in a window and look up a wikipedia article, pause deadwood and reply to a slashdot post because you've got nothing better to do. To me, unitasking environments invariably feel restrictive. But again, to each his own. ;)

      Instead of complaining about support for Linux, I did something about it and gave myself the experience I wanted.

      ...which reduces the demand for Linux support, making it even less likely than it is, doing everybody a disservice in the long run. And it's not like I don't have the experience I want already, I just can't buy that experience. Plus, complaining is fun! :P

      All basic LIRC support requires is keyboard shortucts. And if Netflix doesn't support any and your HTML5 browser doesn't have any built-in shortcuts, you could conceivably write a javascript bookmarklet that auto-loads with any Netflix page that would give you those controls (to interact with the video tag). If I really wanted computer-native Netflix, I might do that, but I don't.

      Fair point. If it actually worked well enough to be an acceptable movie watching experience, this is probably doable.

      You must not be using HTML5 if you're not getting decent framerates or good, actual hardware decoding. You can have full hardware decode and rendering.

      Yeah, I don't know what's going on other than neither chromium or firefox will play any video at a decent framerate. On a machine that will run things like Metro: Last Light just fine. I did try to look into it a while back when it was new, but gave up after several hours or google futility. IIRC It did seem to indicate that it was using html5 when I looked into it. It plays okay if I'm just watching youtube videos, maybe ~20fps, but it's noticeably glitchy compared to a proper video player / DVD and not suitable for home cinema.

    6. Re:Just what everybody needs by AntiSol · · Score: 1

      Fair enough, I did get my rants crossed there.

      So netflix doesn't offer any way to actually buy movies then? I guess that makes them entirely unsuitable for me.

      HTML5 works fine on Linux, by the way.

      As discussed above, no it doesn't.

      which is what you really want

      What I really want is to be able to buy a digital copy. Like going to a store and buying DVDs, but without the whole "getting up from the couch" part.

    7. Re:Just what everybody needs by omnichad · · Score: 1

      I don't know which graphics chip you're using, but the browser having hardware acceleration support isn't the end of the story. It depends on having access to something like vaapi or vdpau and not a terrible compositing engine (compiz/unity are terrible with vsynced video IME).

    8. Re:Just what everybody needs by AntiSol · · Score: 1

      It's a 1G GeForce 8800 GT. Getting old now but still very capable - as I said it runs things like Metro Last Light just fine, there aren't many games available for linux that it struggles with, borderlands is the only one I can think of of the top of my head where I've had to turn detail down. I'm using nvidia drivers. xine uses vdpau and runs brilliantly, so vdpau is available and works. And yeah, I know enough to stay well away from compiz, I'm using xfwm with compton for compositing.

      I did investigate at the time but didn't come up with anything. It was a while back now, not long after the "netflix html5 linux" articles appeared on the web. It might be worth another look now that things have had some time to mature.

    9. Re:Just what everybody needs by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Ah - your GPU supports an older VDPAU. It has H.264 acceleration but not full support for VC-1. Netflix uses VC-1 on the browser. It only has partial support for MPEG-2, so xine playing DVD may rely on the CPU a lot but that's not a CPU-intensive codec these days.

      It's simply not part of your hardware. You wouldn't even need anything high end to do it. Just more recent (most 2009 or later).

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

    10. Re:Just what everybody needs by AntiSol · · Score: 1

      Aha, helpful!

      To be clear, though, I'm not just talking about xine playing DVDs, I've never had any problem playing anything with xine. But then most HD stuff tends to be h264. I might have to go find something encoded with VC-1 and try to play it in xine, see if it handles it.

      Thanks muchly for the info, it's nice to just be told the answer every once in a while!

    11. Re:Just what everybody needs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Very capable? How is something that is the bare minimum needed to run the game (Last Light) very capable? Not to mention it's what 10 generations back? Upgrade every once in a while before you start complaining that your dated hardware doesn't work perfectly with everything you'd like. sheesh....

    12. Re:Just what everybody needs by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Remember when they mailed DVDs? You were supposed to return those.

      Remember? They still do that. I'd say that's the useful Netflix service. Thanks to studio shenanigans, their online streaming is often not very useful.

  17. Solving the Junis mystery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, it took decades, but finally we are one step closer to knowing how Junis was able to watch Baywatch reruns on his old Commodore-64.