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Netflix Axes Apple AirPlay Support (cnet.com)
If you stream Netflix on your iPhone or iPad, the app will no longer support Apple AirPlay. A report adds: This means that you won't be able to cast shows on Netflix from your iOS device to your Apple TV. Netflix's note says AirPlay is "no longer supported" due to "technical limitations." "With AirPlay support rolling out to third-party devices, there isn't a way for us to distinguish between devices (what is an Apple TV vs. what isn't) or certify these experiences. Therefore, we have decided to discontinue Netflix AirPlay support to ensure our standard of quality for viewing is being met," a Netflix spokesperson said in an email.
Nothing to do with us.
Presumably it has much more to do with being able to Airplay a perfectly viable compressed bitstream to an uncontrolled device that could be recording it or doing anything else with it (whereas Apple tended to respect the DRM etc.).
Airplay->MP4 anyone? I'm sure it's possible.
Netflix is glad to support airplay as long as they know their DRM/licenses will be properly enforced. They donâ(TM)t care about third parties so much as they canâ(TM)t guarantee that third parties will prevent piracy the way they want it done. Thatâ(TM)s a part of what this pissing match is about. That, and money of course.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
In my opinion they're simply saying that users would use 3rd party devices to rip their content and they have no other way of stopping it. They're not wrong.
The "technical limitation" is that they don't want to send video to a device that can decrypt and archive it.
That's some elite level corporate doublespeak. I wonder what would happen if a big company stopped shamelessly lying and just told the truth?
Credentials sharing. I'm wiling to send a video stream from my device to the Hotel TV (though, given the sophistication of malware these days, any interaction might be unsafe). But there's no way in hell I want to put my Netflix credentials into some random hotel device.
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This is a Hollywood requirement, not a Netflix requirement. Netflix (and Hulu, and Amazon Video, etc) would love nothing more than to let you stream anything to anywhere. It would be a lot simpler for them.
The Hollywood movie studios are the ones requiring the streamed movie be locked down . Hollywood's fear is that if an unencrypted video stream is ever exposed, that you'll just capture the stream to make a copy of the movie. So they require the stream to remain encrypted all the way from Netflix's servers to the final display device.
If it's a dedicated video playback device, then the device (and playback software like the Netflix app) has to be submitted to Hollywood for approval. That's why the Netflix app showed up on iPhones first, then on the different Android handsets one at a time. Netflix had to submit their app on every single hardware device to Hollywood for their approval. The iPhones were first because approving them meant the most people could get Netflix for the fewest models needing approval. Then the more popular Android handsets, followed by the lesser-known Android handsets. Every streaming device has to go through the same approval process - smart TVs, Blu-ray players with streaming capability, PS4, Xbox, etc.
For general purpose computing devices (i.e. PCs), Hollywood requires the video stream be decoded inside an encrypted virtual machine, which then sends the decoded video directly to the GPU for display. This is why you needed Flash or Silverlight installed on your browser in the pre-HTML 5 days. Those were the only technologies allowing the construction of a virtual machine. And decoding the video in a virtual machine precludes using the hardware decoder in the GPU, which is why you used to need at least an i3 to decode streamed 1080p video, while the puny little SoC on your phone could also stream it (the phone wasn't considered a general purpose computing device, so it could get Hollywood's approval for the entirety of the phone hardware, allowing it to use the GPU to decode the stream).
This is why the Netflix app won't run if your phone is rooted. Hollywood considers that to be converting your phone from a dedicated hardware device to a general purpose computing device. So if the Netflix app detects your phone is rooted, it invalidates itself and won't play. (You can get around it by hiding root from the Netflix app.)
Since Hollywood's approval was only for Airplay to certain Apple devices, opening up AirPlay violates Hollywood's terms of approval. So Netflix is forced to discontinue support for AirPlay, unless they want to go through the trouble of submitting every possible display device you can connect to using AirPlay.
You have to realize that Netflix still has to make deals to get any content they don't produce themselves, and that means getting the other side to agree to those deals. It may very well be that language prohibiting these types of things is written into those agreements.
As far as using a phone or camera to take a shot of something you're watching on a tablet, the good old "analog loophole" will always be there, since it's pretty close to impossible, if not actually impossible, to close that loophole. At least not without getting the buy-in of every single camera and phone manufacturer.
The in-room TV did have direct support for a few streaming services (including Netflix), but I'm a bit hesitant to be entering my Netflix password on an untrusted public device.
Netflix still supports Chromecast, what part of your setup did they stop supporting?
But it's the same as my bank account password!
I’ve pirated content from Netflix on a few occasions. Why? Because I pay my sub same as everyone else, but the selection they offer here is rather limited compared to that in the US. And the content I was after was not available here through other channels either. No bad feelings about that: either take my money or shut up about “piracy”.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You know, whenever I see ridiculous DRM squabbles like this, my immediate reaction is to want to crack it, just cause.
There have been a few times that I've bought material (usually from smaller artists) where their entire DRM scheme was a sentence that said, "We would greatly appreciate it if you don't share our stuff." And I haven't.
These same artists also tend to get far more repeat business from me too, including one where I bought their entire discography without even listening to the songs first.
It's funny/sad how not being jerked around has become a genuine feature I look for (and will pay a premium for) in my purchases now.
So is MP4->GIF, unfortunately.