[conspire] (forw) Re: Arnold -> Rick

Rick Moen rick at linuxmafia.com
Mon Dec 21 14:57:04 PST 2009


----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----

Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:56:00 -0800
From: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
To: sait8so <sait8so at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Arnold -> Rick
Organization: Dis-

Quoting sait8so (sait8so at yahoo.com):

> Thanks for your thoughts! I think I'll need to hone my search skills
> before asking the next time.

Although many Linux people are glad to give help when time permits,
you will find that it's _greatly_ preferred that you ask your questions
in one of the Linux community's public forums, so that others can
benefit from the questions and the answers (including people later
finding the discussion by Web-searching).  You'll find that Linux
activists are far more generous of their time and trouble when you don't
try to get private free-of-charge consulting from them.  Also, by asking
in public, you are much more likely to get a useful answer, because more
than just one person will see your problem.  

CABAL and SVLUG both run good public discussion mailing lists.  I've
been forwarding this discussion to CABAL's, to benefit the public in a
way that the private discussion does not.

http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire
http://lists.svlug.org/lists/listinfo/svlug

> Question 1: Would a quad-core have the power to do it?
> 
> You're right about it 'complicating pretty much any software
> situation.' In my default Lenny full-screen playback is great. In
> WinXP, running natively on its own partition, full-screen playback is
> great. In VBox (yes, Virtualbox is what I meant), it isn't as good. 

This is not surprising, really, given the heavy work required for 
hardware emulation to support the virtual machine.

> Question 2: If I can watch a Silverlight video from Linux, why am I blocked from watching a Silverlight video on Netflix? What am I missing?
> 
> Again, you're right; its the 'DRM handcuffs.' I disabled the DRM
> plugin which default installs with Silverlight. No problem logging
> into Netflix. However, when I clicked to play a movie, Netflix
> auto-loaded another DRM plugin before the movie started. I read posts
> of others trying Internet Explorer in Wine, the User Agent Switcher
> you mentioned and a few other inventive hacks but none of 'em worked.  

This appears to be Microsoft Corp's "PlayReady DRM" shipped with the 
Silverlight software.  Checking around, I see that they deliberately
restrict which OSes the DRM OKs operation on.  For example, OS X 
operation is OK'ed by the DRM software only on Intel-based Macs running
Silverlight 2.0.  I.e., even PowerPC Mac OS X users running Silverlight
1.0 are shut out.

Microsoft's been sucking up to Our Masters in Hollywood, and pushing the
ability of PlayReady DRM to control customers, for some time.  See, e.g.:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/apr08/04-14SilverlightContentPR.mspx
http://www.betanews.com/article/First-look-at-DRM-for-Silverlight/1208194304
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/ages9/hands_on_moonlight_2_brings_silverlight_2_bits_of/

Note:  

   Microsoft licenses PlayReady today for certain use cases, but they do
   not have a port for Linux which prevents Moonlight from using it. It is
   very unlikely that we will get PlayReady DRM on Linux.
                                             -- Miguel de Icaza

Our Masters in Hollywood don't mind providing PlayReady DRM on a
Linux-based embedded device that's sufficiently well handcuffed,
however, such as the Roku Netfix Player:

http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/142729

Note comment:

   Actually, I doubt the claim that Netflix chose Windows Media DRM
   because they bought a system from Microsoft; my guess is they chose it
   because it's the only system the content owners allow them to use. I
   work for a company that runs on-demand movie services.  Everybody I've
   met on the retail side of this industry hates DRM and I'm sure Netflix
   doesn't like inflicting it on their customers.  However, thus far,
   content owners, particularly larger ones, have been entirely unwilling
   to license their content to on-demand services that don't use DRM, and
   Windows Media is the only DRM implementation that is even slightly
   viable (yeah, it's broken, harmful technology.  You don't have to
   convince me.)


----- End forwarded message -----




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