Netflix on Ubuntu?

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Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#142439 13-Mar-2014 10:09

I signed up for the free trial of Netflix and Getflix DNS and successfully tested them both on my Windows 7 laptop with no issues so the next step was to move to getting this running on Ubuntu.

I have a media player, an Nvidia ION Atom box running XBMCBuntu based on 12.10 Ubuntu with 12.3 XBMC.

I installed Chrome and Wine and Pipelight and booted to a desktop so I could test this out. Using the useragent to set my browser type to Firefox I can login to Netflix.com and browse the media no problems at all.

When I go to play though I just get a black screen with no audio or video.

Everything is updated to the latest levels, I have tried Chromium as well and get the same issue. I have tried different user agent settings as well but no luck.

Anyone got this going?

Cheers
Matt.

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6020 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1004725 13-Mar-2014 10:22

I didn't think it worked on any linux devices because of the lack of silverlight.

Edit: Oh I assume pipelight is an aftermarket implemenation of silverlight. I doubt it would have all the security keys required by netflix.

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Klipspringer

2385 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1004727 13-Mar-2014 10:25

Doubt it will work from any browser directly on Ubuntu.

You could however try running an android emulator in virtualbox, download the android Netflix app and see if that works.

I played around with an Android emulator last year on ubuntu. But never tried running the netflix app.

Another option is to install wine, and then install windows firefox and Silverlight.

Im keen though to hear if you have success....

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1004729 13-Mar-2014 10:34

From what I have read people have it working but finding step by step confirmed instructions is hard.

I got silver light plugin prompts which I had to accept and the fact I can browse the media library is so promising....

sidefx

3706 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#1004731 13-Mar-2014 10:35

Certainly looks very interesting! Will have to try this sometime:

http://www.webupd8.org/2013/08/pipelight-use-silverlight-in-your-linux.html

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killerkiwinz

40 posts

Geek

#1004736 13-Mar-2014 10:42

I can confirm it works I have it working on my mythbuntu 12.04 install

Pipelight tries to do gpu accleration by default and netflix encryption fails with that enabled (stupid silverlight)

close chrome and then try

export PIPELIGHT_GPUACCELERATION=0 && google-chrome

If that works there is a settings file to disable it

pipilight can also run the windows flash player which comes in handy sometimes

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1004742 13-Mar-2014 10:47

Great! Might have to zip home at lunchtime....

killerkiwinz

40 posts

Geek

#1004747 13-Mar-2014 10:53

proof is in the screen shot

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Coil

6614 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1004750 13-Mar-2014 10:56

Netflix runs HTML5 as well..
Try that.

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1004751 13-Mar-2014 10:57

Nice!

killerkiwinz

40 posts

Geek

#1004752 13-Mar-2014 10:59

TimA: Netflix runs HTML5 as well..
Try that.

That only works in win8 with ie11 no other browser or os is supported (currently)

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1004755 13-Mar-2014 11:02

Don't recall seeing that option on my settings page.....

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1004756 13-Mar-2014 11:03

Too quick.. Cheers guys.

Mattmannz

471 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1004841 13-Mar-2014 12:40

killerkiwinz: I can confirm it works I have it working on my mythbuntu 12.04 install

Pipelight tries to do gpu accleration by default and netflix encryption fails with that enabled (stupid silverlight)

close chrome and then try

export PIPELIGHT_GPUACCELERATION=0 && google-chrome

If that works there is a settings file to disable it

pipilight can also run the windows flash player which comes in handy sometimes

Thanks very much for this, worked straight away. Any idea where the settings file is that I need to alter?

Also I have no audio.....

Thanks for the help guys.

Cheers
Matt

killerkiwinz

40 posts

Geek

#1004964 13-Mar-2014 14:10

/usr/share/pipelight/configs/pipelight-silverlight5.1 (each plugin has its own config)
uncomment
enableGPUAcceleration=false

its documented quite well

as for sound that will be a wine issue maybe you are on a 64bit system?
I you are i think you need to install the 'ia32-libs' package (I think...) to get the alsa sound driver for wine (which is 32bit)

Coil

6614 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1004998 13-Mar-2014 15:05

killerkiwinz:
TimA: Netflix runs HTML5 as well..
Try that.

That only works in win8 with ie11 no other browser or os is supported (currently)

In other words they have the bragging rights of HTML5 but not a single person on this planet uses it. Very strange why they would use a MS product with HTML 5 and not MS's own product Silverlight..

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