Re: Netflix HTML5 player in IE 11 on Windows 8.1

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 27, 2013, at 3:46 AM, Alastair Campbell <alastc@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mark Watson wrote:
>> Microsoft ship PlayReady as part of
>> Windows Media Foundation. In principle, any browser running on Windows can
>> make use of the same APIs that Internet Explorer uses to play back
>> protected content. The DRM is contained in the Operating System, not
>> shipped with the browser.
>
> So basically anyone that can currently view encrypted video (via
> flash/sliverlight) will continue to be able to do so when their
> operating system creates a CDM, and anyone on a FOSS OS is out of luck
> (still).
>
> I asked previously whether Mozilla would be able to implement EME and
> didn't really understand the answer. From recent discussion it seems
> that they could on Windows/OSX, but probably not Linux (unless someone
> like Ubuntu implemented a compatible CDM).
>
> Can anyone from MS confirm that Firefox/Chrome/Opera would be able to
> use the same "Microsoft PlayReady DRM" CDM as IE?
>
> Overall it seems like a case of SSDD, the people who can't access
> premium/encrypted/DRMed content now still won't be able to, and that
> type of content will still be a black-box for the browsers (limiting
> the use of CSS/JS to manipulate the video).
>
> Given that several major players are marching ahead anyway, the only
> relevant discussion is whether the W3C is an appropriate place to
> standardise those features.
>
> I was on the fence about this issue (i.e. believing that DRM is a
> flawed concept, but there should be a way to charge for content), but
> things are moving along anyway so it seems silly to moan from the
> sidelines. This set of features would be better if standardised, and
> since they will exist anyway let's make them as good as they can be.

This is exactly the point I have been making all along.

I've consistently claimed that EME will be an improvement and never
claimed that it is a panacea.

Microsoft is unlikely to port Silverlight to Ubuntu and no one else
can (with the security guarantees we would need to use it). But
licensing and porting a CDM is a different proposition altogether.
This may not happen, in which case those users are no better or worse
off than they are today, but it is a possibility enabled by EME
standardization.

...Mark
>
> -Alastair
>

Received on Thursday, 27 June 2013 14:15:17 UTC