[mythtv-users] netflix + myth 0.23

[Brian Wood]

On Thursday 08 April 2010 09:07:24 am Raymond Wagner wrote:
> On 4/8/2010 09:44, Brian Wood wrote:
> > On the plus side, the success of the dedicated hardware units (like the
> > Roku player) should prove to the program suppliers that Linux can
> > "protect" their content as well as any other OS, and that Linux is not
> > just a pirate tool.
> 
> No.  Linux systems cannot 'protect' content.  It is impossible, due to
> being 'open source'.  All someone has to do is recompile the source
> without the bits that prevent end user access to the content.  Even if
> one used binaries with the crypto keys built, preventing a simple
> recompile, the source is available to make it easy to find the keys.
> Even if one used a closed source application, there is no protected
> video output, so one could just capture the output to the X server, and
> have the uncompressed video.  It just won't work.
> 
> The reason that little embedded systems can get by is because they often
> do all decoding and playback in a custom hardware chain.  The Linux OS
> exists for bootloading and menu display.  The video and OS never touch.


All true, but my point is that the content is as "safe" on something like the 
Roku box as it is anywhere else. Using a proprietary hardware chip for 
decoding is probably safer than any sort of Windows code.

Anything that presents Linux as something other than "the enemy" to the MPAA 
types is a good thing IMHO.

We will almost certainly never see Myth support for Netflix, but the benefits of 
Open Source far outweigh the drawbacks.

I can watch Netflix on my PS3, but I'm not going to install the latest 
"upgrade", since I run linux on it. I know the latest update prevents 
installing Linux, I'm not sure what it would do to an existing install, though 
it seems to be bricking standard units without Linux installed anyway.