Netflix Is The Latest To Talk The HTML5 Talk | Hacker News Reader

Netflix Is The Latest To Talk The HTML5 Talk

techcrunch.com

24 pointsgspyrou10 comments

>It’s interesting that Cockcroft never actually mentions the video capabilities of HTML5, instead he talks about the "advanced user interface features." Still, I think we all know what he means.

He means that he wants to jazz up his sites. The studios won't give them any content for DRM-free HTML5 video.

Adrian Cockcroft updated his blog post, which inspired this TechCrunch article, and clarified that he was not in fact referring to HTML5 video, as the TechCrunch article (currently) states.

"MG Siegler at TechCrunch decided that I was talking about streaming video and Silverlight, which I wasn't. I was thinking of HTML5 features that let us build very cool user interfaces with drag-and-drop, canvas transforms etc. for the web site, and for embedded TV devices specifically."

http://perfcap.blogspot.com/2010/05/netflix-in-cloud-and-htm...

This will be an interesting one to watch. I have a hard time believing that any of the movie studios would be willing to let Netflix stream their content DRM free and at the moment HTML5 video doesn't support DRM...

That was my first thought as well. They never even said anything about video - the article acts like its obvious they mean video, but it really doesn't sound like it. If they're hiring devopers with HTML5 interface experience, that's probably what they mean. I can't see hiring new devs just to use the video tag, at least from what I've seen.

Of course I'd love to be wrong on this, and will probably sign up for Netflix if I am.

That would be great... an HTML5 RIA with Flash embedded for video.

Let me play the devil's advocate here: what's wrong with true opt-in DRM, particularly for streaming? Most users think of video on a streaming site as being controlled by that site. If they want their own copy (and they're not trying to cop the stream) they go to a different kind of site or are clicking the download link if there's one. From the standpoint of user expectations, it's a completely different situation from downloading MP3 files to your hard drive.

In this case, DRM is completely consensual.

And no one is complaining. Trun was pointing out that it is unlikely that Netflix is going to switch to HTML5 video at the moment because there is no DRM available for it. The content providers won't go for it, the customers won't care.

It isn't so much the DRM as their choice of a DRM solution that only runs on Windows and Mac desktop systems. (Strictly speaking WinMo 7 as well.)

There's no reason to lock out my Droid like that, or my Linux desktop for that matter.

Feels to me like there may be a big announcement tomorrow about a Google TV with an embedded html5 browser...

There may or may not be announcements (cough http://jobs.netflix.com/DetailFlix.asp?jobid=flix3803) but note that Adrian is one of the more senior cloud architecture guys at netflix - he's not a streaming guy.

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