HBO Max cranks up the Widevine DRM, leaves Linux users in the cold | Hacker News Reader

HBO Max cranks up the Widevine DRM, leaves Linux users in the cold

arstechnica.com

54 pointsCantbekhan19 comments

> Widevine is a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology provider used by Google Chrome and Firefox web browsers (and some of its derivates), Android MediaDRM, Android TV, and other consumer electronics devices. Widevine Technologies was purchased by Google in 2010

Yet again, Google as the root issue:

from https://www.widevine.com/news (April 01 '20)

> All Widevine browser-based integrations (platforms and applications) must support VMP. VMP support is NOT available for Linux platforms.

Previously did some work with DRM streaming video hitting (MS) Playready, (Google) Widevine, (Apple) Fairplay. Google's Widevine was the out standing issue for server side ARM support. Google's products are the software equivalent of throwing half a bucket of paint at a large wall, not fully covering it, then saying the wall is painted; followed by ignoring any issues.

Huh? The vast, vast majority of Widevine streaming is done to ARM devices - Qualcomm and Exynos chips for Android, which have a verified media path in hardware.

Is "verified" code for user hostile?

(I would say owner, but clearly purchasing a phone does not grant full ownership.)

Yes

Ars is a few weeks late to the game here. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24094386

I don't really get the melodrama of most of the top comments in that the old thread nor the current headline. Everyone is bemoaning how this is what drives people to piracy... but does Chrome not work anymore? Is the bar for resorting to piracy that low? It's hard to feel sympathetic when the starting position is presented as "It's broken, we've been forsaken!" but then on inspection it turns out to really be a case of "It doesn't work in a way that fits our politics, we've been forsaken!" I get that there's a lot of idealism in play but the histrionics just make the author and the community look dishonest.

Desktop Linux and the anti-DRM movement have always been that way and the intersection of both is even worse.

Piracy to the rescue I guess?

I haven't kept up with the scene but as long as set top boxes & sticks exist, can't you just buy a $10 HDCP decoder on eBay and re-compress with minimal loss?

I guess the Hollywood-industrial complex has to pretend that doesn't exist because it would mean the emperor has had no clothes for decades.

HDCP gets patched with time as well you know. How aggressively to require 'patched' versions is up to the content itself, if I recall correctly.

Linux desktop*. We often don't think of them as linux, but Apple tvOS is BSD and virtually every other TV and smart box is Android (linux).

BSD is unrelated to Linux.

BSD is a unix-like operating system the same as Linux. They're unrelated in the same way two brands of skateboards are unrelated.

Apple TV is based on Darwin, which isn’t a BSD, it’s a certified UNIX. (Or at least it once was)

Usually the solution is to use Windows, Mac or one of their supported devices[1]. I doubt Linux was ever on their radar.

For most people this is a non-issue and can be easily solved.

[1] https://help.hbomax.com/Answer/Detail/20

Linux is explicitly on their radar. What do you think Android or Chromebooks are?

A more bigger reason that this is a big non-issue then, just use an Android or Chromebook for your Widevine enabled content on 'Linux'.

Problem solved for the Linux crowd.

> Linux is explicitly on their radar. What do you think Android or Chromebooks are?

Android and Chromebooks don't intrinsically get you the content either. They just tend to run on hardware that's supported or include closed source components for big chunks of their graphics systems and management engines including chains of trust that are signed as being the code the other sections expect.

The average desktop Linux system has no interest in that, so it doesn't happen.

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