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sek929 · Jun 4, 2008, 12:26 PM

I'll skip the rant about Netflix not having 'Watch Now' for Mac because it's already been discussed in here. My problem lies in tricking it to allow me to watch online videos. The plan I am paying for includes this inability to watch said videos, so yeah, I'm a little annoyed.

After much research throughout the day yesterday I started down a path of utter frustration.

First off I discovered a nifty plug-in for Firefox called User Agent Switcher, which I'm sure many of the webmasters here already have. Nevertheless I set my identity to Internet Explorer 7 and Vista. Instead of the watch now page outright telling me my computer was not supported now it was trying to determine my connection speed, success! Or was it? Nope. It sat there 'determining connection speed' for as long as I could stand. This was obviously not working.

Secondly I decided to download Firefox 3 Beta, ported my precious plug-in over and set off to conquer Netflix. After a few seconds it determined my speed (best) and I was basking in the glow of victory as I chose a film to watch. Much to my chagrin, upon choosing a movie I was greeted with an error message letting me know 'Active X' was not installed on my machine, bummer.

Thirdly, after much searching, I come upon a nifty website where a very helpful man has made Active X plug-ins for Firefox...god I love the internet. The problems are that each plug-in is VERY version-specific and the highest version supported was Firefox 1.5.....ugh.

Fourthly (that's a word?) I find Firefox version 1.5.0.7 on rapidshare.....not exactly the version that was called for (1.5) but I figured it would do the trick. I go back to my helpful website and install the plug-in. No hiccups, confirms compatibility and informs me to restart Firefox for the changes to take effect.....done. The same problem I had with my original attempt (Firefox 2.0) rears it's head yet again. 'Determining Video Quality' in an endless loop no matter how long I wait.

Fifthly, I find information about people using a plug-in called 'IE Tab' for Firefox with total success on Netflix. To bad it's supposed to be PC-only. With User Agent Switcher I am able to install the plug-in but at the end of the process it informs me my version of Firefox is not supported.....when the site clearly states 3.0 Beta as being supported.

So my query to you, oh faithful NN elite, is if any of you have personally done any workaround and are able to view Neflix watch now on a Mac, or know of certain pertinent websites that could help me? There is a way to actually install IE on a Mac using Darwine but it's for <dun-DUUUN!> Intel Macs only....and if I had one of those then Parallels would solve this problem in a jiffy.

I'm in a bind here, and frustrated to the point of proving to myself it's possible or dying in the process.

Dakar the Fourth · Jun 4, 2008, 12:34 PM

Ah, the pleasure and the pain of internet services, Macs, and industrious resourcefulness.

davidbk1 · Jun 4, 2008, 12:43 PM

The problem is that these streaming videos are DRM encrypted and Apple wont license FairPlay. Netflix isn't just saying "No, we don't like you. Come back with a different browser ID" It just wont work. You can keep tricking the user friendly checks, but they aren't the problem. They're there to tell you about the problem. I don't know what DRM they are using, but I doubt it's available on OS X. Without it, you are SOL, sorry.

osiris · Jun 4, 2008, 12:45 PM

I think iCab has a browser identity switcher built-in, or at least it did. It may be worth looking into.

phantomdragonz · Jun 4, 2008, 12:46 PM

Emphasis added by me...

"Watching instantly on your computer

Our apologies — instant watching is currently not supported for Macintosh.

Our goal is for Netflix members to enjoy movies and TV shows on whatever screen they want. We're required to use Digital Rights Management to protect movies watched instantly online, and right now we only have approval for this protection on Windows Operating systems, not the Mac.

Apple does not license their DRM solution to third parties, which has made this more difficult, but we are working with the studios and content owners to gain approval for other solutions. As soon as a studio-approved DRM for the Mac is available to us, whether from Apple or another source, we will move quickly to provide a movie viewer that enables you to watch movies from Netflix instantly on your Mac.

In the meantime, you can use your account to watch instantly on any compatible PC, and Intel-based Macintosh computers can watch movies instantly using Boot Camp, Parallels, or Fusion to run Windows. Also, your Macintosh is fully compatible with adding titles to the Instant Queue for later watching on compatible devices, as well as to have a playlist ready to go when we do enable Macintosh watching.

Complete System Requirements

To watch instantly on your computer, you'll need a PC meeting the following minimum requirements:

Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, or Windows Vista
Internet Explorer version 6 or higher
Windows Media Player version 11 (DRM version 5145) or later
An active broadband connection to the Internet
1.0 GHz processor
512 MB RAM
3 GB free hard disk drive space
For the best experience, we recommend:

An active broadband Internet connection of at least 1.5 Mbps
1.5 GHz processor
1 GB RAM"

taken from here"http://www.netflix.com/WatchNowMessage?msg=51"

-Zach

sek929 · Jun 4, 2008, 12:47 PM

Microsoft's DRM does not support Firefox either, but plenty of people have had success that way on a PC, and from what I've heard several people using the Active X plug-in as stated above on Macs.

I figure I've already fooled the DRM, otherwise why wouldn't it continue to say that my machine is not supported? Active X is merely a framework for dealing with WMP files online. Perhaps that is where the DRM resides but even then there are already plug-ins available that are supposed to install working Active X frameworks in a program that' not supported.

I refuse to give up. Supposedly 'Silverlight' will take care of thise problem and will be cross-platform. But if other Mac services are any indication of how long I'll wait then I'm not going to hold my breath.

sek929 · Jun 4, 2008, 12:55 PM

Phantomz, thanks for your reply but trust me that I've read all that malarky before even starting this adventure. Maybe I'm fooling myself but I've gotten so damn close to playing the vids I can't let go just yet.

Chuckit · Jun 4, 2008, 12:59 PM

So what if Apple won't license FairPlay? That's nothing but a lame excuse. I wish it were that easy to make DRM impossble. "Well, we'd like to have DRM on our new media format, but darn it, Apple just won't license FairPlay to us. Guess it'll have to be free!"

Art Vandelay · Jun 4, 2008, 01:00 PM

Unless you can figure out how to get WMP 11 with its DRM system working on the Mac, it will never work.

Having said that, Mac support is coming. They will either be using Silverlight or Adobe Media Player, both of which support DRM and are Mac-compatible. They demoed Watch Now running on a Mac with Silverlight last year.

sek929 · Jun 4, 2008, 01:11 PM

My kingdom for an Intel Mac!

iCab got as far as Firefox 3 did. Active X is the key, and although it installed in Firefox 1.5 fine I am still up sh!t creek with no paddle.

I figure I'll just call and complain that I should receive some kind of discount since I am paying for a service I cannot use.....we'll see how far that goes.

sek929 · Jun 4, 2008, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

Mac support is coming.

...and will be released along with Duke Nukem Forever

jokell82 · Jun 4, 2008, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay

Unless you can figure out how to get WMP 11 with its DRM system working on the Mac, it will never work.

Having said that, Mac support is coming. They will either be using Silverlight or Adobe Media Player, both of which support DRM and are Mac-compatible. They demoed Watch Now running on a Mac with Silverlight last year.

Bingo. The people who have said they got it working on a Mac were either running Parallels/Fusion or were just bullshitting. Wait for the Mac support or use Windows. Sucks, but that's how it is.

mduell · Jun 4, 2008, 07:07 PM

It's not an issue of user agents... the software they use only works in IE on Windows.

Mallrat · Jun 8, 2008, 03:57 AM

I have a PC laptop and use it to watch movies on Netflix... it sucks... half the time it doesn't work that well... it's just not there.

Not to mention they have like 1% of titles that you can watch. It's painful.

So don't feel bad.

k squared · Jun 8, 2008, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Mallrat

I have a PC laptop and use it to watch movies on Netflix... it sucks... half the time it doesn't work that well... it's just not there.

Not to mention they have like 1% of titles that you can watch. It's painful.

So don't feel bad.

I would have to agree. I used to watch via Parallels or Boot Camp, and the amount of fan noise produced made it unattractive -- It's my hope that developers focus on refining streaming so it's much less processor intensive.

Art Vandelay · Jun 8, 2008, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Mallrat

I have a PC laptop and use it to watch movies on Netflix... it sucks... half the time it doesn't work that well... it's just not there.

Not to mention they have like 1% of titles that you can watch. It's painful.

So don't feel bad.

It works very well on my mini in Boot Camp. The quality is pretty good considering it's streaming. However, I do agree that content is lacking.

Art Vandelay · Jun 8, 2008, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by k squared

I would have to agree. I used to watch via Parallels or Boot Camp, and the amount of fan noise produced made it unattractive -- It's my hope that developers focus on refining streaming so it's much less processor intensive.

Virtualization isn't adequate for it. You need real video hardware support for it to perform well. Under virtualization, you're fed a lower quality stream due to the reduced video performance available. With my mini in Boot Camp, I can barely hear the fan running.

Mallrat · Jun 8, 2008, 01:26 PM

Well sometimes for reasons I can't figure out it says I have a slow internet connection and a red bar of death says it's going to make adjustments because of it and I've seen it say estimated time to finish like 7 hours.

Then other times it works well and i can watch whole seasons of TV shows...

It's just fickle and I hate that I can't use my Mac to watch.

I still prefer my DVD so I can watch on the big screen and get features like subtitles, special features.

I'm hoping Apple steps up and combines with NetFlix... takes it out completely. I know we can rent now, but NetFlix is still cheaper because you get get 7 or 8 movies in a month if you watch 2 a week for 15 bucks a month... that would be twice as much via Apple.

How great would it be if you could pay Apple the same 15 to 20 bucks a month and actually get to download the movie so you can watch it for 24 hours. Streaming just doesn't work well.

Art Vandelay · Jun 8, 2008, 01:51 PM

Once in a while, I'll get the adjustment notice but it's only a few seconds.

I don't watch too many movies on Watch Now because I prefer the quality of DVDs. I mostly use it to watch tv shows. It's much more convenient to be able to watch any show in a season when you want instead of having to wait for multiple DVDs to arrive. I've sometimes watched an entire season or two in a weekend on Watch Now.

I'd love it if Apple offered a Netflix-like service for the iTunes Store. I'd much rather download movies then go through the whole mailing thing. However, iTunes needs to get a much larger movie catalog before they'd be able to rival Netflix in content.