[HN Gopher] Raspberry Pi OS Gets Official Widevine Support
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       Raspberry Pi OS Gets Official Widevine Support
        
       Author : logix
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2021-03-17 19:22 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.linuxuprising.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.linuxuprising.com)
        
       | readflaggedcomm wrote:
       | That makes a rpi more useful as a set-top box. I use an old
       | laptop and a Roku now, and this might work better if performance
       | is any good. My old Roku can barely keep up with the new versions
       | of Amazon's channel.
       | 
       | For Firefox, Mozilla published two months ago:
       | https://hacks.mozilla.org/2021/01/porting-firefox-to-apple-s...
       | which involves some Apple-specific tricks, which makes me not
       | hopeful Firefox on Arm on Linux will support DRM soon.
        
       | nimbius wrote:
       | >Widevine is not installed / enabled by default on Raspberry Pi
       | OS though
       | 
       | it looks like the raspbian team got it right this time as opposed
       | to secretly loading a GPG key and repository into everyone's OS
       | to deliver a feature.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi_OS#Microsoft_Repo...
        
       | gruez wrote:
       | Is this level 1 or level 3? If it's level 3 you'd only get 720p
       | on netflix.
        
         | coolspot wrote:
         | AFAIK level 3 doesn't need hardware support. It is always
         | available in a compatible software player (e.g. official Chrome
         | build).
        
         | logix wrote:
         | It has to be level 3, since Google Chrome on Linux desktops
         | (not sure about other platforms) only supports level 3.
         | 
         | Edit: see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/60833060/why-
         | desktop-chr...
        
       | sxp wrote:
       | Is there any info on the level of DRM support? Widevine has
       | multiple levels which means watching Netflix, Hulu, etc on a PC
       | with Chrome will limit your video to 480p or 720p. In some cases,
       | Edge will increase the video resolution to 1080p. I haven't found
       | a way to legally access 4k video on a PC.
       | 
       | I'm guessing the same limits apply on the RPi.
       | 
       | You can test this by going to a video page like
       | https://www.netflix.com/watch/80018585 and typing
       | `document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0].videoHeight` to see
       | the size of the actual video stream.
        
         | Mindwipe wrote:
         | It will be Level 3, so limited.
         | 
         | Widevine levels are based on hardware support for features, and
         | I can't really see any way the Raspberry Pi could ever have a
         | closed protected video path for example. Indeed, all Widevine
         | Level 1 devices are either closed devices with signed
         | bootloaders (TVs), or with a Google written OS (Chromebooks) or
         | both (Android phones).
         | 
         | (Also, where Edge gets higher resolution it's generally because
         | it is using Microsoft's PlayReady as a Content Decryption
         | Module, not Widevine. And on Windows PlayReady can access the
         | APIs to check those similar hardware level features.)
        
         | booi wrote:
         | Is this true? It seems insane that you cannot watch 4k video on
         | arguably the most powerful platform there is..
        
           | Mindwipe wrote:
           | If you mean a PC here, some video providers support 4K video
           | to PCs. Netflix do. Amazon don't.
           | 
           | But the hardware has to support PlayReady SL3000 (or Fairplay
           | on a modern Mac), expose that to the relevant parts of the OS
           | and have an HDCP 2.2 chain to the monitor (and all monitors).
        
       | sdfhbdf wrote:
       | Do you have to hand over your whole privacy to google and agree
       | to them collecting data from your grandchildren when installing?
       | 
       | On a serious note I thought Widevine was closed sourced and only
       | licensed in some way, how has it made its way to Raspberry Pi OS
       | without any consents and such? Is it libre? Or is this the new
       | direction of the raspberry foundation to cooperate with big
       | corps? Like when they included the Microsoft apt repository so
       | that people can install vscode in 1 command instead of 4. [0]
       | 
       | [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26035441
        
         | lxgr wrote:
         | There's all kinds of uses for a Raspberry Pi. Not everyone is
         | in it for ideological reasons, and I'd argue just watching
         | Netflix on it is a valid use case too.
        
           | Mindwipe wrote:
           | Is it?
           | 
           | I mean, it's still not very good at it - you will only get
           | lower resolutions, and at this point a Raspberry Pi and
           | storage/power/cases are not cheaper than buying a Fire Stick
           | or a Chromecast which works better for that use case.
        
           | imode wrote:
           | I'd think privacy concerns over data collection aren't
           | ideological, more ethical.
        
         | logix wrote:
         | It's not installed by default, users need to install it (sudo
         | apt install libwidevinecdm0). Previously it wasn't available at
         | all though, at least not in an official way.
         | 
         | These are some unofficial ways of getting Widevine on a Pi (no
         | longer needed now):
         | https://gist.github.com/ruario/19a28d98d29d34ec9b184c42e5f8b...
         | https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/raspberry-pi-netflix-one...
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | LeoPanthera wrote:
       | tl;dr Install libwidevinecdm0 and Chromium receives Widevine
       | support.
       | 
       | It seems to be only in the armhf repo - not available for
       | aarch64.
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | AFAIK there are no aarch64 widevine binaries out there since
         | chromeOS doesn't have an aarch64 variant.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-17 23:02 UTC)