Lovefilm are dumping flash for streaming
BigFoot87
Posts: 9,293 Forum Member
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Switching to Silverlight instead, some people are NOT happy about this, looks like Lovefilm could be losing a few customers:
http://blog.lovefilm.com/uncategorized/why-were-switching-from-flash-to-silverlight.html/comment-page-3#comments
http://blog.lovefilm.com/uncategorized/why-were-switching-from-flash-to-silverlight.html/comment-page-3#comments
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Flash is only a sticky plaster for the web and was certainly better than having no movies to sell/rent.
Limited cross platform availability of SIlverlight certainly stuffs up the web though.
One does wonder if Amazon and Google will now launch a decent cross platform DRM.
I remember using one of those big online training manual repositories during a Lotus Notes requal.. I was able to print off sections of manuals - which they would header with my details - so if I WAS stupid enough to release them, photocopy or sell them on, it was possible to trace it back.
If this was done - the aggregator or companies can pursue the leaker of that content after the fact IF it happened. By showing just a little bit of trust to the paying end-user, it would reduce the likelihood of someone either torrenting content out of spite etc.
Same with iplayer etc... if you treat your customers as criminals - some of them will act criminally. If however you offer a little trust... you'll probably find that FOSS devs will help.. and it means that all the man-hours that are spent ripping, breaking DRM just to make use of content that is bought etc... can be spent extending reach towards REALLY slick code.
The trope Keep Circulating The Tapes - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KeepCirculatingTheTapes - describes this perfectly.
People WANT to get things legally - but having to get one device for one type of content.. another device or OS for another... more landfill for the sake of studios' paranoia... this annoys the hell out of the buying public... and this can lead to some people deciding "Screw this", and firing up a BitTorrent client, or looking around Rapidshare etc...
The music industry has learned and effectively dumped DRM... how long will it take for the film and TV industries to?
Wonder how this will affect Android users and users of Linux based set top boxes and TVs?. Oh, and the PS3 as it doesn't support Silverlight either.
If it really is the studios behind this then expect to see the same thing happen with the other major legal movie rental sites too. Way to go media companies, make it harder for legal consumers to access the content instead of easier, all in the name of fighting piracy no doubt. It's this kind of nonsense that probably helps drive people to piracy in the first place.
Don't worry about the PS3 though, I read it won't be affected, alongside Linux based smart TV's.
Lovefilm's explanation doesn't seem to add up, wouldn't surprise me if input from Microsoft and Apple are also behind this decision, considering now that Android and Linux users are being left in the cold.
With Android being the declared enemy one realises that there certainly a lot of history why Linux remained fairly inconsequential.
Adobe's recent announcement certainly ties in with this palaver.
There was no reason whatsoever why Adobe could not beef it its DRM here.
Quite strange how SIlverlight never also became the enemy way back when.
I don't bother with the on-line service but goodbye DVD's. I can survive without it so it is easy to make what might end up being a futile stand.
It's also worth noting that Microsoft are certainly the ones up to the most tricks here. Adobe are only just 'hanging in there' now as we well know.
That's what I find a bit strange. A number of TVs run a Linux core, plus Lovefilm will still (they say) run on other devices, most of which also run a Linux core. Adobe Flash Access 2/3 also supports enhanced DRM and is compatible with Ultraviolet and it's DRM requirements, as well as having adaptive streaming too so their reasons don't really add up.
What about Windows 8?. From reports Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10 doesn't support plug ins as the see HTML5 as they way forward (which doesn't yet support DRM apparently). Not to mention that Silverlight doesn't appear to have a roadmap for future development, until this announcement it appeared to be on it's way to being quietly sidelined.
It's all a bit of a mess and could well spectacularly backfire for Lovefilm and the studios, just as Netflix is gearing up for launch in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight
"Silverlight's proprietary nature is a concern to competition since it may harm the open nature of the World Wide Web. Advocates of free software are also concerned Silverlight could be another example of Microsoft's embrace, extend and extinguish strategy"
The anti Flash movement has almost certainly been an unwitting helper here.
It may turn out that our eternal enemy Adobe was in fact far more our friend.
Indeed, even though Flash was proprietary, had it's problems and could be resource hog it was pretty much available for most operating systems and most of the time worked fine. I believe they have something like a 99% userbase across the various operating systems, whereas Silverlight hardly has any penetration.
No doubt the hackers will get involved though and unofficial methods of getting Silverlight on Linux might appear, but unlike Adobe who often seemed to not care that much presumably as it helped their market penetration, Microsoft will go after those who ever manage it.
This currently means only Mac and WIndows desktops have web DRM delivery systems good enough for the movie studios
As long as I can *manage* the account on Linux...
They REALLY know how to shoot themselves in the foot, don't they. Are they *that* wedded to the old buy-another-device-then-another model?
But it's not user accessible, is it? A secure stream to a locked down device, probably with a signed bootloader, that doesn't accept user input is more secure than a DRMed general purpose computing platform.
Well yes. I suspect when Lovefilm say "the studios made us do it" they mean "the studios made us adopt one of the Ultraviolet DRMs, and this is the cheapest one."
IE 10 in desktop mode supports plugins. In tablet mode a metro app has access to the Silverlight DRM components natively to the OS, so it doesn't need a plugin. It's not clear if the browser app does.
But Lovefilm will either dump to the desktop version from metro or have an app.
Err... will it? Netflix uses Silverlight too...
Phazer
I used it a couple of times with ITV streaming service and gave up after the second time, I know that ITv now uses flash, I wonder why?
I certainly think Lovefilm have got rid of a advantage to their service compared to Netflix and that is that streaming can be done on any platform with flash.
I noticed now that lovefilm have got a streaming only service, for a trial price of £4.99 a month, they don't say how long that trial is and they don't say how much it will be after.
i know they are doing these changes because of Netflix coming here, but some of the changes may do the opposite and push customers away.
I am on the lowest package so streaming make no odd to me and even if it did I would use the PS3. I will stay as I am for a few more months and then see what happens, may try blockbusters for a change.
development of Silverlight, although apparently the latest version released last week, Silverlight 5, is to
be supported by Microsoft until November 2021 ... almost 10 years of maintenance support.
I guess so..........
YAY! More landfill! More cable-switching!
IDIOTS! Design to an open spec, let anyone build and connect, you get the legit users on-side... JOB DONE!
This REALLY pisses me off!
I thought that was the idea of You view, a open standard that content providers can use. saying that i have heard little about you view for the last few months, the last tweet from them was 26th Sep, I can see it launching until the middle of the year at least.
i watch very little on my computer anyway, I watch a couple of news stories and that is it, I would not watch a film on it, 22 inch monitor, sat on a computer seat, against a 42 inch plasma sat on a nice comfy chair.