Streaming NetFlix on a Pi

Hello bob!

Thursday August 24 2023 00:33, you wrote to All:

Have you tried using Firefox ?

Vincent

So you would stream on Raspberry Pi OS? That, of course, is possible, but I would get a Pi4 since it natively supports H.265 in its graphic chip. Since the Pi availability crisis is over, the Pi4 is just a couple of bucks more expensive than the Pi4.

When it's about YouTube, I'd not use a Pi but an Android device, eg. a FireTV because you can use SmartTube (of course installation not from the Playstore) to watch YouTube without the ads. That's what I do here and it works just fine. It also has the advantage that you can run Netflix etc. just with the remote, when you use Raspberry Pi OS to watch in the browser you will still need a keyboard to navigate.

-jw-

I wouldn't bother with the Pi3. The Pi4 might work if you have GPU acceleration working perfectly. The Orange Pi5, is much more powerful, it works as well, or better, than a slow intel CPU. Flawless at 1080p.

For Netflix, you would also need to get Chromium to work with Widevine DRM. I think this is done in an apt package for the rPi, but there is a caveat. On Linux, Widevine doesn't support the highest level L1 DRM "trust", this means you can only watch video at a lower resolution/bitstream speed. I don't have Netflix, but on Amazon Prime that means the best quality is 1.17GB/hour on a Chromium/Linux/Pi, compared to best Quality 6.84GB/hour on Chrome/Windows. AIUI, Android can be configured to use Widevine L1 DRM.

I did just test Amazon Prime quality, but much of this the rest is from memory, so I advise you confirm for yourself.

Get a Roku Express. At £30 it's cheaper than a Pi4 - and works well even over a 3G wireless hotspot.

"bob prohaska" snipped-for-privacy@www.zefox.net> wrote

| Since NetFlix is shutting down its DVD service I'm | looking for a cheap streaming method. Is a Pi3 up to | the task? It sounds like all I need is a Pi, RasPiOS | and a browser, presumably chromium. |

Didn't you ask about this recently? I've been using a Pi4 since early COVID. (2020?) For privacy and convenience, I stream to one TV from Win7 and the other from a Pi4. I find the idea of Internet connected TVs creepy. As is the idea of letting these companies run their "app" on my computer.

At first it required a custom Widevine patch, which someone was generously providing. There were also some other glitches that required various adjustments. The trouble was that ARM browsers were not supporting Widevine.

Some time ago there were updates and now Chromium works fine. I'm not sure about Firefox. (I'd prefer Firefox but just haven't bothered to test it. I do use FF on Win7. Widevine has never been a problem on x86/x64 systems.)

I stream Netflix and Hoopla. I was briefly streaming Starz. I got some mild lags, that I suspect were on their end. But I dropped Starz because of sneaky spyware. Their website worked fine at first, with only script from their servers enabled, but then it started doing weird things like hanging at the login. But it worked fine if I turned of NoScript. They had a pile of 3rd parties spying via script and changed their system so that it wouldn't work without me allowing all those tagalong spies. (Not directly related to your issue, but an interesting example of how such problems can be complicated.)

I've watched youtube movies a couple of times but it wasn't worth the trouble. Google just injects ads, willy nilly and frequently. It's impossible to watch. In general I don't watch any videos unless I can download them. But that works on Pi. I just put them on a USB stick and copy them over to the Pi desktop for streaming.

You definitely want a Pi4. More powerful. More memory. More Widevine. Plenty of ports (USB and HDMI.) I think the complete kit is only about $100. Less if you want to skip conveniences like the case and fan.

I also got a bluetooth mouse and keyboard to use from the sofa. If it weren't for my aging eyes the setup would be perfect. :) And of course you'll need an HDMI cable to get to the TV. Those can sometimes be tricky, too. My Win7 setup worked fine for maybe 3 years but at some point Win7 wasn't seeing the second screen. A new cable fixed it.

-- For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

Jonathan Swift

The mind boggles...

Wow, over twice my monthy internet data used up in an hour! But if he's been happy with DVD, then the SD quality of the 1.17GB/hour is probably comparable to DVD (with better modern compression) anyway. Or then again, maybe he says DVD but means Bluray.

Youtube-dl with "-f 18" suits me fine and that's even lower quality again. I'd recommend that (or something with a GUI like gtk-pipe-viewer) instead of battling the web browser for YouTube on the Pi.

No, I mean DVD. I'm too cheap to pay for Blu-Ray 8-) Mostly I watch older films, so modern high-def quality isn't very important. The monitor in use will be 720P.

This sounds interesting, but I don't yet understand what youtube -dl is, nor how it applies to Netflix. Netflix refers to using browsers, but if there's a simpler tool for the job it might be more attractive. I've not been impressed with firefox or chromium, but wasn't aware of any alternatives.

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

Yeah, I don't know why Amazon Prime uses such a high bitstream level. In Amazon Prime, 1.17GB/hour is noticeably lower quality, watchable, just notably inferior. I haven't investigated why. At that bitstream, speed I can get great quality with HVEC/AV1 codecs from torrents, but with Amazon Prime I don't. I haven't even tested that the bitstream level from Amazon Prime actually is what they quote it to be.

I can't comment on DVD/Bluray, I've only watched one BluRay in my life, over 15 years ago, and no DVDs since then either.

Or just buy an Orange Pi 5, not that much more expensive than a rpi4, but is powerful enough to handle modern browsers/web services, without the messing around.

I think the point of DRM, Widevine, used by Netflix, is to prevent downloading. I doubt Netflix works with youtube-dl.

That was in reference to you talking about troubles with YouTube, and to explain my understanding that DVD video quality shouldn't need more than 1.17GB/hour with the modern codecs used by streaming services (DVD does have similarly high bitrates, but it uses the MPEG2 video codec and no sane streaming service would use a codec that inefficient today).

I doubt there's any similar thing for Netflix. There certainly won't be anything official which would allow downloading to a file like youtube-dl.

I just added streaming to my Netflix account. According to the features page downloading is possible, but it's unclear how to do it. Alas, that's a question for later 8-(

Previews seem to display correctly on the Pi4 using firefox-esr, but attempting to play anything results in error code f7701-1003. Are any special settings required? The browser settings are default right now.

First suggestion is to update firefox, but upon checking for updates I get:

bob@raspberrypi:~/Downloads $ sudo apt update Reading package lists... Done E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock. It is held by process 1115 (packagekitd) N: Be aware that removing the lock file is not a solution and may break your system. E: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/

That isn't the immediate problem, but it certainly doesn't look good. Anybody got a clue what it means? I've never seen it before.

Thanks to all for reading and replying!

A graphical package manager is running and needs to be closed first (or use it to check for updates). If it crashed, then maybe the lock needs to be deleted manually (against Apt's advice), but only if process 1115 (packagekitd) doesn't exist (and Apt isn't smart enough to realise).

According to ps -aux, packagekitd is still running: root 1115 0.0 1.4 490956 116576 ? Ssl May07 13:49 /usr/libexec/packagekitd

The date is a puzzle, I've rebooted a few times since May.

There's no man page for packagekitd, how does one get a handle on it?

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

My bad, a trivial web search found systemctl stop packagekit

apt now works, no updates for firefox or chromium.

A brief call with Neflix tech support implies they won't be much help, at least until a more up-to-date version of chrome or firefox becomes available.

Thanks for reading

bob prohaska

"bob prohaska" snipped-for-privacy@www.zefox.net> wrote

| A brief call with Neflix tech support implies they won't | be much help, at least until a more up-to-date version of | chrome or firefox becomes available. |

It works fine. See here:

Looks like libwidevinecdm0 installed without problems. Is there some way to check that it's actually working? Docs or instructions would be nice, I don't see a man page and there's no info command. Unfortunately I'm still seeing Error Code F7701-1003

I've gone through the Netflix help page at

In the upper right corner of the browser, click Menu menu button.

Click Settings.

Scroll down to Digital Rights Management (DRM) Content.

Make sure Play DRM-controlled content is checked. If it isn't, click the box to turn it on.

Restart Firefox, then try Netflix again.

Unfortunately, the latest available firefox-esr does not have that setting. It's 102.14.0esr (64-bit). Anything over 88 is supported, but no mention of -esr according to

Thanks for writing!

bob prohaska

"bob prohaska" snipped-for-privacy@www.zefox.net> wrote

| Unfortunately, the latest available firefox-esr does not have that setting. | It's 102.14.0esr (64-bit). Anything over 88 is supported, but no mention | of -esr according to |

Supposedly v. 116 is going to add hardware acceleration, which might be nice. I'm afraid I don't remember a lot of details. I don't think I've tried FF on RPi. I do use FF on Win7, but on RPi Chromium was recommended. So first I'd try Chromium "media edition". (The default? I'm not sure.) I seem to remember trying some obscure config back in 2020, but none of that should be needed now. Just:

sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade sudo apt install libwidevinecdm0

I got that here:

Sorry I can't tell you anything more. It's been awhile since I needed to fiddle with this. It's worked fine for years now, but as I said, I think it's only been with Chromium on RPi4. I don't remember whether I had to enable DRM. I doubt it. Chromium doesn't expose mucch in terms of settings, unless you dig into secret config pages.