As a UK resident, my Boxee Box gives me access to BBC's iPlayer for free content... and a part from the youtube and TWIT apps, there's not really much else going on. The UK jealously ogles the vast reams of free and premium content consumed by United States Boxee customers and they are all running the same hardware. It's a real disappointment considering the huge promises made by boxee about bridging the great gap between the internet and television with just one £180 box. However it has come to be just an overpriced HTPC. But what is really going on here? Who is responsible for this complete lack of content?
Ladies and Gents, I introduce you to the elephants in the room...
Who is responsible?
Around the 9th of January Netflix was opened up in the UK providing a whole lotta content to subscribers, and at a damn good rate of £5.99 a month. After subscribing I could watch all kinds of movies, tv shows and documentaries, it's not perfect but hey, there's a lot of choice and it beats piracy, that's for sure. What they decided to do was use Microsoft's proprietary "Silverlight" technology to allow streaming of the content through the browser. Silverlight by itself has become cross-platform and users of OSX, Windows and Linux can enjoy Silverlight in their browsers, however in this case, users of Linux (5% of global users) essentially received a middle finger when Netflix adding DRM to their silverlight streams to supposedly "protect the streams from theft" and making it impossible for Linux to read the video content. You see, Silverlight does run on Linux through the use of Moonlight, but Moonlight doesn't support DRM, and who's fault is that? Well apparently microsoft haven't given novell (the creators of MoonLight) the top secret DRM code that will enable Netflix for Linux.
So?
So how does this relate to your Boxee Box? Well sadly, at it's core Boxee Box is a Linux based system and therefore cannot stream from Netflix UK. To add insult to injury, Netflix makes it extra hard for developers to create a Boxee app by disabling it's API for the UK (despite the API being simply a data service).
So what can be done?
- Microsoft could give Novell the top secret code, Novell pushes it into the next update of Moonlight, Boxee Box pushes it into the next update of Boxee, Silverlight and it's DRM streaming is enabled giving some bright developer the opportunity to make a Netflix UK app for Boxee.
- Microsoft, Netflix and Google push through DRM support in HTML5, Netflix adopts it into it's streams and it would work after a Boxee browser update.
- Remember that Netflix is available and functional for US Boxee Box users so the technology is there, ready and waiting it just seems that there is some red tape around licensing all the content for UK users. There isn't much detail for this so any would be appreciated.
- Boxee: For not organising UK agreements, contracts and availability with Netflix UK (AND LOVEFILM) quickly.
- Netflix: For not supporting it's UK release avenues correctly and for using DRM.
- Microsoft: For not playing nicely with Novell to produce DRM enabled Silverlight for Linux.
Where can I grind some gears?
- Boxee Box Forum Netflix UK Thread
- Netflix public Facebook wall
- Netflix UK developer api thread
- Since this is the official silverlight forums it would probably be a good idea to keep this thread alive.
- Why no moonlight link? Moonlight and Novell are at the mercy of Microsoft.
In conclusion, this is all completely ridiculous and DRM is really screwing the consumer.
UPDATE 13/04/2012: It seems boxee are blaming intel and it's sdk for the delays. http://forums.boxee.tv/showpost.php?p=264932&postcount=84
UPDATE 13/04/2012: It seems boxee are blaming intel and it's sdk for the delays. http://forums.boxee.tv/showpost.php?p=264932&postcount=84
