Netflix on Raspberry Pi 4

[Franz333]

Hi,

I do not understand those Digitals Rights Media in this case.

You can watch Netflix on a smart tv, a desktop and a mobile phone.

Why isn't possible to have a steady add-on or anything else that could be installed on a raspberry ?

Thanks

[fruitoftheloom]

Hi,

I do not understand those Digitals Rights Media in this case.

You can watch Netflix on a smart tv, a desktop and a mobile phone.

Why isn't possible to have a steady add-on or anything else that could be installed on a raspberry ?

Thanks

I may be totally wrong but as the Raspberry Pi SBC has a removable SD Card, if you set up Netflix to play on one Pi, you can just copy the card and put it in another Pi. Therefore Netflix, Amazon etal would have no control of "illegal sharing"



Therefore please can you contact Netflix, Amazon Prime etal, it is after all their streaming content you are paying for.



If you want to read about DRM, see:

https://medium.com/pallycon/how-netflix ... 0508ed0001

[Franz333]

Thanks for your reply.

I know it is technically possible to set up Netflix on a Raspberry but apparently there isn't it any permanent solution as it stops working after a while for some reasons.

I just bought the Raspberry so I am new with this and I might be wrong. I am only relying on articles I have found on the topic so far.

I did contact Netflix actually. I got said it's not about DRM but it's a compatibility problem which I found was a polite way to say Netflix has no agreement with Raspberry.

It really sucks.. I see a Rasberry as a little computer..what is the difference between having a laptop and watching Netflix linking the laptop to the TV with HDMI and doing the same with a Raspberry?

[fruitoftheloom]

Thanks for your reply.

I know it is technically possible to set up Netflix on a Raspberry but apparently there isn't it any permanent solution as it stops working after a while for some reasons.

I just bought the Raspberry so I am new with this and I might be wrong. I am only relying on articles I have found on the topic so far.

I did contact Netflix actually. I got said it's not about DRM but it's a compatibility problem which I found was a polite way to say Netflix has no agreement with Raspberry.

It really sucks.. I see a Rasberry as a little computer..what is the difference between having a laptop and watching Netflix linking the laptop to the TV with HDMI and doing the same with a Raspberry?

There is a BIG difference, your Laptop Hard Drive is tied to the Machine if running Windows 10, an Android Device the Operating System is embedded, that is not the case with the Raspberry Pi SBC, the content provider want control over what machines you are legally entitled to watch their content.


The bottom line it is THEIR content you are paying for, if you do not like that stance, walk away and not waste your money.


Considering you can buy a SmartPhone and a Google Chromecast for the price of a complete RPi 4B set up, why should Raspberry Pi Trading ensure you can watch Netflix when it does not serve the raison d'être of Education and Learning ?

https://www.widevine.com/training

[ligelowbee]

Hi, Followed the instructions from
https://blog.vpetkov.net/2019/07/12/net ... -chromium/

But I still get an error when I try to play a netflix or Prime Video.

trying to get it to work on Chromium in Raspbian.

new at this, any help or suggestions are apreciated

I've got chromium 78 and I followed the instructions here to install the libwidevinecdm.so in /usr/lib/chromium-browser:
https://blog.vpetkov.net/2019/07/12/net ... -chromium/
but the user agent switcher didn't cut it. Had to set the user agent on the command line as suggested in a comment by spartacuss on that blog.
I use the following to open netflix.com as an app with its own data directory. That way I don't have to remove or disable the user agent extension in my main chromium:

Code: Select all

chromium-browser --app='https://netflix.com' --user-data-dir='/home/pi/.config/chromium-netflix'  --user-agent='Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 11895.95.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.125 Safari/537.36'

You could add it to the menu with this desktop file ~/.local/applications/netflix-chromium.desktop

Code: Select all

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Netflix-Chromium (ChromeOS spoofing)
GenericName=Netflix-Chromium (ChromeOS spoofing)
Comment=Netflix on Chromium using chromeos spoofing
Exec=chromium-browser --app='https://netflix.com' --user-data-dir='/home/pi/.config/chromium-netflix' --user-agent='Mozilla/5.0 (X11; CrOS armv7l 11895.95.0) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.125 Safari/537.36'
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=netflix
Categories=AudioVideo
StartupNotify=true

Throw a nice netflix.png icon in your ~/.icons directory and you should be good.

[ventz]

Hi,

I am the author of the blog post:

https://blog.vpetkov.net/2019/07/12/net ... -chromium/

As of February 2020 everything works perfectly for Netflix, Spotify, Pandora, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+

Ive also added one line scripts to ease everything.

Enjoy!

[Franz333]

Thank you very much ventz !

All the best

[mattmiller]

@ventz

Thank you very much - 1st time I've actually managed to see Netflix playing back on a Pi (mines a Pi4 4GB)

I'll have to buy a microHDMI lead now and see what it looks/sounds like on a real screen

[ventz]

Hi There,

I've created a 1-line-paste solution to this, in case it's helpful for anyone:

https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/ras ... ny-others/

It works for Netlifx, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO, Spotiy, Pandora, YouTube, VUDU, and many others.

I think this is as easy as it gets.

Please note that you need to be on Raspbian Buster (latest) before you paste 1-line config.

[amienc]

Hi There,

I've created a 1-line-paste solution to this, in case it's helpful for anyone:

https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/ras ... ny-others/

It works for Netlifx, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO, Spotiy, Pandora, YouTube, VUDU, and many others.

I think this is as easy as it gets.

Please note that you need to be on Raspbian Buster (latest) before you paste 1-line config.

Hi thanks for ending my 2 day ordeal in getting it to work in Chrome.... now even my Dstv works (here in South Africa)

[business_kid]

I can use Putlocker & youtube but it's looking for a decryption extension that's not available on Chromium64. I'm on the 64bit beta, so choice is limited. The solution is another browser. 32bit had palemoon, & firefox.

[bjtheone]

Hi There,

I've created a 1-line-paste solution to this, in case it's helpful for anyone:

https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/ras ... ny-others/

It works for Netlifx, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO, Spotiy, Pandora, YouTube, VUDU, and many others.

I think this is as easy as it gets.

Please note that you need to be on Raspbian Buster (latest) before you paste 1-line config.

This solution works well for me.

Disclaimer: I actually took the solution apart, and applied the pieces rather than just running the script, because I am paranoid/inquisitive like that.

The actual script looks fine. It yields a more up to date version of the widevine library than I had previously installed plus the right user agent.

[AkulaMD]

Hi There,

I've created a 1-line-paste solution to this, in case it's helpful for anyone:

https://blog.vpetkov.net/2020/03/30/ras ... ny-others/

It works for Netlifx, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, HBO, Spotiy, Pandora, YouTube, VUDU, and many others.

I think this is as easy as it gets.

Please note that you need to be on Raspbian Buster (latest) before you paste 1-line config.

Thank you so much for your work.

It works for me.

And the best part is, it is very easy to install.

[Aire]

Sadly as of yesterday the thought police within Netflix seemed to have blocked ventz's DRM'd version of chromium.
This is a crying shame as it initially worked flawlessly for me.
Kudos to the RPi foundation though for such a capable device.

[diogen151]

Sadly as of yesterday the thought police within Netflix seemed to have blocked ventz's DRM'd version of chromium.
This is a crying shame as it initially worked flawlessly for me.
Kudos to the RPi foundation though for such a capable device.

Tried it right now and it works flawlessly!

[Aire]

Thats interesting!
I can see the available films when I log in, but attempting to play them gets me the following "help" page:

Code: Select all

Netflix system requirements for HTML5 Player and Silverlight
You can use the Netflix HTML5 player or the Silverlight plug-in to watch Netflix TV shows and movies on:

PCs running Windows XP or later

Intel-based Macs running OS X Tiger (v10.4.11) or later

iPads running iPadOS 13.0 or later.

See complete requirements below for HTML5, Silverlight 4, and Silverlight 5.

[bjtheone]

Are you sure you are running the "right" Chromium? The automated install script creates a second menu item called "Chromium (Media Edition)" that is running with the "right" user agent string.

It is working fine for me in Canada.

[Aire]

I am indeed running the Chromium (Media Edition) entry in the Internet Tab on the main menu.
However following the comments here I have re-run the script to install the media version and it is now working again.
I have no clue as to how the change came about.
Thanks to all who commented.

[spectrum6]

Sadly as of yesterday the thought police within Netflix seemed to have blocked ventz's DRM'd version of chromium.
This is a crying shame as it initially worked flawlessly for me.
Kudos to the RPi foundation though for such a capable device.

Still works fine for me, perhaps you are not using the right icon/app, as another poster mentioned. Or maybe you should try updating the user agent string.

[business_kid]

I can confirm it doesn't work on the 64 bit thing. You download a 32bit lib :-/. The error I get blamed the Chromium (Media) desktop in /usr/share/applications. It was owned pi:pi while the rest were root:root. I tried changing them but no dice.

[business_kid]

Last night 29th June, I downloaded the Raspberry Pi OS in 32bit-armhf & 64bit, and dd'ed the 32bit-armhf to an sdcard, tried your fix and it's fine in chrome so far

Now I want to get the 64bit version working. Is there a link for the 64bit version of libwidevine.so? Ths dd is progressing as I post. The widevine in the fix is 32bit and as you know 32 & 64 bit libs are not promiscuous (is there a software word for that?)

[bjtheone]

The fix is acquiring a current WideVine library (libwidevine.so). In theory you should be able to take it out of any 64 bit image. With an appropriate library and user agent string it should work. @ventz just extracted the library and packaged it all up nicely in a script.

[business_kid]

The fix is acquiring a current WideVine library (libwidevine.so). In theory you should be able to take it out of any 64 bit image. With an appropriate library and user agent string it should work. @ventz just extracted the library and packaged it all up nicely in a script.

Agreed. Very good of @ventz and I'm grateful to him. What image did you have in mind? Widevine is a proprietary thing, right? Have you any urls?

[spectrum6]

The fix is acquiring a current WideVine library (libwidevine.so). In theory you should be able to take it out of any 64 bit image. With an appropriate library and user agent string it should work. @ventz just extracted the library and packaged it all up nicely in a script.

Agreed. Very good of @ventz and I'm grateful to him. What image did you have in mind? Widevine is a proprietary thing, right? Have you any urls?

My understanding is there isn't a 64-bit ARM build of libwidevine.

[Botspot]

The fix is acquiring a current WideVine library (libwidevine.so). In theory you should be able to take it out of any 64 bit image. With an appropriate library and user agent string it should work. @ventz just extracted the library and packaged it all up nicely in a script.

Agreed. Very good of @ventz and I'm grateful to him. What image did you have in mind? Widevine is a proprietary thing, right? Have you any urls?

My understanding is there isn't a 64-bit ARM build of libwidevine.

It seems like an ARM Chromebook OS img would be 64 bit. Right? Am I missing anything?
Edit: Oh I get it. Chrome OS is 64 bit kernel, but 32 bit userland. See this thread for more details