So in the adventures of me actually learning Linux I am attempting to use Netflix. This is becoming more and more unlikely as the evening goes on.
Basically I have been stuck in bed for the better part of a week. I am going stir crazy. I am home alone tonight – my partner in crime is climbing. This is of course what I would LIKE to be doing so I am already a bit grumpy that I am not.
So the goal: Watch Team America Police the world.
Why? Because somebody not mentioning ANY names and you know who you are, got the movie stuck in my head.
I can not go rent it because the video store is about 8 blocks away – I am sick and have no car. 8 blocks seems really far when you have a flu. It seems I can not get any one to rent it for me due to the fact that they do not wish to be seen renting it.
So home at 5:30 pm wanting to watch a movie. I log on to netflix and am shot down because I am not running windows or OSX. I feel confident that some one in the linux community has worked around this. I reach for my friend google and do a search. First hit I feel like I might have success. I get to an Ubuntu forum http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1091125&page=4 and I start reading. In true form I feel success even though the thread is OLD and I have yet to actually read the solution just ideas.
So what did I learn:
I Learned that you can fool a web page into thinking you are running windows. I had no idea this was possible so good lesson to know I think
I learned there is product out there called moonlight which is the open source version of starlight.
I learned that even with tricking the web site and running moonlight it still will not work. Why? Because of the DRM.
I learned that codecs have pattens
Its important to note that when I started this adventure a seasoned Linux user advised me ” I do not use netflix to stream” and once again discussed with me his believe in only using products he can do what he wants with. Now do not get me wrong I respect the point of view of this individual but sometimes I have to learn things myself.
I once again have attempted to go to the movie industry and pay them for use of a product – they have refused to support my method of viewing and have now lost my business. It is stubborn that I refuse to boot into windows in order to watch a movie. You might even say clearly I do not want to watch it that badly. Its possible that I just don’t. However, it is more likely that I have enjoyed 5 years of not using windows and am more willing to find an alternative to netflix then I am to boot my machine into windows.
So the new product I am going to try is called Miro.
So far from a beginer Linux users standpoint it has proved to be a challenge but not impossible. Apt-get install was easy enough. I have to load it from command line at this point. I hope that changes because I will admit that will get annoying fast for this newbie Linux user.
now that I have program open – its not quit as intuitive as I would like it be. I want to add an RSS feed from ShowRSS. I think the reason I am finding this to be a challenge is
1) I do not understand RSS feeds
2) I do not understand bittorrent.
I have successfully started downloading what ever happens to be new on their site. NOT what I was trying to do. I was hoping there would be a way to give Miro my log in and password and have Miro look at my preferences. I am not convinced there isn’t a way to do this yet.
Time to go with something easier. Q recently became a father him and his wife post videos of their baby on YouTube, I am going to try and link my YouTube subscription to Miro.
This turned out to be really easy! I didnt actually link my personal youtube subscription instead I searched the user in the movie search – and bang there it was. I clicked add as feed suddenly it was downloading. I stopped the downloads. I do not need videos of Q being a Dad on my computer. I have essentially created another subscription to Q’s youtube account via Miro. Again not what was hoping for but still useful enough.
8:30 PM I am still not watching Team America and do not have the slightest idea how to find it. I think I understand even more why its important to support open platform products and products that do not force you to use proprietary software.
off to figure out why Open Inkpot is NOT working on my EReader. This is another adventure I have been working through – I will save it for another post.
