A few days ago I was really bored and thought… Fck it, it can’t really be that bad and paid for a month, wouldn’t hurt to try…
Well that was a waste of money…
1st issue: Can’t stream over airplay.
A common thing i do because I’m a lazy piece of sh!t is I have a piece of software called “uxplay” which is a software airplay server that works way better than it has any right to. So what I do when I’m too lazy to get up from my couch is I connect my Mac with the uxplay server and just watch things that way. It’s a bog standard M3 MacBook air, nothing done to it, nothing…
So imagine my surprise when I tried to play Netflix while streaming over airplay and just saw a black screen… Yep, it just did not work… I couldn’t believe it at 1st but yep, apparently it’s a part of their DRM…
Issue 2: 4k is a lie…
Ok, I thought to myself, fine, I’ll watch it on my Mac directly… But the quality looked… Off. Sure enough, it was streaming at 1080p with a bit rate so low I could practically count the pixels… Ok, I thought to myself, I’ve heard of Netflix having issues on Linux (why I didn’t even try it on my PC) maybe I have something setup wrong… So I look at their docs and they state that safari should be able to play 4k full quality (yk, the thing I’m fucking paying for), I was trying to watch it on Arc (chromium based browser) so I thought, fair enough, I’m just gonna use safari… I log in do everything.
Still 1080p with an ass bit rate
Wtf
At this point I’m proper pissed off, I would have had less issues had I pirated the fcking show I wanted to watch at this point… But I gave it one last attempt, windows.
3rd issue: Windows… It’s by itself an issue
So, I have a stealth windows GPU passthrough virtual machine… The kind that most kernel level AC can’t detect. So I went “eh, if kernel level AC can’t detect it, surely Netflix won’t be able to”. And to it’s (the virtual machine’s credit) it was not detected… Problem is, 4k still didn’t fucking work. On Netflix’s own fcking website it states that edge should be able to play 4k no issue, so I relented and reinstalled edge to my debloated VM… Well that was a waste of time, the bit rate was a bit better but it was still 1080p… I tried extensions, changing flags, nope, Netflix just did not wanna stream at 4k… DESPITE ME FUCKING PAYING FOR IT… Ok, I thought, I have one last option, Netflix has an official windows app, except it’s only on the Microsoft store which just sat there for 5 minutes and then threw an error “unable to apply update” when trying to install the app…
Idk why people would ever pay for this shit, honestly. I didn’t expect anything and I was still disappointed. I didn’t expect it to work on Linux which is my daily driver but to be having issues on supposedly supported platforms, both Windows and Mac is completely unacceptable.
Afaik, their 4k plan is a straight up scam as I could not get it to stream at 4k, regardless of what I tried…
And I know it’s not my internet or my setup, I have gigabit internet ffs…
Sorry for the rant, I’m just really butthurt about having spent money on a service that doesn’t fcking work…
Have you experienced what passes for “an actual TV that plays Netflix” these days?
Miss me with that shit.
Say what now?
Always-online locked down ad-riddled spyware on cheapass unfixable planned obsolescence hardware.
Are you a bot?
Are you?
Modern “Televisions” are pretty much smartphones with a big ass screen connected to them, and as such often requires an internet connection and some form of a login to use, even if you’re hardwired directly to it.
Modern tvs aren’t just a screen that displays the data you send it, they’re a standalone ad serving machine
So, don’t you think watching on good quality “big ass screen” is nicer?
Is it worth giving up your data for a bigger screen?
You can just never connect it to the Internet in the first place and only use the HDMI ports. Using a linux media pc running Kodi or whatever. But most people don’t know or care to do this.
Also the larger state actors have been hijacking televisions as well. However the attack still required an initial network logon.
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/privacy/a-closer-look-at-the-tvs-from-the-cia-vault-7-hack-a1864416431/
What data are you giving up? That you prefer “Better call Saul” to “Breaking Bad”?
So you have nothing to hide, eh?
Read more here.
These tvs, like smartphones, track lots of stuff. And the databases they feed make all sorts of inferences.
They even scan what you’re watching from other sources and can determine what show it is, and report that info too.
They know when you’re home and leave, to some extent.
I’ve read of patents for wifi tech in tvs that will connect to other TVs of the same brand for a connection if you don’t set one up.
They definitely use their own DNS, and probably have some hard coded IPs so you can’t block them phoning home via DNS (I’ve tested this myself). I can see this traffic even when I setup DNS blocks - they still hit the vendor’s service IPs (looking at you, Samsung).
These companies are openly antagonistic and adversarial to us, and you “have nothing to hide”?
Yes, but don’t ask me for cake recipes. I’m not in the mood.
I feel like a detail got added and then missed. “Have you tried a TV” means using a TV as a display. The reply jumped to Smart TV with the Netflix app.