Re: [gentoo-user] Amazon-Instant video

[Paul Hartman]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 1:32 AM, Kevin Brandstatter
<kjbrandstatter@×××××.com> wrote:
> I just got amazon prime for the instant videos (among other things) and
> figured i should
> be able to watch it on linux since its in flash.
> However, I have had no luck getting it to play an instant video,
> i've narrowed it down to videos with DRM, (because trailers play fine
> and DRM screws up everything)
> Google searches come up that it needs HAL (which is deprecated)
> I even managed to install HAL, and still no luck
>
> i keep getting "error occurred and your player cannot be updated"
> I have the latest flash, chrome and firefox. (tried both)
>
> Just wondering if others are having the same trouble or if someone has a
> solution.

Sounds like you've basically gone down the correct path. Flash on
Linux is deprecated, DRM in Flash requires HAL which is deprecated.
It's basically a situation that will never improve... Amazon videos
did not previously use DRM, but as they attempt to compete and get
more "premium" content, the content providers require them to use DRM,
leaving us out in the cold. Not all Amazon videos use DRM but AFAIK
there is no way to filter by DRM status.

Adobe has a page with a DRM tester where people can attempt to play a
protected video, outside of amazon:
http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/multi/flash-player-11-problems-playing.html

I screwed around with trying to make Flash DRM work for a considerable
amount of time and it always either crashed the plugin, crashed my
browser or just plain didn't play. I finally gave up and watched it on
my TV instead...

If you want to get it working on your computer, your time may be
better spent installing an MS Windows web browser in Wine or setting
up a virtual machine with Windows... those are the only ways I've been
able to get protected video like Netflix/SlingPlayer/ESPN3/etc. to
work on my Linux box.