[Fice]

See whats written here: https://plus.google.com/1049127074323346...gnbmo63xVa

Why this works: Chrome (and IE) devs have been working closely with Netflix to get the needed DRM code required for HTML5 streaming, and recently Netflix unveiled that both IE and Chrome on Windows supports HTML5 streaming now.

So chrome has some specialized DRM code! That's not standard, not open, not nothing... a full blown HTML5 browser would still not work, without that proprietary extension.

[Hedda]

So chrome has some specialized DRM code! That's not standard, not open, not nothing... a full blown HTML5 browser would still not work, without that proprietary extension.

Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) for DRM are an official W3C open standards for the HTML5 web standard

https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-fi...media.html

W3C standards are not proprietary, and they can be open source for free without need to pay royalties

http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission.html

Some more background about Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) for DRM in the media here

http://boingboing.net/2013/10/02/w3c-gre...rm-to.html
http://arstechnica.com/information-techn...n-firefox/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lo...-standards

[Fice]

Yes, EME is an open standard. A quote from the EME standard:

This specification does not define a content protection or Digital Rights Management system. Rather, it defines a common API that may be used to discover, select and interact with such systems as well as with simpler content encryption systems.

It say's little about the DRM stuff itself. A Browser could of course imlplement an open source DRM module, but DRM doesn't work once everyone knows how it works.

Even firefox uses a closed source DRM module: From your arstechnica link

The organization is partnering with Adobe to make the change. Mozilla will provide the hooks and APIs in Firefox to enable Web content to manipulate DRM-protected content, and Adobe will provide a closed source Content Decryption Module (CDM) to handle the decryption needs.

Perhabs google or netflix will open source their DRM stuff, but I doubt that.

[topfs2]

It say's little about the DRM stuff itself. A Browser could of course imlplement an open source DRM module, but DRM doesn't work once everyone knows how it works.

It says more about the industry as such. Most of the DRM process is fine to do floss. The streams can be secured by encryption, just because the code is open to view does not mean that the content encrypted would be just because you have the code. SSL and SSH is examples of this already. The industry wanting DRM is just overly cautious and doesn't only want to control the stream, the authentication but also the playback device. There are already plenty of options for the first parts, its the final part they are so stupidly holding on to.

What they are scared of is that a person which can authenticate will use a software to download and possibly distribute the content, thats why they feel that they desperately has to control the playback application because they won't trust the users.

[MALCOLM]

hi so how do i get games onto me xbmc

[jjd-uk]

Please start your own thread in the Support part of the forum, at:

http://forum.xbmc.org/forumdisplay.php?fid=111

if you've any questions in future.

To answer you question, one way would be to use the Advanced Launcher, see http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=85724

[Hedda]

See related discussion here with the question about commercial apps like Netflix for Kodi/XBMC http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=204133

It's probably worth noting that I've personally been trying to convince the Netflixs of the world to let us work with them on binary addons since at least two years ago. The interest simply isn't there right now. Complain to them.

I wrote a letter to Lovefilm Germany once if they are interested in getting a XBMC addon done (either their side or our side while they provide APIs, etc) and got no repsonse at all.

I think it unrealistic to ask large commercial companies like Netflix and Amazon to write custom addons for Kodi/XBMC or support any addon from third-parties, binary or not.

I believe that it is especially unrealistic to expect commercial companies who do not even have an public API to support or write their own addons for Kodi/XBMC.


I really think the only way forward for such commercial apps would instead be for Kodi/XBMC to add native support for a existing framework that they already use, like HTML5.

As if and when Kodi/XBMC could support standard HTML5 apps (with EME extensions for DRM) then any existing HTML5 app should in theory just work*

*Sure in reality any existing HTML5 app would probably not "just work", at least not perfectly without a lot of debugging and optimizations, but in theory HTML5 is HTML5.


With streaming services such as Netflix getting more content quicker, I think that it's inevitable that an an embedded HTML5 engine is integrated into natively Kodi/XBMC.

Build it and they will come

[Memphiz]

Ok

[jjd-uk]

I really think the only way forward for such commercial apps would instead be for Kodi/XBMC to add native support for a existing framework that they already use, like HTML5.

As if and when Kodi/XBMC could support standard HTML5 apps (with EME extensions for DRM) then any existing HTML5 app should in theory just work*

*Sure in reality any existing HTML5 app would probably not "just work", at least not perfectly without a lot of debugging and optimizations, but in theory HTML5 is HTML5.


With streaming services such as Netflix getting more content quicker, I think that it's inevitable that an an embedded HTML5 engine is integrated into natively Kodi/XBMC.

Build it and they will come

The problem as far as I understand has been finding something that will work well across all platforms and won't add too much garbage to to Core app. Even Openelec which only has to worry about Linux only has an unofficial Chromium browser addon, and even that has issues in that some features of the closed source Chrome are needed for some website and they are not yet included in the open source Chromium.

[Hedda]

I really think the only way forward for such commercial apps would instead be for Kodi/XBMC to add native support for a existing framework that they already use, like HTML5.

As if and when Kodi/XBMC could support standard HTML5 apps (with EME extensions for DRM) then any existing HTML5 app should in theory just work*

*Sure in reality any existing HTML5 app would probably not "just work", at least not perfectly without a lot of debugging and optimizations, but in theory HTML5 is HTML5.


With streaming services such as Netflix getting more content quicker, I think that it's inevitable that an an embedded HTML5 engine is integrated into natively Kodi/XBMC.

Build it and they will come

The problem as far as I understand has been finding something that will work well across all platforms and won't add too much garbage to to Core app.

What about using Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_Em..._Framework

Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is an open source framework for embedding a web browser control based on Google Chrome. It is a convenient way to implement an HTML5 based GUI in a desktop application or to provide browser capabilities to an application, and provides the infrastructure developers need to quickly add HTML renderer and JavaScript to a C++ project It also comes with bindings for C, C++, Delphi, Java, .NET, and Python and runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

CEF insulates the user from the underlying Chromium and Blink code complexity by offering production-quality stable APIs, release branches tracking specific Chromium releases, and binary distributions.



But you you are absolutely right. Hopefully it would not have to be a full web browser, at least not in the GUI experience sense as only simple remote control style navigation is needed.


Another approach could be making a HTML layout engine like Chromium/WebKit/Blink into a new video player for Kodi, similar to the DVDPlayer, and have that player be cross-platform.

DVDPlayer can today use libdvdnav/libdvdread/libdvdcss to playback DVD-Video movies with menus, and it can use libbluray/libaacs to playback Blu-ray Disc movies with menus.

Maybe an HTML layout engine like Chromium/WebKit/Blink could be made into its own player for XBMC, and that way "playback" Netflix HTML5 apps with menus.

At least then all the code would be contain within that one "Chromium/WebKit/Blink" (HTML5) player.

If that would be possible then it would also be simpler to one day replace that first HTML5 player with one made from a other HTML5 layout engine in the future.


Either way maybe try out Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for it as a proof-of-concept?

[Hedda]

Maybe we are all getting too hung up on the DRM part of this discussion when all many of us want is only to have a basic HTML5 layout rendering engine even without DRM support.

Point there is that it would be great having a HTML5 layout engine in Kodi to foremost enable non-commercial homebrew HTML5 and HTML JavaScript apps in Kodi as addons.


Looking at it that that way then commercial apps such as Netflix HTML5 app with DRM support would only be a bonus if it was extended for that at a later date.


You got to start somewhere. Remember that in the beginning XBMC did not support DVD-Video menus or Blu-ray Disc menus either, that was all added later.

[Hedda]

Anyway, here is a good article about some benefits and what to consider when integrating Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) as HTML5 rendering engine into applications like Kodi

http://coherent-labs.com/what-developers...eir-games/

Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is a free, open-source framework that is based on Chromium web browser and provides the infrastructure developers need to quickly add HTML renderer and JavaScript to a C++ project


https://code.google.com/p/chromiumembedded/

Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) - Simple framework for embedding Chromium-based browsers in other applications


Introduction

The Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is a simple framework for embedding Chromium-based browsers in other applications. It is a BSD-licensed open source project founded by Marshall Greenblatt in 2008 and based on the Google Chromium project. Unlike the Chromium project itself, which focuses mainly on Google Chrome application development, CEF focuses on facilitating embedded browser use cases in third-party applications. CEF insulates the user from the underlying Chromium and Blink code complexity by offering production-quality stable APIs, release branches tracking specific Chromium releases, and binary distributions. Most features in CEF have default implementations that provide rich functionality while requiring little or no integration work from the user. There are currently over 100 million installed instances of CEF around the world embedded in products from a wide range of companies and industries. A partial list of companies and products using CEF is available on the CEF Wikipedia page. Some use cases for CEF include:

• Embedding an HTML5-compliant Web browser control in an existing native application.
  
• Creating a light-weight native “shell” application that hosts a user interface developed primarily using Web technologies.
  
• Rendering Web content “off-screen” in applications that have their own custom drawing frameworks.
  
• Acting as a host for automated testing of existing Web properties and applications.

CEF supports a wide range of programming languages and operating systems and can be easily integrated into both new and existing applications. It was designed from the ground up with both performance and ease of use in mind. The base framework includes C and C++ programming interfaces exposed via native libraries that insulate the host application from Chromium and Blink implementation details. It provides close integration between the browser and the host application including support for custom plugins, protocols, JavaScript objects and JavaScript extensions. The host application can optionally control resource loading, navigation, context menus, printing and more, while taking advantage of the same performance and HTML5 technologies available in the Google Chrome Web browser.

Users new to CEF development should start by reading the Tutorial Wiki page for an overview of CEF usage and then proceed to the GeneralUsage Wiki page for a more in-depth discussion or architectural and usage issues. Complete API documentation is available here. CEF support and related discussion is available on the CEF Forum.

Numerous individuals and organizations contribute time and resources to support CEF development, but more involvement from the community is always welcome. This includes support for both the core CEF project and external projects that integrate CEF with additional programming languages and frameworks (see the "External Projects" section below). If you are interested in donating time to help with CEF development please see the "Helping Out" section below. If you are interested in donating money to support general CEF development and infrastructure efforts please visit the CEF Donations page.

Binary Distributions

Binary distributions, which include all files necessary to build a CEF-based application, are available on the Downloads page. Automated nightly builds, available from http://cefbuilds.com, include the newest changes but may not be fully tested. Binary distributions are stand-alone and do not require the download of CEF or Chromium source code. Symbol files for debugging binary distributions of libcef can also be downloaded from the above links.

Release notes for past and current CEF binary distributions are available here.

Source Distributions

The CEF project is an extension of the Chromium project. CEF maintains development and release branches that track Chromium branches. CEF source code can be downloaded, built and packaged manually or with automated tools. Visit the BranchesAndBuilding Wiki page for more information.
External Projects

The base CEF framework includes support for the C and C++ programming languages. Thanks to the hard work of external maintainers CEF can integrate with a number of other programming languages and frameworks. These external projects are not maintained by CEF so please contact the respective project maintainer if you have any questions or issues.

[Frogy]

I am new to XBMC and have been reading a number of treads both old and new on the aspect of a Browser integration. I have loaded Boxee Hack and XBMC on my boxeebox. XBMC stands alone and does not integrate andy of the Boxee apps.

Looking for another solution I came up with Satechi .... http://www.satechi.net/index.php/satechi...-fi-silver

It comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.2.2 and full axcess to the Google Play store. I have installed (via Google Play) the XBMC app. Unlike the BB install, XBMC has full access to all the installed apps on Android including Netflix and any browser installed (I use Chrome).

Thought that I would offer this up as an alternative.

I love XBMC and am learning a lot on these forums, thanks everyone.

[jjd-uk]

That's basically the same as every Android box out there, nothing particularly special about it.

[Frogy]

That's basically the same as every Android box out there, nothing particularly special about it.

Well, I am a rookie.