Netflix Kills Casting From Phones (theverge.com)
- Reference: 0180251843
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/12/01/1649216/netflix-kills-casting-from-phones
- Source link: https://www.theverge.com/news/834655/netflix-phone-casting-chromecast-support-killed
> Netflix has [1]removed the ability to cast shows and movies from phones to TVs , unless subscribers are using older casting devices. An updated help page on Netflix's website, first [2]reported by Android Authority , says that the streaming service "no longer supports casting shows from a mobile device to most TVs and TV-streaming devices," and instead directs users to navigate Netflix using the remote that came with their TV hardware.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/news/834655/netflix-phone-casting-chromecast-support-killed
[2] https://www.androidauthority.com/netflix-casting-chromecast-google-tv-streamer-3620784/
Useless technology anyway (Score:1)
Casting always was a technology that was never needed. Streaming from device to device is simpler in every way, but does not allow big media the control they insist on. Casting and the entire mechanism of having the device being casted to have to have direct access to the media source is idiotic and only exists because they insist on a extra level of weaponizing devices against the owners and policing what you can do with your own devices.
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When it comes to Airplay, honestly it should be transparent to the app. It should not know that it is being casted. The bitstream should be sent to the end device and it decides how to display it.
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Yes, that would be nice.
But that doesn't offer the same DRM control. And that's what they are concerned with.
If they could have the encryption present on the screen and the information only gets decrypted in your eyeballs with a valid subscription, they would.
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> If they could have the encryption present on the screen and the information only gets decrypted in your eyeballs with a valid subscription, they would.
That explains the banner I see in my field of vision: "libavcodec may be vulnerable..."
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Maybe they can start broadcasting their content with a red tint and make you use those special decoder glasses to watch it.
Re:Useless technology anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Streaming comes in handy when visitors at your home or establishment would like to use their own account to watch something on your TV without using the app and actually logging in with their credentials and remembering to clear out those credentials when they leave. A bar I frequent has their TVs open to casting and allows patrons to cast services from their phone to the TVs. People frequently stream sporting events that are otherwise locked behind pay apps or PPV using their own accounts. It's likely this exact activity that netflix is looking to cut down on.
Re:Useless technology anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Especially since commercial redistribution and public display without license is actually a violation of the broadcast license. Watch any NFL or NBA game and they'll remind you of it at one point coming back from a commercial break.
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Yeah, im not sure who is liable in this case if they cracked down. I would lean on the person that has the paid account and is "sharing" it with everyone else within view of the TV.
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That's not where the money is.
They would crack down on the restaurant / bar for violating their commercial license.
Whomever is running that place has exposed themselves to legal liability if the lawyers come knocking.
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> A bar I frequent has their TVs open to casting
And here come the studio's black helicopters and SWAT teams. Your bar has just violated one of the most precious market segmentation tools that content owners cherish: The ability to squeeze businesses for playing their stuff for exorbitant fees compared to home customers.
Re: Useless technology anyway (Score:3)
This.
Whoever came up with this strategy has not traveled since the pandemic or is rooting for appletv. If I have to setup a netflix profile on my hotel room / airbnb before I can relax after several hours stuck in a plane watching netflix - suddenly finding *anything else to do* has less friction. Even trying any other streaming app seems less cumbersome.
Re: Useless technology anyway (Score:2)
Amusingly I stayed in a hotel a couple years ago that offered no in room entertainment system for streaming. You scanned a QR code on screen to link your mobile phone to the Google Chrome-eaque device on the back of the TV in your room, so you could cast any apps you wanted to use.
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Not needing it or not seeing uses =/= "useless," that's not how something being useless or not works. ~_~
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It absolutely is useless technology. There is simpler and faster technology that cannot be weaponized against the owner of the device. That technology is direct streaming from a source. The complex handoff that takes place in casting is idiotic and unnecessary and again only exists because it is weaponized against the owner of the devices.
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Well it was super useful if you wanted to say put on some cartoon the kids like while you are over at your friends place. Being able to just 'air play' or cast means you did not have login to any accounts, or search for something in a different profile etc.
It maybe did not look as good, but little tommy does not care as long as his aquanaughts are singing and dancing.
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> Casting and the entire mechanism of having the device being casted to have to have direct access to the media source is idiotic and only exists because they insist on a extra level of weaponizing devices against the owners and policing what you can do with your own devices
You could have just said "I don't understand why that is needed" and saved yourself the effort.
The use case is extremely powerful. You want to direct a device to do something, rather than try to stream a 2160p video out of your phone
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>> Casting and the entire mechanism of having the device being casted to have to have direct access to the media source is idiotic and only exists because they insist on a extra level of weaponizing devices against the owners and policing what you can do with your own devices
> You could have just said "I don't understand why that is needed" and saved yourself the effort.
> The use case is extremely powerful. You want to direct a device to do something, rather than try to stream a 2160p video out of your phone over wifi. That's really not so hard to understand, surely?
Not really, no. If I wanted to use the TV to do all of the networking and playback, I would have just used the TV's app to do it. The number of hotels I've seen where the TV supported Chromecast or AirPlay streaming but did not have a built-in Netflix app are literally zero.
From my perspective, casting is a complete disaster by its very nature. It relies on the display device having full Internet access, which isn't a given. Literally every time I've wanted to do casting, it has been because the TV set'
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> If I wanted to
> From my perspective
So it's not for you. You don't understand or need the use case.
Do you get mad about everything you don't use?
I use casting all the time. Some of has have more complex use cases than just watching Netflix on a TV. You're coming across as "old man yells at cloud", and about something you don't even use!
I won't read or engage further as I for one only spend my time on worthwhile things and you seem stuck in the mud.
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> So it's not for you. You don't understand or need the use case.
And you've done nothing to explain what the use case is. As far as I can tell, the use case is "Someone who wants to use their phone to control the TV instead of the TV remote," which is a tremendous amount of technological overhead for such a negligible benefit.
It's way easier to point your camera at the screen and do an instant sign-in on the TV than it is to get your phone connected to the right Wi-Fi network and cast to the right TV, so the use case would have to be pretty compelling to make up for wha
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I understand why they want it to be needed but it absolutely is not. Casting exists because the complex handoff scheme enables them to weaponize the system against the owner of the devices. Plain streaming with a source and playback destination is massively simpler and no handoff needed and most of all no DRM to weaponize against the owners.
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Right, because every phone has enough processing power to decode a 4K stream, display it, record its own screen, re-encode that, and send it to the TV. And enough battery life. And the LAN half of the wifi has the bandwidth to handle 3 4K streams (router to phone, phone to router, router to TV). Yes, the implementation has always had problems, and it may be niche, but there clearly is a use case.
Open Source just can't keep up (Score:4, Insightful)
Once again, Open Source is embarrassed and left behind.
mplayer and mpv still , after all these years, don't have a way to prevent things from working if the content origin happens to be Netflix. It just plays on, stupidly Just Working, instead of breaking the way that Netflix realized their users want it to break.
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I guess it depends on what you want; your 2nd paragraphs isn't very understandable to me. I have a Jellyfin server running on my Linux computer that is used by a Jellyfin client app on my Roku, so I basically have my own Netflix. Jellyfin is open source.
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I think it was intended to be drippingly sarcastic. Sloppy is pretending that the failure to screen cast is a feature that customers wanted, then constructing a sentence like "Oh no, open source doesn't support like customers want!"
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Dangit, stupid HTML filter! The was supposed to be "Oh no, open source doesn't support [INSERT ENSHITTIFICATION HERE] like customers want!"
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Ah, thanks! I obviously didn't read it that way.
Unintended consequences. (Score:5, Insightful)
So now, if I want to watch something on Netflix while visiting someone, instead of casting I'll need to sign in to their streaming device. And likely leave it that way when I return home.
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You won't be able to login to the app on their TV cause netflix will detect it as an attempt to share the account with someone and block the login attempt lol.
Re:Unintended consequences. (Score:4, Informative)
It's likely this exact activity they are trying to cut down on. Person A with netflix account comes to visit person B without netflix account for a night of moves casting off person A's phone. Now person A and person B will have to have their own netflix accounts.
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Yeah or using a cheapo/old smart phone to let other use your account.
But as for visitations - just bring Goggle TV dongle with you and sign it on to guest WiFi...
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Or they'll just do something else instead of watching netflix.
The more that netflix squeezes, the less useful it is to the people paying. Eventually their rent profits will drop off, because people will find more convenient alternatives.
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Good luck with that. Either them or you will start getting spammed every time the app is opened, demanding email or SMS based 2FA and asking whether you want to "update your household."
Before I dumped Netflix entirely in favor of Jellyfin and the high seas, I had to do all sorts of VPN chicanery between two locations where I divide my time to get it to work without constantly pestering me.
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> And likely leave it that way when I return home.
That's fine, they'll be blocked after a week for not being the primary owner's address... assuming you successfully sign in on a device not on your network in the first place.
Same old (Score:3)
Yes, the enshittification continues as they remove more features from lower tier plans.
If they're talking about the Google Cast protocol, it's just a remote control for your TV, not even screen mirroring... so the only reason to remove such a trivial feature is to force you to pay for it at a higher tier plan.
What else is new.
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> Yes, the enshittification continues as they remove more features from lower tier plans.
This isn't from their lower tier plans. This is from all their plans. Just like the inability to download content using the Windows app. It's a steaming turd regardless of how much you want to pay.
And HDCP madness (Score:3)
They're also cracking down on HDCP compatibility. My video glasses now also don't work with downloaded Netflix shows which is obnoxious. So of course I'm just going to go find an ISO and the more ISOs I download the less incentive I have to actually pay Netflix for something that doesn't work.
It's not like these anti-piracy efforts are doing anything to stop a perfect stream from being available 1 hour after airing.
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I propose a law requiring companies to continue to provide old versions of software. They can remove a feature from the new version, but I can still get the old one. In the past, if Microsoft removed a feature from Word 2005 for example, then one could refuse to upgrade. I could save the installer. Yes, eventually it won't work any longer, and I am not saying they must support every version into perpetuity. But if Netflix removes a feature, I can't download the old version. So they should be barred fr
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You are mixing delivery paradigms.
You don't own Netflix software. You rent it.
You owned Office 2005, so you have perpetual license to use that version of the software.
Why do you think Microsoft stopped shipping discrete versions of Office to the retail channel? They can make much more money perpetually renting it to you, while denying the ability to continue using old versions as they age out of compatibility with modern platforms.
Re: And HDCP madness (Score:2)
But boxed software works on its own as long as it's run on a compatible hardware and software (OS) platform. Netflix is an app and a service for the app.
You can pass a law they have to keep making the old app available, but that doesn't mean they have to keep delivering content to the old app
This is Horrible (Score:3)
I hate using the TV or Chromecast remotes to control playback. Pausing, scrubbing, and selecting content are all way better to control on my iPad.
If they donâ(TM)t restore it, bye bye Netflix.
Why is casting a feature of the app not the OS? (Score:2)
Shouldn't the OS be able to cast the screen, rather than this being a function of the application?
Re: Why is casting a feature of the app not the OS (Score:2)
Netflix casting doesnâ(TM)t actually do what many people here seem to think it does (forward the video stream to the target device).
What pressing the cast button does do is initiate streaming directly from the provider to the casted-to device (presumably using the credentials of the initiating device). The initiating device then becomes a kind of super-remote that has fancies like visual scrubbing and such. And the device is freed up for e.g. searching for something better to watch. Way better than a s
Drop Netflix (Score:2)
You don't need it. I don't have it and don't need it, you can too. You will save money and sleep, and hit Netflix in the pocket book.
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I get not needing it or wanting it. But why is hitting Netflix in the pocket book on your list of benefits?
News at 11. (Score:2)
Proprietary service drops support for proprietary protocol..
Streaming is no longer convenient (Score:1)
Yarr! Time to sail the seas again!
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Oh no, what happened? Oh no how terrible... anyways.
Oh no! (Score:2)
How am I going to connect to a VPN before launching Netflix content from another country to watch on my big screen?
Oh well, guess I need a whole home VPN on my router then.
If there is a will, there is a way.
How many TVs will this impact? (Score:2)
"Casting support is still available on ... TVs that support Google Cast natively, according to Netflix’s support page"
How many TVs do support Google Cast natively? I feel like all of ours do, but that's not a great sample size.
No streaming in hotels? (Score:1)
So we won't be able to stream Netflix in a hotel without inputting credentials into the hotel tv? That seems like a big step backwards.
Not In My House You Don't! (Score:1)
My tv has never been connected to teh internets and never will be.
There's only power and hdmi to screen.
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+1, same at my house. Any of those apps only live on other devices that are replaceable as needed (e.g. Roku, Tivo, etc) and talk to the TV via an HDMI cable. The TV itself is only a big monitor.
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I use an Apple TV. My TVs only connect once in while when I let my IoT network talk to the internet for software updates (and even then its on a per device level, when I want to fix something like HDMI-CEC functionality, etc).
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Congratulations?
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You guys believe in TVs?!?!?!
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You're just pathetic. I do not own _two_ TVs. PLUS the one I don't have. That's -3 TV owned, FYI.
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You have a TV? Poseur! Turn in your fedora!
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But how else does your TV get firmware updates that change things in subtle ways to the annoyance of its users?