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ARM Browser / Netflix Support


weathercloud

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Breaking the ice here. So hello everyone.

 

I am still entry into SBCs and have been loving every moment of it. I started with the Raspberry PI 3B, and have recently been playing with the new Asus Tinkerboard. One of my SBC projects is to build a little media streaming device for some dumb monitors with HDMi input I have lying around. The Tinkerboard was very appealing to me because of its gigabit Ethernet, I thought it would make a much better quality internet streaming device.

 

We seem to be lacking a browser for ARMh7 that can support Netflix and other like services playback. chromium is missing the needed WideVine plugin, and I have yet to find a working Firefox plug-in.

 

Anyone have any ideas or workarounds?

 

 

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I was more hoping to drum up some interest and support around Armbian for this topic. Android is great, but it has a long ways to go before it is running smooth on the Tinkerboard SBC (at least from my testing).  Is Chrome supported on Android? or Chromium? I don't think Chromium supports the WindeVine plugin required for Netflix playback. 

 

Just thought maybe we could fill this gap with Armbian. I have spoken to many others in this same boat. SBCs I think could make really cheap, and powerful streaming devices and a cool, fun, cheap alternative to a chromecast, firestick, or roku. 

 

 

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As a general "rule of thumb": if you want to use

  • ARM based board
  • Multimedia and especially DRM
  • a web browser in Linux

then you can fulfill no more than 2 out of these 3 requirements. It doesn't depend on the OS flavor (Armbian or not), it's just the current state of web browsers and HW acceleration on ARM platform.

 

I would suggest looking at boards that have good Android builds with high enough level of Widevine DRM security. Then you will be able to use native Android apps for netflix, Youtube, etc.

 

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Currently, Armbian is able to play accelerated streaming video in  Chromium in RK3288 boards (MiQi,Tinkerboard) if you follow the steps at https://forum.armbian.com/topic/6506-tutorial-3d-video-acceleration-and-opencl-in-rk3288-boards-with-new-44-default-kernel/

 

 

If you want to to use services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime, you should also install the libraries from this post in the Tinkerboard forums: https://tinkerboarding.co.uk/forum/thread-329.html  . I'm not sure whether they will work on Armbian Xenial (those libs are for Debian Stretch).

 

We are also working to make web video acceleration work in other boards, such as XU4

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