Arch Linux

Fran

Member

Registered: 2017-08-23

Posts: 11

Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

I've been trying to get HD streams working for Amazon Prime Video for a while and I still don't know if there is any way to do it or it is just impossible.

I tried with google-chrome, chromium and firefox, to no avail. The "best" quality I can select is 1.17GB per hour, and everything looks like crap. The same video shows a label "HD 1080p" or something like that in macos besides the time/time remaining text (nothing in linux), and the settings menu lets me choose more than 6GB per hour as "best" quality. It looks way better.

Amazon says HD is not supported in anything other than windows/macos, so I would assume that it cannot be done, but I see SO MANY posts in a lot forums from many people saying that they get HD streams without doing anything special in linux that MAYBE there is some way I'm not seeing.

(I tried running chrome and firefox under wine, but in wayland I just see a blank screen.)

cirrus9

Member

Registered: 2016-04-15

Posts: 51

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

Amazon states on their website that only SD video is supported on Linux. There are some discussions on reddit, just do a search for "amazon HD, Linux, reddit". There are some who claim HD is working for them on Fedora Linux. Some say to try user agent spoofing, which is something that I have used to access video, and audio service on Linux in the past. I have a Fedora installation, and I'm going to try when I have time. I have not been able to get Prime to work with HD video on Arch myself, but I'm still experimenting. Hope this helps.

progandy

Member

Registered: 2012-05-17

Posts: 5,266

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

There are addons for firefox and chromium which try to make 1080p available, but they don't always succeed. Another similar option may be the netflix plugin for kodi.

You can thank netflix for using widevine DRM (and PlayReady with MS Edge).

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| alias CUTF='LANG=en_XX.UTF-8@POSIX ' |

cirrus9

Member

Registered: 2016-04-15

Posts: 51

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

After trying several things again to get Prime Video to work in HD, I have given up. User agent spoofing doesn't work for me, and I tried with Fedora as well, and no luck with that either. I don't know what the people who claim on other forums, to have it working, have done. I'm not sure if it does work for them, or if they think it does, and don't actually know the difference. I guess when Amazon says no HD in Linux, they mean it.

Fran

Member

Registered: 2017-08-23

Posts: 11

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

After trying several things again to get Prime Video to work in HD, I have given up. User agent spoofing doesn't work for me, and I tried with Fedora as well, and no luck with that either. I don't know what the people who claim on other forums, to have it working, have done. I'm not sure if it does work for them, or if they think it does, and don't actually know the difference. I guess when Amazon says no HD in Linux, they mean it.

Yeah, I'm starting to think that the people saying they can play HD content in linux nowadays either a) can't tell the difference or b) tried in the past (before April) and still assume they can. I've also tried everything with every browser to no avail.

Thanks for trying.

There are addons for firefox and chromium which try to make 1080p available, but they don't always succeed. Another similar option may be the netflix plugin for kodi.

You can thank netflix for using widevine DRM (and PlayReady with MS Edge).

I used to use the amazon prime plugin for Kodi by Sandmann79 and it worked great (in HD) until some months ago, when amazon activated some kind of code signing in widevine: https://github.com/Sandmann79/xbmc/issues/294

I was hoping the "official" google or firefox packages were signed for widevine, but I only get SD resolution with them too. In windows both firefox and chrome stream in HD, though.

dan_kasak

Member

Registered: 2019-08-02

Posts: 3

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

There are addons for firefox and chromium which try to make 1080p available, but they don't always succeed. Another similar option may be the netflix plugin for kodi.

You can thank netflix for using widevine DRM (and PlayReady with MS Edge).

I've been trying to get the Netflix plugin for Kodi working. When I try to launch a video from the plugin, I get a dialog saying that inputstream.adaptive is missing. But it's included in Kodi, and I see message like this in the kodi log:

[dkasak@nanginator temp]$ grep -i inputstream kodi.log
2019-08-13 07:50:35.249 T:139624916114112  NOTICE: ADDON: kodi.binary.instance.inputstream v2.0.8 installed
2019-08-13 07:50:35.249 T:139624916114112  NOTICE: ADDON: script.module.inputstreamhelper v0.3.4 installed
[dkasak@nanginator temp]$

Any ideas?

dan_kasak

Member

Registered: 2019-08-02

Posts: 3

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

OK answering my own question here - it seems that the Arch build of kodi does NOT include inputstream.adaptive. You can install it from the package: kodi-addon-inputstream-adaptive

Dheart

Member

From: Sofia, Bulgaria

Registered: 2006-10-26

Posts: 956

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

So... After some investigation, and if you don't mind using wine + MS Edge, it is possible
1) Install wine-staging
2) Install Edge-dev: https://askubuntu.com/questions/840987/ … e-on-linux
3) Run Edge:

wine 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge Dev\Application\msedge.exe'

4) Log in to amazon prime video and *profit*

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You know what I'm looking for
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leonavis

Member

From: Bremen, Germany

Registered: 2021-06-27

Posts: 71

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

4) Log in to amazon prime video and *profit*

I just get a black screen. https://imgur.com/A4Ar5qy https://imgur.com/7hxTfij

Tried using firefox with wine, amazon tells me I lack DRM. Tried to use Safari with wine, just shuts down, with Playonlinux, it does start and is stable, but when I go to amazon Webpage, I just get a black page, and only there. Really strange, all that.

Last edited by leonavis (2021-06-27 14:32:14)

glenjo

Member

From: Pacific NW

Registered: 2020-06-09

Posts: 43

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

Do a Windoze VM and watch it there?

KDen

Member

Registered: 2021-12-04

Posts: 4

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

Here's a post from Manjaro forums describing how they did it that might help
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/how-to-watc … jaro/61416

leonavis

Member

From: Bremen, Germany

Registered: 2021-06-27

Posts: 71

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

Here's a post from Manjaro forums describing how they did it that might help
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/how-to-watc … jaro/61416

Hey, cool. It works so far. Only thing is, it does not create shortcuts unter .local/share/applications - there is no "wine" folder there, nor are the Google Chrome shortcuts to be found anywhere on the system, naturally not the one for prime I created either. So I have to manually go into the .wine directory and access the chrome.exe there. Which means that I have a problem appending the Pulse-line to the non-existent shortcut, which means crackling sound. Any ideas?

KDen

Member

Registered: 2021-12-04

Posts: 4

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

I haven't really gotten into Wine yet but, since that was for Manjaro I would guess wine installed/created shortcuts somewhere else for whatever distro/native arch you're using.
maybe try:

sudo find / -name "*Chrome.desktop*"

and depending if you're using pipewire instead of pulse you might have to use pipewire_latency

leonavis

Member

From: Bremen, Germany

Registered: 2021-06-27

Posts: 71

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

Well, I did not find it. So I just wrote it myself, and now it works. This is my GoogleChrome.desktop-file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Google Chrome
Comment=Tool to watch Prime in HD
Exec=PULSE_LATENCY_MSEC=60 wine '/home/leonavis/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Google/Chrome/Application/chrome.exe'
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Internet;

I'll just put Prime as the startpage. Thanks for the link!

dan1708

Member

Registered: 2022-04-01

Posts: 1

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

With version 100 of Google Chrome the browser doesn't start anymore on wine and fails with the following error message:

[872:876:0401/153108.105:ERROR:gpu_process_host.cc(968)] GPU process launch failed: error_code=49
[872:876:0401/153108.105:FATAL:gpu_data_manager_impl_private.cc(447)] GPU process isn't usable. Goodbye.
[0401/153108.106:ERROR:crashpad_client_win.cc(134)] crash server failed to launch, self-terminating

Is there any known workaround/fix for it?

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,426

Website

Re: Is Amazon Prime Video + HD + linux possible?

Please do not resurrect old topics: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Genera … bumping%22

Mod note: closing

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