Download 'Watch Now' Movies from Netflix

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 7, 2007
Updated • Jul 27, 2013
Music and Video
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3

Netflix, an online movie rentals company, is offering a so called 'Watch Now' service since the beginning of 2007 which allows subscribed users to watch streaming movies. This offer lets you watch x hours of movies where x is the amount that you pay in dollars for your monthly subscription.

The movies require a Windows operating system, Internet Explorer 6 or higher and Windows Media Player 11. An experienced user would have already guessed it that there is some sort of DRM involved in this setup and indeed it is. There is no obvious way to download the movies or watch them in your favorite movie player.

All you need to change this is the drm stripper fairuse4wm and a text editor according to DIzzIE from the rorta forum.

Step by Step guide:

  • Go to Netflix.com/watchnow and choose a movie to watch
  • Click on play, if netflix wants to install the Netflix Movie Installer do that
  • WMP should tell you that you do not have the rights to view that movie, hit NO
  • Open the source of the website
  • Search for 'WNPlaylistMovies' in that file, the result should begin with ar WNPlaylistMovies =
  • There should be several entries each with a different bandwidth, select one.
  • Copy the url that starts with ehub and paste it in a blank new text file, e.g. (http://index.ehub.netflix.com/item/?x=sdjkdsjH)
  • Create a html link from it, use this template: name and save it as movie.html
  • Now open the html file in your browser and right-click the link and save it. This will download the movie which is usually between 1-2 Gigabytes. It is however still DRM infested.
  • Double-click the downloaded file and click Yes when it asks to connect to the website to acquire the license
  • Launch FairUse4WM after you clicked Yes and wait until you see that the Play button becomes active in WMP. Click on Recover Keys. It should find some, hit ok and answer the next question with Yes.
  • Timing is crucial here. You do get an FairUse4WM error sometimes, just try again then.
  • If everything went fine FairUse4WM rips the DRM out of the file and saves a new copy without DRM which you can watch in any video player that you want.

Update: It is unlikely that this method is still working. Netflix is now offering digital streaming subscriptions that allow users to stream unlimited media to their systems. The service is still locked to a select few countries in the world including the US, Norway and the UK.

Programs like Audials may still allow you to record Netflix video streams.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

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