If you have already given the new Microsoft Windows 8.1 Preview a go after it was made available to all by Microsoft for free. You might have already had a chance to check out the new Netflix HTML 5 streaming support included in the the new Windows 8.1 Preview.
If you haven’t and will be using Microsoft’s Intern Explorer 11 browser you will be pleased to learn that Netflix has announced they working closely with Microsoft to implement new HTML 5 Premium Video Extensions in Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 8.1 Preview.
The new Premium Video Extensions include HTML 5 Media Source Extensions (MSE), Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) and Web Cryptography API (WebCrypto). Netflix explains:
“Over the last year, we’ve been collaborating with other industry leaders on three W3C initiatives which are positioned to solve this problem of playing premium video content directly in the browser without the need for browser plugins such as Silverlight. We call these, collectively, the “HTML5 Premium Video Extensions”:”
Microsoft implemented the Media Source Extensions (MSE) using the Media Foundation APIs within Windows. Since Media Foundation supports hardware acceleration using the GPU, this means that we can achieve high quality 1080p video playback with minimal CPU and battery utilization. Now a single charge gets you more of your favorite movies and TV shows!
Microsoft also has an implementation of the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) using Microsoft PlayReady DRM. This provides the content protection needed for premium video services like Netflix.
Microsoft implemented the Web Cryptography API (WebCrypto) in Internet Explorer, which allows us to encrypt and decrypt communication between our JavaScript application and the Netflix servers. “
Source: Netflix