Binge.com.au video streams not working on Ubuntu 20.04

I am running Ubuntu 20.04 and have subscribed to the new Binge.com.au video streaming service offered by Foxtel.

When trying to stream via Ubuntu, it freezes at 20% buffer. I have tried multiple browsers- brave, chrome, firefox and have the same issue.

I have tested it out on a Windows computer and this streaming service works fine.

Does anyone know what can cause this issue in Ubuntu? Or has come across a similar issue?

3 Answers

Just wanted to let you know I have found a temporary work around to play a movie on binge.com.au, inspect the element by right clicking the video/error and inspect, then chose the Application tab in DevTools, select Local Storage for Binge and where it says "ares-playback-details" edit the array of into and change 'canPlayHighDrm' from "false" to "true".

Refresh the page and press play and it should work! :)

Based on the answer from @Aaron_L, I have created an extension for firefox. It can be downloaded here:

This should hopefully be a more permanent fix to the issue.

Source code:

Note: Firefox does not play nicely with binge and glitches alot, so I recommend using chromium. I did not publish the extension to the chrome web store but you can download the crx file here. You can load the extension by turning on developer mode, refreshing and then drag the file into the extensions page in chrome

Faced the same problem. Turned out they use HEVC codec for streaming which is not supported natively by any browser (except for Safari). In windows all browsers delegate it to the system itself (thus you can watch Binge even in MS Edge or latest IE), but as far as I can see, at the moment there is no "linux" way to watch it.

You either need to use a virtual machine with Win or organise dualboot or use your mobile phone.