Anime4K for streaming?

[Yujiro2]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Anime4K useable for Streaming (Crunchyroll, etc.)

Describe the solution you'd like
A live "Filter" for Online Videos/Anime

[Lolen10]

I heavily doubt that is possible. Crunchyroll, Netflix, Prime Video and co. use DRM to encrypt their streams. That means you can't access the video streams directly without decrypting it beforehand.

The only case where this would be possible are streams that aren't encrypted, like YouTube-Videos or most illegal streaming sites.

Fun fact: That's the same reason why you can't download Netflix-Streams with yt-dlp.

[Tama47]

@Lolen10 I don't think it's entirely impossible, just that no one has done it for video streaming yet. Program like Magpie is used to upscale entire window for games. So I think a general-purpose upscaler that upscales everything on your screen could work.

Fun fact: You can turn off Hardware Acceleration in your browser settings to take screenshots and screen recordings on sites with DRM like Netflix and Crunchyroll.

[Lolen10]

I didn't mean it's completely impossible, but I think nobody will care to implement it as it would be very hard. Both for the developer and the users, as the user (or the developers) would have to provide their own encryption keys. And If you turn off Hardware acceleration, most streaming sites will block your playback entirely. (I didn't test it with Netflix, but Crunchyroll certainly does)

[Lolen10]

So I think a general-purpose upscaler that upscales everything on your screen could work.

Try to capture your Netflix/Crunchyroll-Playback with OBS or any other Screen-Capturing software, and you'll see that you only get a black window on the recording where the video is supposed to be. A general purpose upscaler would face the same problem, as it cannot fetch the video when DRM is used.

[Tama47]

I didn't mean it's completely impossible, but I think nobody will care to implement it as it would be very hard.

Projects do exist, but I don't disagree with you, as these projects don’t seem to come to fruition.
https://github.com/Anime4KWebBoost/Anime4K-WebGPU
https://github.com/sb2702/websr

And If you turn off Hardware acceleration, most streaming sites will block your playback entirely.

I've never had issues with any streaming sites with DRM.

Try to capture your Netflix/Crunchyroll-Playback with OBS or any other Screen-Capturing software, and you'll see that you only get a black window on the recording

Crunchyroll.mp4

Crunchyroll.mp4

Netflix.mp4

Netflix.mp4

A general purpose upscaler would face the same problem, as it cannot fetch the video when DRM is used.

So no, clearly it is possible to capture these streams, and I hope we can have an upscaler that works for web videos someday.

[Lolen10]

Okay, this is weird. As I tried it, it didn't work...
Perhaps it has something to do with the operating system used? (Windows could be more restrictive). But I don't want to make unfounded assumptions here either.

[Tama47]

I tried it, it didn't work...

Are you sure Hardware Acceleration is turned off?

Perhaps it has something to do with the operating system used? (Windows could be more restrictive)

I have not tried on Linux, but Windows works just fine.

Video

Windows.mp4

*Note: I had to compress the videos to upload on GitHub.