Widevine CDM (for EME/DRM support) on Linux

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Widevine is a “Content Decryption Module” (CDM) that provides Vivaldi with support for Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). EME are a form of Digital rights management (DRM) that are required by many, popular audio/video streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Tidal, etc.).

Testing support

To test Widevine support, go to demo.castlabs.com and attempt to play the videos that are tagged with “DRM”.

Installing Widevine

If DRM videos will not play:

Open the Terminal (command prompt)
Issue the following:
sudo /opt/vivaldi/update-widevine
Restart the browser.

IMPORTANT The above assumes the normal (stable) install location using official (rpm/deb) packages. If the path is wrong or you get a “command not found” error, then:

Open vivaldi://about
Look at the Executable Path to find out where Vivaldi is installed
If necessary, adjust the code above accordingly.

If you don’t have permissions or would prefer not use sudo, refer to “Running the the Vivaldi Linux update-ffmpeg and update-widevine scripts without using root“.

Troubleshooting

If the DRM test video will still not play, file a bug report stating that you run Linux and cannot play proprietary media. Mention your Linux distribution and distribution version.

Most audio/video streaming services also make use of “proprietary media” (H.264/AAC). If none of the videos on the test page play, you should also check out our guide to HTML5 Proprietary Media on Linux.

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