;-) so far performance has been unaffected. And I haven't had to recharge it in 3 days.

DRM? Maybe your tablet isn't fully supported for DRM by the app or your browser. The sound stream won't be encrypted so that's fine, and it's possible that some of the titles are held as a separate stream as well. Or maybe as stationary images they can be decrypted (more) successfully.

I've lost track of what Netflix does, but they've used and/or are using MS Playready, Widevine, and Playfair. They've been withdrawing support for older devices over the last 2-3 years, so maybe this is the issue. 

If you're using the app, have you tried playing through Chrome or Firefox instead, and vice versa?

Yeah it looks like the ppv channels that you didn't pay for on a motel tv. I think you're on to something.

Finally found an app that will do SMB shares AND play musics in the background; Total Commander. It's a two-pane affair like other *** commander unix file browsers (I like Midnight Commander on linux distros).

It seems the trick to SMB > v1 on android is the share has to be user/pass, not guest access.