[all variants] NBC's Olympic Videos Won't Play on Linux

[mikeric]

This Sucks, i also noticed a few radio stations i used to listen to online have recently switched to using this too, so i cant listen to them either.

[AR_Kozz]

I posted about my own attempts getting around Silverlight, before I saw this thread... since it's already under discussion I guess I'll mention the main things here too

1) Silverlight does NOT work under Wine 1.0. When you try to use Firefox to watch under Wine, you get a message to download Silverlight, but then it won't extract. When I tried going back in time a bit to Silverlight 1.0 beta, I found out it had an expired root certificate; actually installing would have involved downloading several hundred megabytes more. That is, it's just an archive of a downloading client. The newer version shut you down without saying why. In any case, WineHQ rates Silverlight "Garbage."

2) There is a linux port of Silverlight, but it is not finished yet. Imagine Microsoft-nbc not getting it done in time for the olympics (it was expected by "mid-year.") If you want to try to get it working with Firefox, you'll have to compile it. Here's a link:

http://www.go-mono.com/moonlight/

Before you get all excited note the binaries don't play video, and it's hard to compile. (I'm too tired right now to go through that frustrating process)

3) China Central Television streams its main sports network, CCTV5, over the net. It's lousy but it's live. Try this one:

mms://218.56.57.38/cctv5

Also, if anyone is good at using proxies, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation www.cbc.com is also multicasting olympic sports, and they are using wmv as their format. Mplayer would work there but for me in the USA it's region-locked. I've tried using proxies but they still know I'm south of the border. If anyone in the US gets it working, please spread the good word.

Finally there is supposed to be streaming available on bbc.com, but again I can't find it. If anyone can access this with proxies or something, I'd like to know.

[Hairy_Palms]

well that sucks, at least here in the uk i can catch all the coverage using the BBC iplayer, so i guess coverage will start to pop up on torrent sites sooner or later

[moore.bryan]

Originally Posted by AR_Kozz 2) There is a linux port of Silverlight, but it is not finished yet.... Before you get all excited note the binaries don't play video, and it's hard to compile. (I'm too tired right now to go through that frustrating process)

you're preaching to the choir there... this is a real promising program which is a huge PITA to get going if it even compiles for you.

3) China Central Television streams its main sports network, CCTV5, over the net. It's lousy but it's live.

my connection is actually pretty decent... well, at least fair. doesn't let you choose what to watch, but at least it's more coverage.

Also, if anyone is good at using proxies, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation www.cbc.com is also multicasting olympic sports, and they are using wmv as their format. Mplayer would work there but for me in the USA it's region-locked. I've tried using proxies but they still know I'm south of the border. If anyone in the US gets it working, please spread the good word.

cbc.com is a comic book website... try mediaplayerconnectivity addon, vlc, and tor running through foxyproxy, but no luck so far.

Finally there is supposed to be streaming available on bbc.com, but again I can't find it. If anyone can access this with proxies or something, I'd like to know.

the bbc locks-out any ip's not in the uk and even when i've set the ip to london, i couldn't get access... i guess there's a screw loose.

[strAlan]

It's cbc.ca, not .com and they have beautiful flash video live. However, I can't seem to find a highlights section. Kozz - how did you find that stream? It seems to be danish or nordic.

[teddmeister2]

Sorry, I made a mistake, the youtube channel I referred to previously only has Phelps's world record.

[strAlan]

Ok scratch the CBC. I just tried playing their live broadcast of Beach Volleyball which they're showing right now and it's not playing. It says you need the WMP to play their blasted video. As of right now it seems like there's only my VM solution, Sopcast, or mms streams.

[AR_Kozz]

Originally Posted by strAlan It's cbc.ca, not .com and they have beautiful flash video live. However, I can't seem to find a highlights section. Kozz - how did you find that stream? It seems to be danish or nordic.

yeah, I knew that about cbc.ca. If you type enough you're bound to make an error or two

You are correct the url I posted is in europe, it's just the particular one I used. It was a page-embedded url so Firefox doesn't try to go external with it. I need to convince Firefox that it's not supposed to use Totem for non-embedded mms, and didn't want to bother with that (I was missing the fencing). Here's the url for the page itself:

http://www.thoughtsofanordinaryman.c...2008-live.html

There's plenty of other streams of cctv5 also, non-embedded, and the cctv home page which requires you to download a client from them. I saw a number of sports-channel stream sites that include cctv5, it should be easy to find one that works with mplayer or vlc

I'm sure not everyone knew moonlight is a work-in-progress... I am gonna try and build it I think just for the hell of it... actually, maybe not

I figured the bbc.com didn't show the streams because of my location, I think every time I go there they have me pegged for a Yank... it always says "international version" for one thing... I tried using a UK proxy and they still knew I was on the wrong side of the ocean

strAlan, there are wmp plugins for mplayer, they're non-free though

[Diggs808]

Cross posting this......

I have an idea that may just work...but it will take some effort and a little money on our part. Lets stage an old fashioned write in protest! Notice how all of these shows that nearly get canceled are saved by write in campaigns? In the case of Jericho...the show was saved (at least it was allowed to wrap up) by fans sending bags of nuts to the president of CBS. So lets do the same...except...lets send them a copy of our favorite distro. It won't cost much...just go online and download the ISO...burn it to a CD or two and then send it to the president of NBC along with a POLITE AND FRIENDLY letter.

Personally I will commit to sending one of these per day until they change thier mind or the olympics end.

Sample Letter

Mr. Jeff Zucker
President and Chief Executive Officer
NBC Universal Television Group
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
(212) 664-4444


Dear Mr Zucker,

I have thourgholy enjoyed the Olympics so far, however we have recently discovered that the online content enjoyed by many in the United States is not available for computer users who run Linux Operating systems includling Ubuntu, Red Hat, and others. This is very disappointing for those of us who choose to use Linux. It means that we are not able to view the olympics and cheer on our team in our favorite sports.

We are not asking for much, however what we are asking for is simple. Allow us access to the online content that many others are already enjoying. Websites outside of the US (cbc.ca and others) are broadcasting thier internet content in Flash. We respectfully ask as a community of computer users and olympic fans that you make your content available to those consumers who do not use Microsoft products.

If you do not have the technical resources available to make this happen we offer our services as a community to make this work.

Thank you very much for your time.

Signed,

(YOUR NAME HERE)

[k_i_k]

Actually, while it is not completely trivial, it is possible to get the live stream URLs from the NBC website without going through its terrible user interface.

I wrote a short Python script to do just that. See attached. As is, it will scan the current Tennis schedule and print the matches that are being streamed live, together with and MMS stream URL. The stream can be downloaded with mimms (apt-get install mimms) or viewed with xine or mplayer (which can also save streams with the -dumpstream option). Look inside for examples of how to change Tennis to your favorite sport. If you want to view past matches, change 'Live ' to 'Rewind ' in the script. Although, I've so far had not had much success with that.

Alas, this script will only work if you're inside the US. Try the script, modify to your heart's desire and spread the word.