is linux lagging with internet video?

[deadowl]

What sucks: Many online video services support only Mac and Windows.

This includes CNN, ABC, etc, with ABC actually using Flash.

What makes internet radio a completely different story from internet video?

In order to watch anything from CBS or BBC, you have to have RealPlayer. This is essentially their solution to cross-platform compatibility. However, the installation step is annoying. Having software that you're only going to use for this specific purpose is also annoying unless it's hidden to some extent. Still, don't know how to get BBC to actually work with RealPlayer although it says it can.

It seems as though television is being treated as a product rather than a service, while radio is being treated more as a service than it is a product (save the issues of the RIAA), which might explain the difference in focus on compatibility.

I would really like to cancel my cable subscription, I really would, but YouTube certainly isn't going to replace TV unless they let people upload larger files, and the television stations are clueless of how to penetrate the online market as well as radio has. I can't even aggregate with them, it's all linked into the site. Too many services are offering clips rather than streaming shows. which is annoying as hell... I can deal with ads, and I don't really care about time frames for viewing as long as I don't pay, and if they set up protocols to aggregate their shows for free, I doubt a lot of people would be pirating it.

The DRM and format wars are f***ing ridiculous. At this point, if a user wants to use online video as a less expensive alternative to cable, they'd probably be luckier using Windows, or even a Mac. Also, I really don't know of any home desktop distro that makes any effort to confront things the issue of internet TV out of the box.

[kidders]

Hi there,

Obviously, most Linux distros will never make any attempt to make it "easy" for users to access content presented in non-free formats. Out-of-the-box access to virtually all of the most common media formats is, for the foreseeable future at least, completely out of the question. :-(

It's odd that you mention the BBC though ... I've never had any difficulty accessing their RealPlayer content, despite the fact that I have a 64-bit box! I wonder what's causing your problems.

As far as non-Linux platforms are concerned, I agree completely with your comments about DRM though. The concept seems to be having two effects, imo...
Learning to crack media files' security features is no longer the domain of people with specialised knowledge; so much so that piracy is something more and more people do on a daily basis, and fewer and fewer people have any problem with. It's amazing how inconvenient software manufacturers have made it for me to share my own media between my various devices.
Content providers seem to be cutting out more and more of their audiences. Last I checked, for instance, Channel 4's "on demand" service is only available to Windows users, for legal reasons. Denying the king of multimedia (ie the Mac) access to their content seems a curious move, to say the least.


I guess it's Betamax, the QWERTY keyboard & friends all over again. Open, platform-independent media formats make perfect, incontrovertible sense ... which is exactly why they'll never catch on.

[DoctorMO]

most Linux distros will never make any attempt to make it "easy" for users to access content presented in non-free formats. Out-of-the-box access to virtually all of the most common media formats is, for the foreseeable future at least, completely out of the question.

We'd love to make the attempt, but I'd rather not go to jail for 10 years by breaking the DMCA; support for multimedia in Linux begins with your lawyer and ends with your governmental representative. there is only one way to serve the public interest on this issue and that is to make proprietory formats illegal. The other alternative is to not consume any media until the media has woken up and uses the correct formats.

(I say correct because any proprietory solution is incorrect instantly)

[deadowl]

I think that the music industry's net issues will be wrapped up in the next five years as the market demands, and online television will make great advancements as the market demands. It's moreso the movie rental industry's net migration that I believe will be the biggest challenge.