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malocite
March 1st, 2008, 02:56 AM
I have been a happy Ubuntu user now since the summer. I'm learning more everyday, and having a great time. The only draw back however (other than playing civ 4) has been watching online video. I am a Canadian, so most US sites block us out, so we are stuck watching the stuff off of our networks. CTV (http://www.ctv.ca), our largest and best network has recently been building a broadband site that uses Microsoft Silverlight, which as you know doesn't work well (if at all) with Linux. I had begun to resign myself to the fact that this was probably just the way it was going to be. I write a blog (http://malocite.wordpress.com) on television and how the internet changes the way we are going to enjoy it, from a Canadian angle (because thats where I'm from) and today I was reading another blog I frequent and he was talking about the Canadian Discovery Channel working on Linux, I checked it out, and voila... it works!

I looked a little deeper and found out the comedy network (our comedy station) is also converting to this NEW player!!! Today, I got to enjoy my first episode of The Daily Show from inside Linux ever!

This of course is a partial response to an earlier thread I saw in the archives a few months back http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-620592.html (http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-620592.html) So it looks like we're finally starting to turn the corner up here!

If you want, you can read my whole entry on it here (http://malocite.wordpress.com/2008/02/29/ctv-is-wonderful/)

AWESOME NEWS CANADA!!!

--malocite

Sef
March 1st, 2008, 03:54 AM
Moved to community cafe since poster is not asking for help.

malocite
March 1st, 2008, 04:09 AM
Good call, - sorry about that.

Mr. Picklesworth
March 1st, 2008, 04:17 AM
That is pretty nice, indeed. It's good to see the public networks finally doing Internet broadcasts! Public broadcasters really do just as well as the payed cable ones for most uses, where their only big problem has been in the broadcast medium itself. Cable lines are (quality-wise) a superior way to get picture delivered compared to over the air analog stuff, but that cable stuff just happens to package the commercial broadcasters as well with the service fees. Digital broadcast works beautifully since the technologies essentially require high quality output. There is no reason why someone should need to pay all these bills for telephone and TV when the Internet is a completely superior system for everything.
Having said that, in terms of the stability, longevity and cost of the infrastructure, I am willing to bet that analog air broadcast coupled with a decent antenna is a far better choice...

In fairness, the CBC is also being pretty decent about Linux and open standards in general, even testing out ogg support (http://www.cbc.ca/listen/ogg.html) for their radio streams. (And posting Linux directions fairly visibly where the support is not entirely there). They have also been one of few media outlets to not use Flash all over their web site, instead resorting to more accessible Javascript stuff.
They don't do quite as much yet with streaming, but the podcasting services are great and rarely stumble for me with Linux. (Though a few of them still do exclusively use mp3 or WMV, they're definitely seeing the error in those ways). Hopefully they'll inspire some innovation from the other networks; podcasts are a great way to go here.

They're also our best-est.

Hm... Holy war ^ 2. This won't be good...
... I need to, err, ...
***NO CARRIER***

malocite
March 10th, 2008, 11:11 PM
Forgive my ignorance... but whats the problem with mp3? Its better than wmv right?

--malocite

SunnyRabbiera
March 11th, 2008, 12:07 AM
Forgive my ignorance... but whats the problem with mp3? Its better than wmv right?

--malocite

yeh but most people would like ogg as its a open format, but if its MP3 I am good with it.

-Phi-
March 11th, 2008, 01:58 AM
Huzzah! Maybe I can finally watch Corner Gas again!

- Phi

VitaminBB
October 24th, 2008, 09:25 AM
I run Ubuntu linux, latest stable release.

How the heck do you get any CTV programs to work?

I load the page and the area where the video should load is blank and never shows anything, not loading, just empty.

This isent a new Ubuntu installation and any other video works, no problem, youtube, dailymotion, flash videos, you name, they all work just fine.

Ctv doesnt!!!

HELP !!!

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j121/ArghMonkey/Screenshot.jpg

darrenn
October 24th, 2008, 11:04 AM
I run Ubuntu linux, latest stable release.

How the heck do you get any CTV programs to work?

I load the page and the area where the video should load is blank and never shows anything, not loading, just empty.

This isent a new Ubuntu installation and any other video works, no problem, youtube, dailymotion, flash videos, you name, they all work just fine.

Ctv doesnt!!!

HELP !!!

Do you have flashblock installed? That might be your problem.

darrenn
October 24th, 2008, 11:05 AM
Global tv also works with linux.

http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/video/index.html

VitaminBB
October 24th, 2008, 12:01 PM
Do you have flashblock installed? That might be your problem.

No I didnt have that installed but I did disable ALL of my addons and restarted firefox, still not working at all.

Btw I dont know why but if I click on "help" on the top right corner it tells me I am not authorized to view that page, if I try to access any part of the CTV blog site it gives me the same message.

darrenn
October 24th, 2008, 12:39 PM
No I didnt have that installed but I did disable ALL of my addons and restarted firefox, still not working at all.

Btw I dont know why but if I click on "help" on the top right corner it tells me I am not authorized to view that page, if I try to access any part of the CTV blog site it gives me the same message.

Not sure what's wrong try upgrading to flash 10. Try the site with opera are you still having the same problems?

VitaminBB
October 24th, 2008, 07:38 PM
Not sure what's wrong try upgrading to flash 10. Try the site with opera are you still having the same problems?

Tried it with Opera, same thing, im pretty sure my flash is up to date, how do I check that?

andrewabc
October 24th, 2008, 07:48 PM
I run Ubuntu linux, latest stable release.

How the heck do you get any CTV programs to work?


I think your problem is that from your screenshot it shows you are at discovery channel website and not CTV website.

VitaminBB
October 24th, 2008, 08:03 PM
I think your problem is that from your screenshot it shows you are at discovery channel website and not CTV website.

No, its all the same setup, Comedy Network, Discovery Channel, Space, TSN, MuchMusic, MTV Canada etc .... all the same exact setup, all under the wing of CTV ...

VitaminBB
October 25th, 2008, 09:22 PM
I think for some reason CTV banned my IP, strangest thing, no clue why ...

Anyone else not able to access the video?

Coldkill
October 25th, 2008, 09:34 PM
I got it working on Opera (just had to wait a while)
It wouldn't work in Firefox until I disabled ad-block. But I think it has to do with the fact they use Silverlight for most of the videos

ryno519
October 25th, 2008, 10:37 PM
No, its all the same setup, Comedy Network, Discovery Channel, Space, TSN, MuchMusic, MTV Canada etc .... all the same exact setup, all under the wing of CTV ...

A lot of the videos seem to be in silverlight. You might be able to get the silverlight videos to work if you compile the experimental moonlight yourself, but that would still be a little iffy.

The CBC is starting to move away from their WMV streams towards flash based solutions as well. For example, you can now watch full episodes of The Tudors from the CBC website. For some reason the CBC posts a spoiler directly to the left of the video, so you have to try to ignore that.

http://www.cbc.ca/tudors/episodes.html#clipId=896785694