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Streaming March Madness On Linux?

Posted by timothy on from the when-you-can-snatch-this-pebble-from-my-hand dept.

neersign writes "March Madness is here and NCAA.com is streaming all of the games over the internet for free. The downside is they are using Microsoft technologies to do so. The standard player lists Windows XP/Vista, IE6, and WMP 9 as the base requirements. The High Quality Video Player requires Silverlight 2. So my question is: how would a Linux user be able to work around these requirements and watch the games?"

6 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. VirtualBox by Protocron · · Score: 3, Informative

    Download VirtualBox

    http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

    Install a version of Windows XP. If you don't have one find a torrent... cough cough blackxp cough.

    Watch March Madness on Windows on Linux.

    For the record, I don't watch sports, so I don't know that it work. That said, I have watched Netflix (uses Silverlight) on a licensed Windows in Virtualbox on Ubuntu.

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    CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
    1. Re:VirtualBox by Ilgaz · · Score: 2, Informative

      On x86, it shouldn't. They all have 2d acceleration (on hardware level) which covers the acceleration features a video player would need too.

      What matters is RAM. XP should run on at least 768/1GB RAM and Linux overhead must be calculated along with it. It should be prevented from swapping (real swapping, not tactical one). The ''Virtual GPU'' should have 16 or 32MB of RAM too.

      Another thing is, if CPU has virtual machine acceleration, it should be enabled (disabled by default).

      Sun's Virtualbox comes with _very_ conservative settings, at least on a Mactel OS/X.

      One thing bugs me is... The DRM layer. Even some software (e.g. Symantec Home) are coded in a way that they will reject to run on Virtual machines. I guess site must have a test clip so it should be tested.

  2. Re:Faggots by codemachine · · Score: 4, Informative

    SIlverlight 2.0 is only supported on Intel Macs. So any PPC Mac owners are screwed.

    So are people with another platform without a Silverlight implementation, such as Linux, BSD, Nintendo Wii, Playstation, your phone, etc...

  3. digital broadcast by Molochi · · Score: 2, Informative

    Kinda off topic but in Atlanta the CBS affiliate has activated OTA digital channel 46-2 as NCAA CBS. Sadly quality is only 480i (the game on 46-1 is in 1080i) but it's there to watch. I'm wondering if NCAA CBS is a national addition to the OTA Digital lineup?

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  4. Re:Faggots by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nope, I don't. It's like walking into some dude's trailer when he's beating his wife, and beating him in the face with an empty trash can you found. Don't see the problem here.

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  5. Re:Faggots by nfsilkey · · Score: 3, Informative

    I know Mac users are about as likely as Linux users to watch basketball, but with the recent increased popularity of Macs, wouldn't that be a selling point for open formats? I can't imagine OSX has a good Silverlight implementation. I couldn't even find evidence of Moonlight being ported over.

    Wrong. Im a Mac user and I watched about 5 hours of tournament coverage last night (Go Horns!) over the intartubes via http://mmod.ncaa.com/video. Silverlight 2 worked like a champ in Firefox 3.0.7 atop OS X 10.5.6. It was pretty slick, and the quality of the stream was fantastic. Blew through over a gigabyte of transfer per hour of streaming. And I watched over the air on my couch. It was great.

    Once Silverlight showed up with OS X support several months back, both initial installation and subsequent upgrades 'just freakin worked'.

    But I likely wouldnt have had such a good night if I still pimped Ubuntu on a portable ... :/