Slashdot Mirror
Streaming March Madness On Linux?
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?"
Given the fact that this is Sports, I suspect you'll find that using a closed, proprietary technology was spec'ed as a business requirement for this. The streams are probably wrapped in some kind of DRM, which is something that (as a practical matter) you'll only get by going with a single-vendor solution.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
you don't. You educate the asshole media companies by calling them assholes. If it's all 5 linux users that care, they'll ignore you; if it's 500 e-mails in one day, they might take notice.
Or you could be like Twitter and talk about how evil Microsoft is in IRC channels and how Slashdot moderation is so unfair.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Oh hooray, we're back to the the "my $SERVICE_PROVIDER doesn't give me what I want, when I want it, for the price I want to pay for it and in the format I desire, so breaking the law by contravening the DRM is absolutely justified" school of thought.
educate the asshole media companies by calling them assholes.
I suppose you don't see the "pot and kettle" variety of irony in that method. But trust me, most people would see it.
"When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
Well, a company named Real Networks ships a fully supported Linux player and you see the feedback they get.
Mostly because RealPlayer absolutely sucks, on any platform. It's cool that they ship a Linux player, but it's still not something I want.
Kind of like how MySpace probably works well on Firefox. Great, I can use it on Linux, but I still really don't like it.
H264 and MPEG4 SP and even simple http streaming took over, it is only MS not admitting it. Even Real moved to AAC (plus) and some variant of h264 in rv10.
Firstly: It's actually between these and WMV.
Second: While h.264 and aac support is generally better than the latest wmv (or vc-1) and the latest wma codecs, keep in mind that all of these are exactly as proprietary, and exactly as patent-laden.
So, if you really want to be open, put theora and vorbis in either ogm or matroska.
Finally: All of this is really quite irrelevant. It's not the codec, it's the encapsulation. In this case, they are likely wrapping vanilla vc-1 and wma9 (or whatever) in a wmv container, and encrypting that. While I agree that it's the 90's again, they aren't even trying to hide that they have the content, and you need to install the software to get the content. They're not even trying to sell it to the consumer as being cool or innovative -- as far as I can tell, they try to sell Silverlight to developers, and then try to sell the finished Silverlight product to users.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
that states "express written consent of the NCAA and the -insert major network here-" thanks to lock-ins, black-outs, exclusivity rights, and licensing agreements, and the crushing monopoly the NCAA maintains on their franchise, what led anyone to expect they would allow people to watch the game in any other format but one of the most coontrolled and restrictive? if this were PBS it might be news for nerds on some level, but this highlights a greater problem with monopolistic entertainment industries.
Good people go to bed earlier.