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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?"
Yahoo typically streams NCAA basketball games, and I've had success with opening the videos with Totem using GStreamer codecs (from the "bad" and "ugly" set, though).
Then you would be watching sports which would make you not a Linux user.
*computer explodes from the incongruity*
it's my understanding that moonlight is supposed to fill that gap.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/05/15/moonlight-release-puts-Silverlight-on-Linux_1.html
As unabashedly brutal as his wording was, I think he's absolutely correct. The technologically-oriented community must teach the rest of the world that things like proprietary formats, vendor lock-in, and all of the other various things we rail on about are bad.
A high-profile example like the NCAA, which attracts many "Joe Sixpack" fans across the nation (does anyone outside the US watch basketball?), would be a perfect example of how closed formats hurt the average consumer.
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.
Convert FLACs to a portable format with FlacSquisher
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.
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
What is this 'bas-ket ball' you speak of?
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/
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...
I was able to watch the games online last year using the mediaplayerconnectivity plugin for firefox and vlc. I tried this year, but they block all non-IE browsers from accessing the video streams. I was able to get past this check by using the UserAgentSwitcher plugin, but now it won't let me get to the streams because I don't have windows media player.
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?
"The Adobe Updater must update itself before it can check for updates. Would you like to update the Adobe Updater now?"
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
I'd be curious to hear how well it works.
Their Silverlight 2 support's in alpha now, targeting beta in May and final in September.
http://www.mono-project.com/MoonlightRoadmap
Less than 11 months until the Vancouver WInter Olympics in Silverlight! I'm sure they'd appreciate any help in their Hackathon:
http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight2Hacking
My video compression blog
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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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.
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 ... :/