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?"
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*
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...
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 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 ... :/