We STILL can't watch the news in Linux

Last December I wrote an article titled "Why can't we watch the news in Linux?" In that article I exposed the problems that Ubuntu 6.10 had with watching video feeds from popular news websites. These problems were not caused by a lack of multimedia support in Ubuntu, instead they were caused by the news companies who designed their sites for Windows-based media players only.

Now that Ubuntu 7.04 is out, I wanted to evaluate the progress that has been made by testing these video feeds from the same news websites.

ABC News
  • Sound: NO
  • Video: NO
BBC News
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES (Improvement!)
CBS News
  • Sound: NO
  • Video: NO
CNBC
  • Sound: NO
  • Video: NO
CNN
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES (Improvement!)
FOX News
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: NO
MSNBC
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES
As you can see, two of the websites have improved their results. This increases the number of working video feeds to 3 out of the 7 websites that I selected for testing.

I am not certain if this change can be attributed to improvements in Ubuntu, or because the news websites have modified their video feeds to support multiple platforms. Any ideas on how to watch the news on websites that aren't currently working? Do we just need to wait for Linux to gain enough critical mass to get the attention (and wallets) of the news companies? Should we submit feature requests to these news companies?

Comments

  1. Pedahzur5/02/2007 10:44 PM

    I'm not sure how you're testing, or which stream you're watching, but I have a Dapper (6.06) install that I use to watch CNN video clips. Sounds and video.

    ReplyDelete
  2. db5/02/2007 10:48 PM

    While the out of box experience is lacking, I find I can view a lot when I install a few different packages.

    sudo apt-get install totem-xine libxine-extracodecs

    Also, getting the w32codecs package may help.

    It would be nice to know what kind of setup you have. I can watch most everything.

    Another troubleshooting technique I've found is to right click the area where the totem plugin resides, copy location, then run "vlc .paste location here."

    Hope these tips and tweaks help. It's not pretty or out of the box, but it works.t

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5/03/2007 6:54 AM

    The thing that annoys me is that they put up artifical gate like checking for IE first and then making sure we have all the required IE plugins to watch the content. If they just allowed us into the site and gave us a media url, then they could be put into xine or whatever to play it.
    -K

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous5/03/2007 7:50 AM

    Great piece of analysis.

    Probably need some more consensus on what plugins are needed to see which sites.

    How about setting up a wiki of some sort to "name and shame" non-compatible and badly designed/implemented news sites?

    Also it can offer reliable information for Ubuntu users about which sites to avoid.

    Maybe we can set this up on the Ubuntu wiki itself?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown5/03/2007 9:38 AM

    The title contradicts the content (to an extent). Besides, why not watch videos in sites that play nice(r)? The Internet is a large universe? Windows only? Then haste la vista, dinosaur Webmaster.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous5/03/2007 2:54 PM

    I tried two random that weren't working and it seemed they both use flash. It may be something to put to the flash developers. Granted flash-only video broadcasts kinda suck.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ahx5/03/2007 9:45 PM

    Hi,
    i did not enjoy watching the (german) news. Until i discovered democracyplayer (www.getdemocracy.com) some days ago. No i dont have to care about browser plugins or that stuff, i just start watch the news (german videocast from heute.de and tageschau.de). I found the shows using Democracy Players built in "channel guide". Sweet. This thing just works like using iTunes to subscribe to videocasts. I would say it works even better.
    (The version in the repos has a little bug when subscribing from the channel guide, but its nice anyway.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous5/08/2007 12:29 AM

    Hello:
    You are invited to watch the Ubuntu Tribe movie trailer.
    Thank you and nice to meet you!
    htp://www.ubuntutribe.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unknown5/11/2007 3:17 PM

    let's add the ny times to your list...
    -video: yes
    -audio: yes

    (and remove fox news. well, i guess there's the entertainment value, if you can call it that.)

    ReplyDelete

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