Status Quo: Can't watch the news in Linux

For the two previous versions of Ubuntu, I have tested seven news websites to find out if I could watch their video feeds using Ubuntu. You can read the results for 6.10 and 7.04.

Now that Ubuntu 7.10 is out, it is time for me to test these websites again.

ABC News
  • Sound: NO
  • Video: NO
BBC News
  • Sound: NO (Worse!)
  • Video: NO (Worse!)
CBS News
  • Sound: YES (Improvement!)
  • Video: YES (Improvement!)
CNBC
  • Sound: NO
  • Video: NO
CNN
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES
FOX News
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: NO
MSNBC
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES

As you can see, we had one site that improved (CBS News) and one site that has actually gotten worse (BBC News). Congratulations to CBS news for joining the 21-century. I am not sure what to say about BBC News. Apparently, the BBC is now using a new video player called the "BBC iPlayer", which only supports Microsoft Windows operating systems. Because of this, there was a lot of controversy about the highly restricted player, including this petition.

I still consider it difficult to watch the news on Linux because a majority of the sites I tested (4 of 7) did not provide working video and audio.

Lets hope that BBC News, Fox News, CNBC News, and ABC News will realize the error of their ways and create a multi-platform video player. The "Best of Class" award goes to MSNBC for their new video player which is extremely fast and responsive and provides excellent video quality.

Comments

  1. Anonymous1/21/2008 8:57 PM

    I can provide you some information about the situation in Germany: Here one of the public broadcast services (ZDF) has a great archive of media. It plays very well with VLC - great, but you require Flash to navigate to the media. Thanks a lot. Great media, worst possible way to navigate. This site is probably the only reason why I installed Adobe Flash Player next to YouTube. Gnash does not work for this site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1/21/2008 9:04 PM

    I really love the followup, but from the standpoint of a non-Ubuntu Linux user, it's missing a few key details:

    1) What software are you using to watch it? Just "Ubuntu" doesn't cut it, since it could be a bug in your player.

    2) Which architecture are you on? 32-bit closed source libs won't work on a 64-bit only binary system, unless you have the 32-bit dependencies installed. In short, there are very few codecs that will work fine on 32-bit systems natively but not on 64-bit (Real, mostly, though Flash is the same way -- it needs a wrapper).

    Thanks man

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1/21/2008 9:11 PM

    Ok, there are some issues running some embedded video on websites but this article has a very thin grasp on reality. For a start BBC's iPlayer is a application you can install on windows that eats your entire bandwidth and provides you with very bad quality drm-encumered video and will be quietly scrapped as soon as they get a chance, they also have a seven day catch up service which runs a flash player that even works in the open source flash player (unlike youtube) and is a fine service to uk citizens, there news feeds still come in the usual wmv or realplayer flavours and both work fine provided you have the plugins installed (I use vlc). The same goes for all of the other sites you have mentioned, of course they won't work if you haven't installed the correct software.

    ReplyDelete
  4. JGJones1/21/2008 11:00 PM

    For BBC - in the past I've successfully watched video/sound using RealPlayer for Linux, although I admit I've not done that with 7.10. However BBC are still giving Real format videos and RealPlayer for linux is still available so I would assume that'll continue to work.

    Regarding iPlayer - they do now have a Flash streaming version so that it works on OSX and Linux (I've confirmed this and it does work)

    However it's just a half-arsed solution. Flash streaming means you don't get the "advantage" of iPlayer - download and watch later. You have to watch it online only.

    Furthermore - I'm profoundly deaf and I can't get ANY subtitles on iPlayer (try it yourself) because it's not enabled in Flash.

    To make it worse, it doesn't even work on Windows either (subtitles that is) - it seems that Microsoft's latest update to Media Player have broken subtitles.

    So I'm a TV licence payer and I have zero access to iPlayer on any platform. There's millions of us folks that cannot watch without subtitles but I'm sure BBC'll roll out that same tired old excuse they used for Linux - we're in minority(!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Avi1/22/2008 1:03 AM

    I just tried the following:

    ABC News: worked.
    BBC News: worked.
    CBS News: worked.
    CNBC: did not work at all.
    CNN: worked.
    Fox News: did not work at all.
    MSNBC: worked.

    It makes me believe that the issue may different settings or codecs.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Matt1/22/2008 5:40 AM

    in my expierience bbc audio/video works with realplayer, but you have to play it standalone in realplayer. post-dapper the realplayer browser plugin crashes in all browsers i have tested to date.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1/22/2008 6:41 AM

    In most cases I have videos working on all sites. I am using openSUSE and Firefox browser, but that doesn't make the diffeerece.

    1. Make sure you have mplayer and mplayer-plugins installed
    2. w32codecs pack installed

    Try Now

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous1/22/2008 6:58 AM

    Like your post. regards BBC World, after Linux and Mac users protest, their ipod transmission is now configured for Linux.
    I use Ubuntu 7.10 with Firefox plugins and can also stream sound and Video.
    Just though you might like the feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Unknown1/22/2008 8:38 AM

    I watch the BBC News videos on my Ubuntu 7.10 machines OK. I can only guess you are doing something wrong here, or you are using an 'ootb' configuration. Have I missed the point of your comparison?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous1/22/2008 1:14 PM

    The ABC News (Australia) website is extremely impressive - and is the most clear and impressive (in terms of modern web techniques). It requires the flash plugin - but other than that it works flawlessly. http://www.abc.net.au/news/

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bob Hazard1/22/2008 3:19 PM

    I can confirm BBC radio & news works in standalone realplayer and iPlayer works in streaming/flash mode.


    I think you are missing the most important news sites out there namely The Colbert Report and The Daily Show which work fine in flash lol

    ReplyDelete
  12. Unknown1/23/2008 12:00 AM

    Following what Steve Dibb said earlier (hi beandog), another concern I'd have is which format they deliver the content.

    Not that xvid or flash is all that bad, but providing matroska or another alternate open format would be nice.

    Cheers,

    Clint

    ReplyDelete
  13. Gabriel Hurley1/23/2008 2:02 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Gabriel Hurley1/23/2008 2:03 AM

    CBC News
    Sound: Yes
    Video Yes

    It takes a while, though.

    ReplyDelete
  15. maxolasersquad1/23/2008 5:47 PM

    Some of the CNN content is IE + Windows only. I think it is the live content.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Anonymous1/24/2008 12:28 PM

    > one site that has actually gotten worse (BBC News)
    ...
    > The "Best of Class" award goes to MSNBC

    Oh the irony! Which of the above is a public service broadcaster (supposedly accountable to the British public), and which is a business 50 percent owned by Microsoft?

    The world's gone mad.

    ReplyDelete

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