Stop the press: Watch the news with Linux!

For the past three 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, and 7.10. Each time, I was disappointed to learn that a majority of the video feeds did not play correctly on Ubuntu Linux. This time, however, something amazing has happened.

I don't know which stars aligned to cause this, but every single news website that I tested with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS now has a correctly working video feed! I wasn't expecting this great of an improvement when I began this series of tests. I always knew that it would happen eventually, but never this quickly.

So what is the reason for this change? The video news sites have obviously realized the value of having a cross-platform video player. Market share gains by Linux are still small, so it is more likely the growth of Mac OS that led to this change of thinking. Be sure to thank your local Mac OS user for their help in forcing these news websites to stop using Microsoft-only video players and providing a way for Linux users to watch the news!

ABC News
  • Sound: YES (Improvement!)
  • Video: YES (Improvement!)
BBC News
  • Sound: YES (Improvement!)
  • Video: YES (Improvement!)
CBS News
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES
CNBC
  • Sound: YES (Improvement!)
  • Video: YES (Impovement!)
CNN
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES
Note: You can skip advertisements by clicking on the video you want to watch as soon as the advertisement begins to play. This currently only works in Linux, and they will probably patch this hole eventually.

FOX News
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES (Improvement!)
Note: FOX News has a volume problem that causes the advertisement volume to be MUCH louder than the story volume. If this tactic is intentional, they should know that this is a great reason NOT to watch their news videos.

MSNBC
  • Sound: YES
  • Video: YES

Comments

  1. Anonymous6/23/2008 1:39 AM

    When you say "cross-platform" do you mean they've all switched to Flash from embedded media player, or is it that there has been improvements to how Totem knows how to handle the streams, or both?

    I know there has been a lot of work for Totem embedded to make it detect what the site expects in terms of player and it tries to adapt to that. Though I think most of that work was for 7.10, it could also be that it has been finetuned. I've had much more luck with that kind of video the last year, in any case.

    Though to be honest, even though I'm not perfectly happy with it, the best video solution IS still flash + Adobes plugin. Far from ideal, at least it works and works well. And since it's now an open format, it's also possible to get free players (that works well) sometime in the future. Next stop, Shockwave (the Director format which is now being heavily toted by Adobe again and continues to be the prime format for pixel/3D on the web).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vadim Peretokin6/23/2008 2:51 AM

    Actually the fox thing can be attributed to a mannered linux user talking with them: http://blog.eracc.com/2008/04/28/guess-what-fox-news-is-responsive-to-the-linux-community/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6/23/2008 3:43 AM

    Do you know if any of these sites offer live news streams, or some sort of streaming service that can be kept "always on" like NASA TV? I'm always looking for streams like that for my video wall. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6/23/2008 4:04 AM

    My friend works on the Fox News website development team. Most of them use Ubuntu there, the servers all run Ubuntu as well. They are very welcome to bug reports regarding Linux compatibility, as thats what they use.

    ReplyDelete
  5. davie6/23/2008 6:48 PM

    The bbc has a live feed here http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/bsp/hi/news24live/html/news24.stm

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6/24/2008 2:14 PM

    Watching videos on Major League Baseball (http://mlb.com) was a problem with previous versions of Ubuntu, especially on the pages dedicated to video. MLB has updated their site, but the latest Ubuntu does appear to work better with their video feeds.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous6/26/2008 1:37 PM

    I've been able to watch PBS news using its Flash player with Ubuntu.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous7/16/2008 11:32 AM

    • It won’t be wrong to say that the creation and the eventual booming of the IT world is because of the USA. This can be very well understood by the downward slope in the IT sector right after the slowdown in the US economy. A software company is one of the most important elements of the IT world and they are currently suffering major setbacks after these attacks in the US and have not been able to completely recover since. The IT sector received a blow not only in the US but also elsewhere in the globe.

    ReplyDelete

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