Can't Stream General Conference

[mfmohlma]

From Windows, using Internet Explorer or Firefox, nagivate to http://www.movenetworks.com/install-move-player and it should guide you through the installation process. You might need to upgrade to a more recent version of these browsers to get it to work properly. And if you are using any version of Windows prior to Windows XP I doubt you will have much success regardless of what you try.

FWIW, I recently had to re-install my Move player plugin because Firefox would just lock up every time I went to a viewing site. I did this by going to Tools->Add-ons and then uninstalling the Move player from there. Then I re-installed from the link above. Works fine again. (I am using Windows XP.)

[rmrichesjr]

Hi Community...

I hope that I'm posting this the right place.

I have for a while tried to view General Conference (and BYU TV), but without success. I'm using Ubuntu, and the church is using some kind of locked or closed format, that can only be view, if you are using the products that are sold by the vender, that is used by the church.

I don't understand this. Why don't the church use a open format. The church can still use the same vender, but the content should be in an open format, that is accessible to everyone. I guess we would like to spread the good word to every one.

I don't know the situation in US, but here in Europe the 'open format' movement is gaining momentum, so being locked down on just one platform would be a shame.

Regards Jørn Borup

Yes movenetworks is working on linux version of the player.
This is due because of Netbooks!
But I suppose it will be as proprietary, so I don't know if it will be available also for desktop linux.
As linux users we must wait (patiently) and make the best of mp3!

P.S.: I tried Firefox for windows throught wine, but when player start it change all colors and make display unreadable.

I also use Linux, Mandriva 2009.0 if that matters, and my family and a member neighbor watched all four general sessions of conference at home this past weekend. Using Firefox 3.0.8, I went to the lds.org main page, clicked on the link for the general conference broadcast, then paged down to a section titled something like "other video streams". I right-clicked on the link for English WMV, selected the 'Copy Link Location' option to put the URL into the X select buffer. Then, in a terminal window, I typed mplayer ' (open single quote), middle clicked to paste the URL into the command line, typed a closing single quote, and pressed <Enter>.

Within a few seconds, mplayer was producing audio and video output of the conference session about to start. There were some glitches early on, but it settled out within a few minutes to a very viewable condition. My wife was viewing it on her computer, and she used 'f' to toggle mplayer to full-screen mode after I showed her that could be done.

(Between sessions, I did a bit of experimenting and stumbled upon mplayer's 'ASCII Art' output mode. It was pretty amusing to see full-motion video in ASCII art.)

[jborup-p40]

Yes movenetworks is working on linux version of the player.
This is due because of Netbooks!
But I suppose it will be as proprietary, so I don't know if it will be available also for desktop linux.
As linux users we must wait (patiently) and make the best of mp3!

P.S.: I tried Firefox for windows throught wine, but when player start it change all colors and make display unreadable.

Being patiently or just wait, is not enough. I guess we have to do something actively.

Regards Jørn.

[marianomarini]

..., then paged down to a section titled something like "other video streams". I right-clicked on the link for English WMV, selected the 'Copy Link Location' option to put the URL into the X select buffer.

Good to know but I can't see that link!
I will check better next time!

Being patiently or just wait, is not enough. I guess we have to do something actively.

Movenetworks is a company and know only money's voice. They found a good way to stream HD video with variable definition according with variable internet speed connections. So good for it.
I wait for an open format that works like.

I wonder why Church adopted that technology. Usually the Church use old and consolidate techs. Why, in this case, it use a very new one?

[mkmurray]

I wonder why Church adopted that technology. Usually the Church use old and consolidate techs. Why, in this case, it use a very new one?

I don't really know for sure, but I do know that they are company started right here in Utah and that they become popular after trying out their new inventions on the BYU.tv website (which is obviously closely related to the Church since BYU is owned by them). Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article:

After inventing a new way of streaming video over the Internet, Move Networks began testing its services by streaming television programming for nearby Brigham Young University’s BYU.tv. In October 2006 Move launched video streaming for its first major customers, FOX and Televisa. Implementations followed for the CW (January 2007), ABC (March 2007), ESPN (July 2007), and Discovery Communications (August 2007).

[jbh001]

I wonder why Church adopted that technology. Usually the Church use old and consolidate techs. Why, in this case, it use a very new one?

Probably because the licensing terms and fees were more favorable than Adobe's. Also, most (if not all) of the major television networks in the U.S. have switched to this player to stream their content over the Internet. That is a significant force supporting/using this technology in an area of the world where the Church also has its highest or second highest membership base.

I have also heard that Adobe's Flash video is a pain to program for despite it's being nearly ubiquitous. Perhaps Move Networks solution is easier to encode.

But then again, I'm just speculating and repeating hearsay. I don't have any real knowledge or experience in this area.

[russellhltn]

I'm sure there were many factors that came into play. And I'd expect the leading one to be ease of installation. We have to remember that the vast majority of users are not geeks and they run Windows. The more steps required to install a viewer, the less likely it will get adopted. The last stat I saw for Linux was single digit.

I don't know what the install process is for open source viewers, but if it's not a simple "click here", I doubt if it passes the test.

[rmrichesjr]

...

I don't know what the install process is for open source viewers, but if it's not a simple "click here", I doubt if it passes the test.

Open source viewers and other open source software can be distributed in binary form, especially by the owners of the copyrights, and installation can be as simple as for any other software.

[scion-p40]

I don't know about the technology of watching General Conference online. I do know that I sometimes watch TV and / or movies online 99.9999% problem free. (Every once in a great while "buffering" causes a delay.)

However, watching General Conference live simply would not work. It would not load. So, we tried listening to it. We caught a few minutes and then it stopped. Repeatedly. It was a joke. I went to other websites with no problem, so my ISP & computer were fine. Then we watched it live in German for a bit. Not very informative, as we speak English, but the German site worked just fine. English, not so fine. We gave up.

[rmrichesjr]

I don't know about the technology of watching General Conference online. I do know that I sometimes watch TV and / or movies online 99.9999% problem free. (Every once in a great while "buffering" causes a delay.)

However, watching General Conference live simply would not work. It would not load. So, we tried listening to it. We caught a few minutes and then it stopped. Repeatedly. It was a joke. I went to other websites with no problem, so my ISP & computer were fine. Then we watched it live in German for a bit. Not very informative, as we speak English, but the German site worked just fine. English, not so fine. We gave up.

What type of feed were you using? Were you using the Move Networks player or a WMV "other video streams" feed?

I have heard occasional talk that some ISPs may be giving QoS preference to some types of feeds at the expense of others. If that is happening, different types of feeds from the same source or the same type of feed from different sources could show different quality.

As I mentioned earlier in this or a similar thread, my wife watched all four general sessions of conference using mplayer from Mandriva Linux 2009.0. She watched the English feed from the "other video streams" section. There were a few buffering pauses during the first few minutes of each session, but essentially perfect playback after that.