13 secs. of buffer time (I assume; it didn't actually say anything, just a solid black box on screen, while my DSL (1.5Mb) was pegged downloading the content).

And the soundtrack was worse than an old (vinyl) record coated with dust & mold (persistent crackling/hissing noise in the background).

To be fair, I have been seeing much better presentation--lower image quality, but no buffering or sound problems--from both Google Video & YouTube.

This sort of consistency of user experience is why Flash does not, in fact, rock. That, and the fact that it is used extensively by the online annoy^H^H^H^Hdvertising industry.

And the soundtrack was worse than an old (vinyl) record coated with dust & mold (persistent crackling/hissing noise in the background).

I do like flash, but the imperceptible buffer time, fast load, etc - is only on a super sweet network. I'm stealing wireless from the people next door at the beach and it still hasnt loaded. Good ol' wireless.

Thank you for the feedback. At the moment I'm on MIT's wireless and it hasn't been too speedy but the video worked great for me.

Obviously a 56k connection is going to ruin the experience but IFF bandwidth is a given I have to point out that the other points still apply "how little the buffer time is and how good the video looks? Notice how quickly the player launches (imperceptible) and how the video feels like it is part of the webpage? Notice how your browsing experience is not interrupted and you can easily navigate back to where you were on the web? Notice the lack of popup windows or rights negotiation?" When comparing Flash, WMV, QuickTime, and Real all on a high speed connection Flash is the one that stands out above the others.

Yes, it is dependent on bandwidth being there but the points I am highlighting are not a function of bandwidth itself but of the player. It is testimony to how efficiently the player itself launches and starts playing. The other players are clunky code-wise, slow down your machine when they launch, and do not have the same "feel" with the video as part of the webpage (the most important point!). I think these are aspects of the experience that are generally underappreciated by content producers.

The thing that really annoys me about Flash is the Linux support. Since it's proprietary, Linux users only get what Adobe throws at them. As a result, there is no Flash 8 or 9 for Linux.

Recently Adobe started taking Linux support seriously, and now they have a blog written by their Linux developers: http://blogs.adobe.com/penguin.swf/

But still, we shouldn't have to get lucky like this. If it were an open standard I'd be able to view Flash 8 movies right now.

I´m not now on Linux.
But I do have Adobe Flash 9 on Gentoo. Just extract the exe file. This works at least on my PC.

To use Adobe software is possible, but not the IPTV stream links directly. You should not again just simply remove this.

http://blog.case.edu/aaron.shaffer/2005/07/23/free_tv_on_your_pc
http://wiki.case.edu/Iptv

Request is obvious still high for direct stream links instead of login to the portal. How do get new links? Can you login and get us the new stream links?

..and in all probability you reported the ip to the admin. Remove it (you or the admin). I just asked two questions. This is not spam.
To questions on the world wide web there should be answers like in real life- short or long. But not in contrast simply and stupidly act to ban the ip.

To the unnamed person, why are you junking random blogs.

Blogs are for organized discussion centered around the specific entries. Why would you expect people to answer your questions when they are not related to the entry, you do not identify yourself, nor do you provide legitimate contact information for follow up.

I suspect most people would delete your random posts from their blogs based on your tone and how your comments show no relevancy to the entries.

If you are a Case student, which no one knows from your posts, I suspect the Case Forum is a better answer for your needs.

Aaron,
I agree that this rocks. The clarity was superb and I counted not quite 2 seconds for the video to appear. That is much faster than what I've experienced when waiting for a windows media or realplayer stream to start. Yes it would take longer if I weren't here at Case, but the issue is how do different media players function under the same conditions, so bandwidth is irrelevant.

I find Real Player to be particularly disrupting (whether it opens a new window or plays embedded in a page) because it frequently needs me to download yet another update.

I just took a quick look at some similar in length videos on Youtube and Google video and while they were slower and less crisp, I think they are also using Flash in some way. When I looked at the source code, both were using scripts to present the video, but I saw references in one to a swfobject and in the other to a FlashObj.

But I do have Adobe Flash 9 on Gentoo.

That's funny, since it won't be released until 2007...

Maybe you mean Flash 7?

@ two Brian´s... :

This was not junk. But your are writing junk.
Two questions on two blogs, I wrote about relevant content and then asked the two questions. I´m not insulting anyone exempt if someone is bored and bans a ip, for invalid reasons, and blames it on the other user.
---

No, I mean Adobe Flash 9. Read my entry carefully

Good you removed the ip block.
I´m not coming back to this place of stupid people , that´s for sure.

Anonymous person (why won't you use your name?),

Your comments look like junk because it's very hard sometimes to learn what you're trying to communicate.

I read your entry very carefully. Do you mean you got it to work with WINE? That is the only thing that makes sense (since Adobe's blog says that Flash 9 for Linux will not be released until 2007). That is much different than using a native version... for one thing, you would have to emulate the browser too.

Can't see any movie. Wait, I'm not running Windows.