No General Conference on Linux with Move Media

The Church made a great decision when they chose Move Network's media player. Move Networks looks like an awesome service that offers remarkable quality in the streaming video. I applaud the Church for embracing new technology like this.

However, I can't stream conference on my computer with this player. Move Media Player only supports Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OS X 10.3 or greater. I use linux because I can't afford the cost of windows or mac. (plus, I like linux)

One guy (cygnl7), saying that he works for Move Networks, said the following on this ubuntu forums post:
"...I work at Move Networks and I happen to work very closely with the player plugin team. There simply isn't enough demands from our clients yet to justify the cost for building a Linux plugin yet. Hopefully that will change soon. Let the various content providers know that you want Linux support. If enough people make a fuss they'll make a fuss with us and we'll build it." (My emphasis)

Let's make a fuss then. Please, if you use Linux, and would like to stream general conference live, reply to this thread. Let's show our support!

Thanks!
Jacob Floyd

techgurufloyd wrote: Let's make a fuss then. Please, if you use Linux, and would like to stream general conference live, reply to this thread. Let's show our support!

I think people would be better heard if they contacted Move Networks directly, rather than posting in a forum that's not directly related to their company. Contact info can be found here...

http://www.movenetworks.com/company/contactus

And yes, I think *nix support is something desirable for many, especially in developing countries where the cost of an OS has to be kept to a bare minimum.

Mikerowaved wrote:I think people would be better heard if they contacted Move Networks directly, rather than posting in a forum that's not directly related to their company.

That all depends on who pays Move Networks. In this case, I'll bet it's the church. Techgurufloyd's point is to get MN to support Linux, the first step to to get MN's customer (in this case, The Church) to want to support Linux.

Show them the money (or at least market share) and they'll build it.

Seems quite logical to me.

I suspect the key to getting the church to want it is to show them cases where it's truly needed and not simply desired.

techgurufloyd wrote:...
Let's make a fuss then. Please, if you use Linux, and would like to stream general conference live, reply to this thread. Let's show our support!

Thanks!
Jacob Floyd

Please count me in on the list of fuss makers. It would be great to have Move Networks available for Linux/Unix.

However, all is not lost. I'm running Mandriva 2009.0 ("free" version) and watched the morning session of conference. From the home page at http://www.lds.org, I clicked on "watch or listen to the conference", then went to the "Additional Video Streams" and clicked on "English". I used mplayer to play the stream. There were a few hiccups in the first minute or two, but the rest of the Saturday morning session was fine.

Edit to clarify/correct: The last click is on "Windows Media" to the right of "English".

rmrichesjr wrote:I clicked on "watch or listen to the conference", then went to the "Additional Video Streams" and clicked on "English". I used mplayer to play the stream. There were a few hiccups in the first minute or two, but the rest of the Saturday morning session was fine.

I cant believe I havent noticed that yet. I will go back to using Windows 7 with VLC.

Funny enough I ran both feeds next to each other and they were wide apart in time, the additional feed was closest to real time.

rmrichesjr wrote:Please count me in on the list of fuss makers. It would be great to have Move Networks available for Linux/Unix.

However, all is not lost. I'm running Mandriva 2009.0 ("free" version) and watched the morning session of conference. From the home page at http://www.lds.org, I clicked on "watch or listen to the conference", then went to the "Additional Video Streams" and clicked on "English". I used mplayer to play the stream. There were a few hiccups in the first minute or two, but the rest of the Saturday morning session was fine.

Edit to clarify/correct: The last click is on "Windows Media" to the right of "English".

I use Ubuntu and all works fine. Video (with totem) in English with sound to zero and Italian Audio with rythmbox.
There was about 10 seconds of gap between the two but it was fine for me.

There is a petition for Move to support Linux. If it's important to you, sign the petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/movlinux/petition.html

This is an issue for me as well, even though the additional feeds work of course. Move Media actually made a very comfortable player and I've missed that dearly ever since moving from OS X Tiger to Xubuntu. The old way of doing things doesn't stack up to that player by any measure.

Signed the petition and posted here. Maybe I'll send an e-mail to Move as well.

Maybe within the next year or so Move will take advantage of HTML5 in Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Google Chrome, and the Google Chrome Frame plug-in for Internet Explorer.

One advantage of this would be that the way Move codes for HTML5 on Firefox 3.5 should, in theory, work independent of the underlying OS, which also means not having to depend on Flash.

I signed the petition. If next release will be multiplatform then all the better.

I signed it as well... We have 5 Ubuntu boxes in this household (3 acting as HTPC's hooked up to our TV's)

Signed the petition, posted here.

I am thinking that a lot of people, especially in Asia and Africa, would happily use Linux. Linux means spending less for your hardware, because you don't have to upgrade every time Redmond decides to come up with a new iteration of the same mess, with some eye candy thrown in.

So, okay, they've cleaned their act a bit on security holes...

I agree with Linus, that the OS should not be something for the regular user to even think about (and many don't even when they should); it is infrastructure, not software.

Anyway, I tend to get preachy about it...

Cheers,
--velska

also, I believe there is some tiered streaming tech coming out in html5 that apple is putting in that would have similar functionality of adjusting quality to changing bandwidth.

during conference it was just too choppy for me (vlc on linux) so my family and I just waited till conference audio was posted and not streaming so it would not studder lag.

[quote="Move Networks"]Move video playout can be easily integrated into a Flash player environment]See Move Networks >> Frequently Asked Questions

I'd love to know if this means you can write a Move Client in Flash and not just use a flash interface for their plugin. If you can that would seem to be the obvious choice of getting it into Linux.

For anyone interested in creating Adaptive Streaming client have a look at:

http://openvideoplayer.sourceforge.net/

Okay it seems that the integration is to allow the move player to be wrapped by flash controls and other grooviness, but no one has written a player in flash alone.

helpdeskdan wrote:Such a petition is likely a waste of time. Microsoft is a major investor in move networks; it is highly likely that they would never anger one of their major investors by porting their software to Linux. If you are unaware of Microsoft's opinion of open source software, a web search will provide you with more information than you would ever care to read.

As I remember, many years ago, they used to post general conference in wma, rma, and mov. No matter what operating system you ran, you could find something that would play it. I am deeply saddened that this is no longer the case.

I urge anybody who may have a say in the matter to please consider an alternative format for those of us who can not afford to run Windows.

It's a moot point now -- they've converted to a Flash-based player that works on Linux:

http://www.byutv.org/live

mfarley wrote:It's a moot point now -- they've converted to a Flash-based player that works on Linux:

http://www.byutv.org/live

Apparently Move Networks has had a rough year: http://newteevee.com/2010/01/26/the-fal ... -networks/

mfarley wrote:It's a moot point now -- they've converted to a Flash-based player that works on Linux:

http://www.byutv.org/live

Cool! It seems to work OK on my Droid. Not perfect, (the action is a bit stilted) but usable as long as it's not for sports. (But then I'm a Green and White guy ).

I really love it! BYUTV comes through just fine! Now I can watch GC next month with my linux laptop.

It appears that a login is required for byutv. That is fine, but I would like to be able to have a plugin to mythtv. Anyone knows if there is a way to accomplish this or a programmatic way to get access to the video stream?

BYU TV recently stopped use of Move Media. It will be possible to watch it on their website. I believe, it it much better quality video.

http://www.byutv.org/live

You will need to create an account (which is free) to watch the live stream and any other videos on the site.

The Church is no longer using Move Networks for live streaming of Conference. It has been changed to a Flash player that should work on any Flash enabled device. The video on demand that is made available approximately 8 hours after each session is also HTML5 compatible so it will also play on iOS devices.

gabeblack wrote:It appears that a login is required for byutv. That is fine, but I would like to be able to have a plugin to mythtv. Anyone knows if there is a way to accomplish this or a programmatic way to get access to the video stream?

Your best bet would be to access the Windows Media streams directly using the "Additional Media Streams" section at the lds.org Broadcasting site. Every other method has the flash player in the way.

The real downside to this is the abysmally low bandwidth used by this stream. I realize that Windows Media formats are pretty bad for sharing, but I'd gladly pay the church to offset the cost of access to a high-bandwidth stream. I've got enough bandwidth on my end.

allen.blodgett wrote:BYU TV recently stopped use of Move Media. It will be possible to watch it on their website. I believe, it it much better quality video.

Well, I have had just the opposite experience. The bandwidth is still high enough that it overruns my DSL. The picture cannot keep up, and the audio stutters during video takeover moments. At least Move used to compensate for all of that.

And I am still trying to figure out how to navigate the new BYU TV site. Since I rarely watched anything live, but usually time shifted it a day or two, I find that I can no longer watch my favorite programs.

Unless BYU TV supports conference more robustly in real time, that will be out, as well. Even with Move in the past, I had to time shift about 10 minutes to get a decent feed.

Most sadly, I have yet to get anything from the conference website worth watching. I tried to view the General RS Meeting earlier this evening. BYU TV does not have it, and the conference site cannot smoothly deliver it.

The assumption seems to be that we are all more speedily connected and will be watching in real time. Some of us are still on that last mile with the early remnants of DSL and wait until later in the evening to view programs after having taken care of more pressing matters.