[SWLUG] S4C use of wmv

[Peter Bradley]

Blwyddyn Newydd dda i bawb/Happy New Year to you all.

I don't know if anyone is interested in this, but when I was checking 
out the S4C site recently, I discovered that they used wmv for streaming 
media.  I commented that I didn't think that was right since it excluded 
Linux users and got this answer (in Welsh, since if you don't speak 
Welsh you'll probably not be too worried about S4C - but I will 
translate it if anyone wants to know exactly what was said).  Hopefully 
the rest of this post in English will give non-Welsh-speakers a general 
idea of what's going on:

"Yn anffodsus [sic] mae S4C wedi gorfod dewis y dull mwya cyffredin  i 
arddangos fideo, ond efallai y bydd hyn yn newid yn y dyfodol. Yn y 
cyfamser yr unig gyngor posib ydy:

Dylai MPlayer chwarae fideo - gwelifo (streaming). Mae o am ddim ac ar 
gael o

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design6/dload.html

Cyngor arall fyddai - archwiliad Google am 'wmv9 linux' yn dangos 
gwahanol opsiynau posib'- byddai'n werth trio be sy'n addas i Peter".

http://simonatlinux.wordpress.com/2006/03/26/how-to-get-wmv9-files-working-properly 


Gobeithio fod hwn o gymorth ichwi."

(I particularly like the "ichwi"!  Very posh).

I had a look at the first link, but  couldn't see any way of getting 
mplayer to work easily without compiling the source - something I don't 
want to do on an rpm-based system.  The offered rpm is for Fedora Core, 
so I'm not keen on risking that on my SUSE 10.0 box.

I've replied to the email saying that I think it to be not correct that 
they consider the "most common way of showing video" to be paramount, 
but that since I and other Linux users pay as much as anyone else to 
support S4C, we should have equal access to the content our money pays 
for: but I've said to them that I'm not looking for a fight and that I 
don't expect a further answer from them.

The truth is that I know next to nothing about video streaming.  I would 
like to tell them that Ogg is the answer to everyone's prayers and that 
they ought to use that, but I can't because I don't know if it's true - 
and even if it is, I don't know enough to back up the argument.

So I'm just throwing it out here for anyone else who might be interested 
to pick it up.  If anyone does and wants any help (like a scurrilous 
Website pointing out the iniquitous liaison between S4C and MS :) or 
support in going to OfCom or whatever the supervising body is) from me, 
I'd be happy to pitch in.  But on the technical side of video streaming, 
I'm a dead duck, I'm afraid.

On the other hand, you could just ignore my ramblings.  Or if someone 
can tell me how to get it up and running easily (without breaking 
anything else on my box by installing libraries my installed packages 
don't like), I'd be all ears: maybe write a howto in Welsh when I'm done 
and ask S4C to publish it.


Peter