Can't play live webcast from CBC website

Unfortunately you need to use RealPlayer or WMV for the CBC website; can't remember which. QT does not work because CBC seems reluctant to port for it.

The file format used is Windows Media Player and modern Mac machines must install http://flip4mac.com to view most of these formats via QuickTime.

Kirk's correct. Flip4Mac handles most WMV content on the web. If you're finding that video does not play, then it's possible that particular site has used a non standard method to make it available. In these cases, it's necessary to bombard the site with requests to make it compliant with, at least, Flip4Mac, and in general, Macs.
BTW, I wasn't quite sure what CBC is, but found the Canadian Broadcasting site and I was able to view video there. It was in a Flash format, so WMV considerations were not a problem.
Possibly you can post an exact location to test your issue.

I think it was going to work fine on my Mac. I have a custom color applied to the background of anything coming in which will use Flip4Mac. This allows me to verify that F4M is working. That color appeared, and I could see the play bar appear at the bottom, but the message, "sorry but this video is not available in your area". It didn't say invalid URL, so I suspect they have other restrictions about viewing content from different places on the planet. I can't remember now, but have you made sure your F4M is up to date? Go into it's prefs and click on the update tab.

I'm having the same problem as Kat2007. I have the latest version of F4M, and have successfully used it for dozens of other WMV files on other websites.

I tried to access the CBC Olympic coverage on three different MACs, and also tried using Firefox as well as Safari - same result. aspx- labelled file pops up, briefly shows the first few seconds of the video, and then the "URL is not valid" window pops up, and the stream terminates.

I think CBC has simply screwed up on this. There is some technical constraint in the file/stream that need to be modified. Mac users need to bombard the CBC with messages about this.

It is a reasonable bet that CBS, CBC or whomseover get their live video from that provided by China.

If you go direct to the live broadcasts provided by China, look at the system requirements they state: Windows only.

I used their email link to ask/complain why Mac users were being discriminated against. Unsurprisingly I did not get a reply!

I blame China! 🙂

Same problem here. Tried everything I could think of. Sent an angry message to CBC yesterday-- no reply. Guess I'll be sittin this Olympics out, anyway the events my cousin's competing in that I wanted to see are over. Foiled again by the CBC. Big surprise.

I'm having the exact same issue, but what's making me mad is the fact I actually got it to work yesterday and this morning.

I am using the latest Flip4Mac, opening with QT, and I selected the automatically play option in System Prefs (Flip4Mac pane)

I was able to watch all of 2 different volleyball matches, and 1 badminton match.

I tried many browsers, and played with settings, and yet I still get that annoying "Not a valid URL" message.

This ****** me off since I can't get Olympics any other way.

I started another post on this topic last night. I also wrote the CBC about the problem and I received a very prompt response from them. It's not too encouraging, but you may be interested to see how they are thinking the issue through at this point:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7835485#7835485


Let's see if we can get this to work, before the closing ceremonies!

Good luck to us all,
John

The farthest I got was getting a black or white screen while the video is playing, but no sound is heard either. This is right after the CBC Olympics intro.

OK - here's what worked for me using Safari last night while all 9 CBC.ca video streams were up. 1 through 6 were working - 7 to 9 would do the ubiquitous promo vid and go blank, as would the feeds from CBC TV and CBC Bold.
Note - I'm using a PPC. I have Perian installed and f4m set to play in the plug-in and "always show the movie controller" - the player is set to play automatically and open avi files - play local files is de-selected.
QT is using the automatic transport setup - and set to play automatically without cacheing under the browser tab. "Instant On" is deselected under the streaming tab.
I talked to CBC's olympic team this morning and apparantly I'm doing better than most Mac users. Their mac-techs are working with apple to patch it up somehow.
I did inform them that their help page is hopelessly out of date - they have a work-around for a previous version of f4m which had the "create streaming movies" option. My version of f4m doen't have this - don't know if the intel version is different.
We'll see if there is any improvement tonite.
Good luck Mac users in Canadaland - post back if any of the above sugestions help.