I am trying to watch the live webcasts from the CBC website on my computer. A small popup comes up with the intro and a window is behind it where the webcast would be shown, but I get a quicktime message that pops up that says URL is not valid. Does anyone know what I can do to resolve this issue.
imac 2.4ghz intel core 2 duo 2 gb ram 500gb hd,
Mac OS X (10.4.10)
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.
Yeh, it tells you that on the video help on the site and I have flip for mac installed. I find it weird that they tell you that it is an invalid url. Oh well, if anyone else can help, please do 🙂
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.
Here is the link. When you click the watch live video that is available, a popup comes up with a preview and then it gives me a quicktime alert that says the url is not valid. http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/livevideo
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.
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 changed my f4m settings to just play in the plug in instead of opening QT. It will now play that intro for me but then stops so it still isn't streaming the live video. Oh well. I hate to give up but this must be a cbc screw up. If anyone can solve the problem please let me know how you make out!
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:
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.
Well, I had posted earlier that I changed my f4m setting to play in plug in and not open quick time and it plays the intro but then a black screen. It is not buffering or anything just a black screen. So...I am still out of luck. Hopefully something will get worked out - like you said, before the closing ceremonies.
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.