Thursday, November 29, 2007

Most TV networks online aren't Linux friendly

After my original article on ABC.COM (ABC.COM article), I thought I would do a little more research and see how the other major networks fared with Linux. And, here are the results...

ABC.COM - As I originally mentioned, ABC's shows will not work in Linux.

FOX.COM - Their shows can only be viewed on Windows and Mac systems.

TBS.COM - Once again, we have a network that's ignorant to the fact that there are Linux users. I wasn't given an error message, I just wasn't able to play the episodes.

CWTV.COM - Their video ads worked perfectly, but the full episodes only work on Windows and Mac.

CBS.COM - Online episodes were easily viewable.

NBC.COM - Not only was I able to watch online episodes, it was very easy to use.

Congratulations to CBS and NBC for being forward thinking and allowing people on any OS to view their TV shows. ABC, FOX, TBS and the CW need to get on board (sounds like the developers at ABC are already working on this). Please stop by their sites and give them feedback, if you feel they should support ALL OS's.

13 comments:

kozmcrae said...

This is good work. I don't think I've seen a list like this anywhere on the Linux blogs. It's nice to see someone doing something rather than just talk about it.

Sunshine1970 said...

How were you able to get NBC.com to work? I'm using Ubuntu Feisty and can get the player to come up with the episodes to choose from below. I can even get the beginning commercial to play, but I cannot, for the life of me, get the show to come up...(Chuck and Journeman are the two I'm trying to watch...)

Happy Linux Guy said...

I didn't have to do anything to get NBC to work. I selected the show, and then I had to select which episode I wanted. Once I did that, it did a little countdown, and then it had a quick commercial before the show started playing. (I tested it on office, heroes, and chuck) There might be a countdown after the commercial plays, depending on which one it is. Just wait, and it should start.

Unknown said...

I'm surprised that big networks like thsoe don't support Linux. With posts like these it'll only be a period of time before they get this fixed.

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Anonymous said...

I think you should add http://www.thedailyshow.com/ to the list. It uses Flash player, I have Flash player, but none of the video will play.

Anonymous said...

i definately cant watch yet with linux on NBC and their site even says linux/mac support coming in early 2008. you must be watching the non direct media download versions.. i wanted to watch hero without commentaries :-P

noerrorsfound said...

CBS.com no longer works in Linux. When you try to start an episode, the commercial will play, but after that the status bar just keeps saying "Transferring data from [some URL]" but the show never starts.

Happy Linux Guy said...

As of May 14, 2008: Watching full episodes on CBS still works perfectly for me. The user commenting above must have had some other issues on their system.

Unknown said...

I've been watching videos on thedailyshow.com and colbertnation.com just fine. Just make sure you're running the latest version of Flash 9.

Unknown said...

Check out hulu.com for NBC and FOX shows. There is a lot of other content on there as well; from what I read it was a joint NBC/Fox effort.

Click TV at the very top, then Network on the menu bar below to see all the different networks and their shows offered.

CBS isn't working for me right now, same problem with just seeing the ad. I guess I'll keep researching. Forget ABC.

Anonymous said...

hmmm... try hulu.com

and f*** those tv sites...

ps: u still have to goto those crappy site for some of the shows which u can't watch it =.= but better than none

ultimate sol'n? d/w it!

stray said...

You can add cbs to your lineup that doesn't support linux. They have a new player that you cannot install on linux os.

Anonymous said...

all named work just fine