Streaming Mandarin TV over web

thanks for the link pretzell but I didn't have much more luck with that site last night [or now retesting it] than I did with any of the other sites[ I guess it works a lot better in China...or maybe it's just me]. I have broadband but it still did this buffering thing which meant it would take ages to start up and then when it did it would only give it audio [and video if lucky] for about 2 seconds and then would start buffering again for about another 10 seconds. I also tried going on the official cctv 5 website but after playing a couple of ads to me it then said it was not allowed in my region due to copyright..something along those lines. Other sites wanted a survey answered and other sites wanted programmes downloaded. There also seemed to be some programmes that you had to pay for. I'm not sure if they're better. Are there any Aussies living in Australia who've had better luck getting Chinese tv and particularly this cctv 5 ? Anyone have any other tips.

Maybe it is a China thing. My broadband connection is ok, but it was almost like watching live tv in Beijing. Next time i'm in the states, i'll have to give the link a try again.

pretzell,

I'm curious as to why you didn't just watch it on telly there. Was it just so you could be helpful to the rest of us/for future reference when you are back in the states?

baba, I do watch CCTV-5 on TV here, but in answer to your question, yes to those two reasons you mentioned, and the third is when i've been outprioritized for TV watching by younger ones that want to watch a video. We only have one TV in the house.

In theory, i'm supposed to be heading to Sydney and Dallas later this year, and checking the link in Australia and the US, and comparing the link's performance to China across three countries would be an interesting test, although there's also the posibility that network traffic loads could be an issue that have nothing to do with the link.

pretzell,

outprioritized for TV watching

...hehe, yeah I know exactly what you mean.

yeah,it should be interesting to check the performance elsewhere. I did think of network traffic and that's why I tested again last night when the game wasn't on. But I guess the traffic could be up in general. I never have much luck with any video content live streaming or youku ,tudou etc [and yet US content or other overseas content on sites like youtube for example downloads fine almost straight away.

Baba

it seems to be working for me. I did have some trouble with firefox. You probably figured this out already but either use IE or download the latest windows media firefox add-on or it wont behave.

RJ,

Yeah, firefox kept coming up with this message that I had to install windows media player 11 firefox plugin ....and then couldn't find it .So I tried it on IE but the reception on that was terrible and as I said very intermittent. I"m using windows 7 and I've just now read that that comes with windows media player 12 so perhaps that was part of the problem. I've also just found a site about downgrading to windows media player 11 as some folk must not be happy with 12 for various reasons:

http://www.blogsdna.com/2409/downgrade-windows-media-player-12-to-wmp-11-on-windows-7.htm

I"m pretty sure I tried it on my vista also but not for as long as it was getting to the end of the game at that stage. And so switched to my computers tv to watch it on a local channel in English.

nice new avatar btw and thanks for trying to help and letting me know how it is elsewhere. I guess a lot of the problems may just be on my end.

they actually recommend (in the FAQ) that you use the firefox media plug in located here

http://port25.technet.com/pages/windows-media-player-firefox-plugin-download.aspx

they also give a link to check out your bandwidth. All channels are not available and I suspect some come and go. I tried watching soccer but I just cant get into it. I did enjoy watching some cartoons and other programs in Chinese however.

RJ,

Thanks mate,I did see that one,but unless I'm missing something here that link is from 2007 and doesn't seem to suit windows 7.

FYI, the link I gave above continues to work, but when CCTV-5 showing some big time content (like the World Cup), there is no streaming of that programming, at least for free. The link shows a screen that says something along the lines of "content unavailable".