Forum Home
Press F1
Thread ID: 143204	2016-12-16 01:47:00	Problem with TVNZ on demand with Linux.	mzee (3324)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1429913	2016-12-17 19:25:00	Ahhh, the dreaded Adobe strikes again. :rolleyes: No I can’t play TVNZ on Demand on Mint and I can’t play flash movies on my phone either. In the case of my phone it has the Gingerbread OS and Adobe don’t cater for that either. However, if it is in a file format, and not streaming, I can play flv and swf files no problem through an old programme called Flash Player, but that is designed for Windows (XP era), and works fine with Mint through Wine or Winetricks, not sure which one. I don’t know if we can draw any comfort from it, but in todays Mail I got THIS (blog.ashampoo.com). Seems we are not alone. It strikes me that by the time Microsoft and Adobe get their s..t sorted only their own programmers will be able to even load the programmes.	B.M. (505)
1429914	2016-12-17 20:27:00	TVNZ's policy seems to be to make it as difficult as possible to play their videos on anything but MS Windows and mobile devices (maybe even on those platforms I suspect it can be problematic sometimes). It sure can. Been MANY times people have called to say TV on Demand was working fine the day before, now its not. Then ya find out they have changed something again, and its upto users to sort it out on their own computers. As for Flash updates -- In Edge, it will come through as a normal update, AND its doing it all the times ( flash updates). If you have another browser, like Firefox that uses a separate Flash, that updates as well ( had one this morning) One day :rolleyes: ( don't hold your breathe though) maybe these streaming places, like TV on demand, youtube and all the others will settle down and run the same systems without the need for consistent changes by end users. I assume MAC's have the same issue as posted by B.M's Link, Flash is not OS specific, so it causes problems on MAC's,Linux and Windows. Had to smirk at one comment in that article: First, the folks behind Chrome will wait to see how users react when they have to manually enable Flash for newly visited web sites (that's the central issue). LOL it will be Eh wha :confused::confused:	wainuitech (129)
1429915	2016-12-17 20:34:00	Sigh, TVNZ's On Demand is a proper PITA! DRM is the problem, and TVNZ's policy seems to be to make it as difficult as possible to play their videos on anything but MS Windows and mobile devices (maybe even on those platforms I suspect it can be problematic sometimes) . However, it can be done in Linux and I have had it working fine for some time now in a VirtualBox version of Linux Xubuntu I have specially set up for this . I have personal reasons why I use a Virtual PC to do this as I refuse to install Adobe Flash in my main browser, basically because of Adobe's lack of support for Linux and the fact that Flash's days are numbered anyway . It will eventually be phased out by HTLM5 and the sooner the better IMHO . Anyway, my solution should work for Ubuntu and derivatives using Firefox and the system plugin for Adobe Flash . . . don't know about Puppy Linux and Chrome though . In fact, I know it won't work with Chrome as the special package that needs to be installed only works with the Firefox version of Flash . 1 . Install a package called "Zombie Hal" . . . you won't find it in a repository (at least not the version that works), you have to go the PPA way to install it . Just execute the following lines in a terminal: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mjblenner/ppa-hal sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install hal 2 . Make sure you have the plugin for Flash installed in Firefox . You can test this by going to Adobe's Flash site: . adobe . com/software/flash/about/" target="_blank">www . adobe . com If you see a message saying: "A plugin is needed to display this content . " it means that the Flash plugin is NOT installed . 3 . Restart the system just to be sure that everything is set up . 4 . Now try playing TVNZ On Demand videos . . . cross your fingers that it works, and keeps working (until TVNZ inevitably change the requirements yet again, that is) . It's quite possible Linux Mint will play the TVNZ On Demand videos without all this flaffing around, maybe BM could let us know . I will try it with Mint Xfce on my laptop later today just to see . Well Rod it wouldn't play off the cuff so I followed your instructions for "Zombie Hal" and all went well . I found that the Sponsors Adds now played fine but the programme no such luck . The play/pause controls were there but no programme . 7745	B.M. (505)
1429916	2016-12-18 10:51:00	Great! You've got the ads working well, that'll please the sponsors I suppose [sarcasm]. I've had that happen before too, the ads play wonderfully well over and over again, but no video that you actually WANTED to watch. :mad: I installed Zombie Hal on my laptop running Linux Mint 18 Xfce earlier today but I didn't have much luck so far. I don't know yet if it is actually working but not even the ads would play ... I could tell something was being downloaded but not one frame of video appeared. I ran out of time today but I'll work on it tomorrow and see if I can resolve it. Mint might need different tweaking to get TVNZ's On Demand to work. The videos do still work in my VirtualBox version of Xubuntu 12.04 (32 bit) so it should be theoretically possible for Mint to play the videos too.	Rod J (451)
1429917	2016-12-18 20:12:00	Great! You've got the ads working well, that'll please the sponsors I suppose [sarcasm]. I've had that happen before too, the ads play wonderfully well over and over again, but no video that you actually WANTED to watch. :mad: Yes Rod you can imagine my wrath when the Adds turned up unaccompanied. :D I’m no expert by any stretch of the imagination but I get the impression that Adobe are actually breaking certain sites? I say that because THIS (www.coastalwatch.com) site used to work fine on Windows and Mint but now only works on Mint. But THIS (http://watchcric.org/) site used to only work on Windows and now doesn’t work at all, but SkyGo works fine on both platforms. Which in turn begs the question “Why have I never had any problem with You Tube on either platform”? :confused:	B.M. (505)
1429918	2016-12-18 22:13:00	Which in turn begs the question “Why have I never had any problem with You Tube on either platform”? :confused: Because YouTube has been using HTML5 by default for some time now. See youtube-eng.googleblog.com	Rod J (451)
1429919	2016-12-18 23:56:00	Sigh, TVNZ's On Demand is a proper PITA! DRM is the problem, and TVNZ's policy seems to be to make it as difficult as possible to play their videos on anything but MS Windows and mobile devices (maybe even on those platforms I suspect it can be problematic sometimes) . However, it can be done in Linux and I have had it working fine for some time now in a VirtualBox version of Linux Xubuntu I have specially set up for this . I have personal reasons why I use a Virtual PC to do this as I refuse to install Adobe Flash in my main browser, basically because of Adobe's lack of support for Linux and the fact that Flash's days are numbered anyway . It will eventually be phased out by HTLM5 and the sooner the better IMHO . Anyway, my solution should work for Ubuntu and derivatives using Firefox and the system plugin for Adobe Flash . . . don't know about Puppy Linux and Chrome though . In fact, I know it won't work with Chrome as the special package that needs to be installed only works with the Firefox version of Flash . 1 . Install a package called "Zombie Hal" . . . you won't find it in a repository (at least not the version that works), you have to go the PPA way to install it . Just execute the following lines in a terminal: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mjblenner/ppa-hal sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install hal 2 . Make sure you have the plugin for Flash installed in Firefox . You can test this by going to Adobe's Flash site: . adobe . com/software/flash/about/" target="_blank">www . adobe . com If you see a message saying: "A plugin is needed to display this content . " it means that the Flash plugin is NOT installed . 3 . Restart the system just to be sure that everything is set up . 4 . Now try playing TVNZ On Demand videos . . . cross your fingers that it works, and keeps working (until TVNZ inevitably change the requirements yet again, that is) . It's quite possible Linux Mint will play the TVNZ On Demand videos without all this flaffing around, maybe BM could let us know . I will try it with Mint Xfce on my laptop later today just to see . It works well in Chromebook, which is strange considering that Chrome OS is based on Linux .	mzee (3324)
1429920	2016-12-19 00:42:00	It works well in Chromebook, which is strange considering that Chrome OS is based on Linux. There's an interesting discussion about Linux, DRM and TVNZ On Demand here (deepweb.co.nz): "The comments on this chromimum issue suggest that the version of pepper flash packaged with Chrome for Chrome OS used on Chromebooks does include the DRM components. As Chrome OS is basically linux it’s suggested that it may be possible to use this version of pepper flash with Linux Chrome."	Rod J (451)
1429921	2016-12-19 04:22:00	I just did a system update of my VirtualBox version of Xubuntu 12.04 that I use to view TVNZ On Demand with. I took the precaution of taking a Snapshot of the running system (as it was playing TVNZ videos perfectly). After the update of the Adobe Flash Firefox plugin to the latest version (v24 -- now the same version as in Windows) the TVNZ videos won't play. I read yesterday somewhere that although the plugin update makes Flash the same version as in Windows (after Linux has been stuck on v11 for some years now) there are some 'gotchas'. DRM support is disabled in the Linux version among other things. I think I can confirm this is the case. Adobe Flash is !&*%$#@@** :badpc: :mad: I'll revert my Virtual PC to its previous state and NEVER update Flash in the virtual browser again. I don't view On Demand TV very much but it's handy if you miss something.	Rod J (451)
1429922	2016-12-19 04:28:00	Because YouTube has been using HTML5 by default for some time now. See youtube-eng.googleblog.com Well that explains that. :lol: :thanks Is there no "Flash" on there now? Interesting link too, not that I fully understood it, but I've bookmarked it to read again. Moving onto your next post: There's an interesting discussion about Linux, DRM and TVNZ On Demand here: I checked that link and thought what the hell, I give it a go, but "HAL" did not break loose. In fact, nothing happened that I've found so far. :eek: The installation from the Terminal seemed to be normal so I guess "HAL" is sitting there with nothing to do. :D Anyway, that's where I'm up to and still can't watch a "Coro St." replay. ;)	B.M. (505)
1 2 3