Watch CNN Live
Here is a quick tip send in by Alex who is a regular reader and commenter here at Ghacks. If you want to watch CNN live and all other methods and applications do not seem to work right now you might want to try the following easy method providing that you have access to a computer with Windows Media Player installed.
Might be just what you need to watch the current US elections live but it is of course working all the time not only during the elections.
To start open Windows Media Player. Press the keyboard combination [CTRL U] to open a small window where an url of a media stream can be entered. Paste the following url in the form exactly as it is shown below:
rtsp://cnn-cnnlive-1-primary.wm.llnwd.net/cnn_cnnlive_1_primary/
Hit ok to load the stream. It usually takes a few seconds before the stream becomes active due to the buffering process. After that everything should run smooth and fine.
The screenshot above was taken from the live CNN stream. It works pretty well. Any tips to get this running on different operating systems or media players? Let us know!
Update: The CNN live stream is no longer working. Interestingly enough, there is another option to watch CNN live, and this option is provided by CNN itself. Head over to http://edition.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1 and you should see the CNN live stream right in the browser you are opening the link with. Note that you do need Adobe Flash installed in the browser to watch the stream, and that it opens in a popup.
I highly recommend to click no when the Adobe Flash Player Enhancement popup appears on the screen as it is not required to view the CNN stream in the browser.
While that is not the same as watching the stream in a media player, it is better than nothing I guess.
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Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?
Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.
Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.
huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.
yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.
Error:
Buidling font Cache pop-up
Solution:
Open VLC player.
On Menu Bar:
Tools
Preferences
(at bottom – left side)
Show settings — ALL
Open: Video
Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”
Save
Exit
Re-open – done.
Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts
Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc
Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.
@Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.
Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?
I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…
/thanks
/j
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.
No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure
Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me
I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).
Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?