Some football watchers helped themselves by turning off the sound of the TV while others played around with their TV’s equalizer to reduce the impact of the vuvuzela on the overall sound.

The developers of VLC Media Player have now posted instructions on how to reduce the sound of the vuvuzelas while watching soccer.

This does however mean that only users who watch football in VLC will be able to enjoy the games without those sounds.

This basically means that users who use a TV card in their PC can benefit from the startup parameters, as do users who watch recorded games on their PCs.

VLC Media Player needs to be started from the command line with the following parameters to remove the vuvuzela when watching the world cup.

vlc –audio-filter=param_eq –param-eq-f1=233 –param-eq-f2=466 –param-eq-f3=932 –param-eq-gain1=-20 –param-eq-gain2=-20 –param-eq-gain3=-20 –param-eq-lowf=100 –param-eq-lowgain=15 –param-eq-q1=10 –param-eq-q2=10 –param-eq-q3=10

The parameters can be added to a batch file that needs to be placed in the VLC directory so that the commands are executed without having to issue them on every startup.

Just download this batch file and extract it into your VLC directory. Execute it whenever you want to watch football.

A similar option is available for Mplayer users, they need to issue the command

mplayer -af an=1:0.5:0.5,sinesuppress=233:0.01,sinesuppress=466:0.01,
sinesuppress=932:0.01,sinesuppress=1864:0.01,sinesuppress=232:0.01,sinesuppress=465:0.01,sinesuppress=931:0.01,sinesuppress=1863:0.01,sinesuppress=234:0.01,sinesuppress=467:0.01, sinesuppress=933:0.01,sinesuppress=1865:0.01 name-of-video

This command can be added to a batch file as well. It does however require the video file name as a parameter which means that it needs to be edited whenever the video changes.

stop vuvuzela mplayer

Have you found another way to stop the annoying sounds of the vuvuzela? Let us know in the comments.

TV stations in most countries of the world show the games live but there might be some countries where not all games are shown, or where a pay-tv station broadcasts the football games. Watching the Fifa world cup online can also be the last resort for users who do not have access to a TV which is the case for most work environments for instance.

The following guide explains how to watch the world cup online. Streaming media has bandwidth requirements. A broadband Internet connection is recommended to view the sports event online.

Step 1: Finding out which channels and programs are needed

Each world cup match is broadcasted in several channels which are accessible in various freely available programs. That sounds complicated at first but it is not the case. The best website to get a match listing is MyP2P which is offering all the information needed to find the game, channel and program. The website lists all of the games on their overview pages.

world cup online

A click on the TV icon at the right of each match will open the page for that match listing all TV channels and programs that are broadcasting it live on the Internet.

watch world cup

Channels are displayed with the language of the commentary, signal quality, bitrate and program needed to watch. It is recommended to find a native TV channel first and fall back to the always working Chinese channels if none of the native ones work. Here is a list of programs that are often needed to view live football.

TV Streaming programs

• Streamtorrent
• TVAnts
• Sopcast
• Veetle

Some broadcasts can be watched in Windows Media Player, embedded on websites or in other media players. Some will not be working properly, if that is the case just switch to another station.

Each MyP2P station listing offers a Play link. Clicking on that link will either load the TV channel in the installed software program, media player or on another website where the stream is embedded. It is highly recommended to install the program before clicking on links that require tv streaming programs.

world cup live

football live streamtorrent

The quality of the stream depends largely on its bitrate, the source and the connected users. A higher bitrate on the other hand requires a faster Internet connection. It is usually a good idea to switch tv stations if the image quality is bad or if it requires lots of buffering.

And that’s how you can watch the world cup online. Do you have additional tips, programs or websites that can be used to watch it online? Let us know in the comment section.

“World Cup KickOff is all you will ever need for knowing all the match details for the upcoming World Cup 2006. Whether you use your mobile phone, MS Outlook, Apple iCal or Mozilla Calendar, you can download and keep all the fixtures you are interested in so you will never miss a single game! Just download the calendar file and install it on your favoured software following the instructions on the left.”