Universal Sports Giro On-Demand Stream?

by SuperShadow on May 11, 2009 1:15 AM EDT Comment 16 comments

Is anyone else having problems with Universal Sports' on-demand stream of the Giro so far? I click on the link for video on their website for each of the two stage so far and all I get is the repeated 7 second promo commercial in Windows Media Player. Am I missing something? I thought that Universal Sports was offering on-demand streams of the stages in addition to their live online and TV coverage.

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I hear IE 6 works

I’ve tried FireFox and IE 8 to no avail. I’ve been told that the video clips will work in IE 6.

by nodeal on May 11, 2009 2:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

FWIW - Chrome and IE 8 now working for me.

I struggled all afternoon to get it to work in Chrome.

And now it is working in both Chrome and IE 8.

Not too sure what changed, nothing on my end…

by muk on May 11, 2009 3:01 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

using IE 7.0... having no probs with neither xp or vista

"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind

by umwolverine on May 11, 2009 4:42 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I don't know if this helps...

But sometimes I have to wait a long time for the video after the commercial to come up and sometimes I just have to refresh my screen and it will make it past the promo.

My only complaint is that on a mac it seems you can’t skip through sections of the on demand video. You have to wait for the whole video to buffer before you can skip around.

by profgubler on May 11, 2009 6:20 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

live works with safari

there’s a long PdC thread here on silverlight and mac compatibility. Not sure if silverlight indeed turned out to be required, or if it is even technically possible to need it for the content but not for the ad. But just in case it is useful….

there’s also some commentary here on silverlight vs windows media player in this thread. And processor requirements here. For more individual tweaks, search “silverlight” in the site search box.

by JFS_PGH on May 11, 2009 7:42 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

stage 2 on demand

The race coverage for stage 2 I watched last night… I had hop/fast-forward the player about 75% all the way to right. It seems to be about 2 hours of nothing, and the then the stage coverage.

The live coverage… I clicked on about everything and got only the commercial until I clicked on a little camera with “watch it now” next to it. I am now trained to click on cameras until something good happens.

by phantom_51 on May 11, 2009 11:19 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

universalsports' giro coverage

Have i been spoiled by cycling.tv or is the commentating on universalsports just a joke!

by marsajax on May 11, 2009 12:00 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I was having the same problem

then I downloaded and installed the Windows Media plugin thing for firefox and then it worked (link is on their (US) video help page). It was annoying that they never complained that I was missing something (and that the promo video worked). Yesterday I had to refresh a couple of times to get past the promo as well.

by rawls on May 11, 2009 12:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

How about the live TV coverage?

It is supposed to come on at about 8:30 ET (which I assume is 5:30 PT where I live — Bay Area) and my DVR is set up to record, but I am not getting the Giro, I am getting other stuff. Any ideas, thanks!

"The road is our agony, but also our daily bread; and at night, when it is deserted and the moon glistens on the asphalt, the ridiculous dreams of racers like us pass up and down it."

--Dino Buzzati

by nrs5000 on May 11, 2009 12:34 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

there isn't any live tv coverage... the live is the online streaming

"Wizard's first rule. People are stupid. They will believe anything they want to be true or fear to be true." -- Terry Goodkind

by umwolverine on May 11, 2009 3:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

The TV coverage is on at 9am PT, then repeated again in the evening.

by Veloki on May 11, 2009 4:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If you have a Linksys router this may help

For Windows Media Player 10:
Launch Windows Media Player. Click the ‘down arrow’ in the upped right hand corner. Go to Tools then Options. Click on the ‘Network’ tab and make sure that the only thing checked is HTTP. If you aren’t using a streaming proxy, click each item under ‘Streaming Proxy Settings’ , click ‘Configure’ and select “Do Not Use a Proxy Server” then click ok, Once you’re finished with each item, click ok in the options window.

This takes care of WMP, for Real Media Player, look for the similar settings.

worked for me.

by australopithecine on May 11, 2009 1:07 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs