BBC News Player wont play

[Audiolab]

Hi there,

I have recently migrated to ADSL24 and all is going well apart from one niggle that I hoped someone could help with.

When you are on the BBC news site you can click on news videos to stream in media player or real player, this worked fine before but since migrating to ADSL24 the player pops up and displays "connecting to media" but then never find the video on both integrated and standalone player.

I have tried this on both my ThinkPad and desktop system in the house and no videos at all will play from the BBC site. The same ThinkPad works fine when I take it into work. Nothing has changed in the configuration, no hardware or software added. I have tried disabling the firewall on the ThinkPad. Tried an installation on the desktop with no AV or firewall and again nothing. Removed all port blocking on my router, ThinkPad is connected via wireless and the desktop and it is connected using cat5.

You Tube and other video streaming sites like that work fine just the BBC wont work since moving to ADSL24. The BBC website is particularly unhelpful with a "contact your player vendor" suggestion.

Could someone give it a try for me and at least confirm if this is a local problem or something at a higher level.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/ scroll down a wee bit to where it says "video and audio news" and click on any video, a preferences window will pop up and select media player, the video should the load in a player.

Many thanks.

Martin.

[thraxas]

I have heard that there have been some problems with the BT giving out video based on IP location and misidentifying some as outside the UK.

My connection works fine, you are not using Tor or some other proxy are you obfuscating your IP address?

[Audiolab]

Thanks for the reply, no proxies torrents or anything in use but at least i know that it works for someone else on ADSL24 so the problem must be somewhere at my end. the fact that it doesnt work on a plain vanilla installation leads me to suspect the config in my router.

Will work trough it methodically again and see if I can eliminate / implicate the culprit.

Cheers.

[Krokr]

I had similar problems with the BBC player if I used the Windows media option. Instead I selected preferences and chose the realplayer option, then when it starts I select play in stand alone player. I don't like realplayer so I associate ram files with media player classic, which I use for most video files. Using this method I can happily view the BBC output in a player of my choice.

I think the problem started with one of the WMP updates but can't be sure.

[tonys]

I have heard that there have been some problems with the BT giving out video based on IP location and misidentifying some as outside the UK.

There was a big problem with Bob Dylan's 'listen again' broadcasts earlier this year, the beeb never gave a satisfactory answer, but those affected (including me) thought it was something to do with misidentifying as non-UK. Funny, as everthying else worked (and still does work).

[Krokr]

Just tried a little experiment. I opened the BBC player window and selected Windows media option and then tried the Launch in standalone player option and noticed that the file it pointed to was ........._bb.asx and this gave a wmp error :-
"Windows Media Player cannot play the file because a network error occurred. The server might not be available. Verify that you are connected to the network and that your proxy settings are correct."
I then looked at the page source for the BBC player window and noticed that it also had reference to a similarly named file ........._nb.asx, so tried this as a URL in Windows media player, and guess what..... it played !!!!

Don't know if this helps but when I tried the two realplayer alternatives they both played with the bb.ram being a larger version.

[Audiolab]

Thanks again guys for all your help and suggestions. Will give them a go and report back.

What a helpful forum....:)

[ebuygum]

I have heard that there have been some problems with the BT giving out video based on IP location and misidentifying some as outside the UK.
This theory could make sense. I do internet banking with a Spanish bank. When I migrated to ADSL24 their site refused to work for me. A phone call to Spain revelaed that they thought my IP address was outside the UK or Spain and so a bogus login. Or, I think, more likely their system didn't know where in the world I was. Possibly due to a new IP address range. (78.32.xx.xx)

[Krokr]

Just tried the BBC player window with Windows media selection and changed the preferences to standard quality...... and it plays ok! So for me the WMP option only works for the standard quality but the RP option works on both, which makes me think it's an issue at the BBC end.

[Audiolab]

Just tried the BBC player window with Windows media selection and changed the preferences to standard quality...... and it plays ok! So for me the WMP option only works for the standard quality but the RP option works on both, which makes me think it's an issue at the BBC end.

This also works for me, standard quality works fine. I need to re-try this in work now as it did work in there last time I tried it.

Damm you BBC...:mad: