Comments on: FCC Can’t Even Figure Out How To Stream Its Own Meetings Properly

By: The Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog

The Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:43:45 +0000

The News Frontier: Innovation in Journalism Is Hard but Necessary...

Read Part II here In February, Congress passed the Obama Administration's "(Five Year) National Broadband Plan," part of the so-called "Stimulus." (As economist Russ Roberts put it, government "stimulus" is "like taking a bucket of water from t...

By: ECFS: The FCC’s Comedo-Tragedy of E-Government & Transparency — Technology Liberation Front

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:36:16 +0000

[...] agencies—that can’t even make their own data available through free search engines or stream their own meetings properly—to keep pace with the rapid pace of innovation on the Internet. If only the comedic geniuses at [...]

By: The Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog

The Progress & Freedom Foundation Blog — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:41:43 +0000

Court Strikes Down FCC's Cable Cap: The Revolution in Video Distribution in Three Charts...

The D.C. Circuit has struck down as arbitrary and capricious the FCC's "cable cap." The cap prevented a single cable operator from serving more than 30% of U.S. homes--precisely the same percentage limit struck down by the court in 2001.......

By: tdk

tdk — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:14:37 +0000

Also, there are several key distinctions you are missing: One, it is the Real (or Helix) Streaming Media Server that the FCC is using, NOT the RealPlayer client. Two, the FCC is not required to stream media using the RSMS in RealVideo format. The RSMS also supports H.263/H.264, MPEG-4, and other formats. Three, the RSMS does not require the use of a RealPlayer client (unless certain proprietary Real Networks extensions are used). You can use the Windows Media Player, MPlayer, VLC and most other clients to receive most kinds of streams from RSMS.

By: tdk

tdk — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:14:37 +0000

By: tdk

tdk — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:14:37 +0000

By: dmarti

dmarti — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:13:32 +0000

Then let Adobe or some service that licenses their software subscribe to the public, open-format content and stream it, or podcast it, or archive it, or whatever. Putting public information in a place or format where you have to be a party to some company's EULA is unaccountable, privatized regulation, and an unjustified subsidy for one vendor's network effects.

By: Court Strikes Down FCC’s Cable Cap: The Revolution in Video Distribution in Three Charts

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:51:32 +0000

[...] in the hopes that a familiar-sounding acronym might resonate inside a regulatory agency that can’t even figure out how to stream its own meetings properly). Nothing better demonstrates how the Internet is revolutionizing video distribution than the fact [...]

By: Links 29/08/2009: Motorola’s Android Confirmed, Brins Donate to CC | Boycott Novell

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:56:56 +0000

[...] FCC Can’t Even Figure Out How To Stream Its Own Meetings Properly You’d think that in 2009, when global networks are handling exabytes of data in a single day and OC192 fiber optic connections crisscross the planet, the FCC — the most important communications agency in the United States — would at least be able to use modern technology to stream its own public meetings. [...]

By: brettglass

brettglass — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:00:14 +0000

Actually, RealNetworks and Microsoft both have CODECs that are superior to Flash Video, which is known to be a bandwidth hog and also extremely sensitive to jitter and dropped packets. RealNetworks, for all their faults as a company (their player is both nagware and spyware), actually has very good technology. None of the free stuff comes close.

By: dylanoliver

dylanoliver — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:22:57 +0000

except that flash player is free, doesn't charge usurious 'convenience charges', and 99.1% of browsers on the web in the US have flash v9. perhaps you can offer a better solution for actually making these proceedings available to the largest possible audience (live)?

ps i hear that adobe holds a few seats on the death panels

By: Web News Site » Blog Archive » This Doesn’t Bode Well: FCC Can’t Figure Out Online Streaming For Its Own Meetings

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:10:27 +0000

[...] industry, apparently the online stream required the use of RealPlayer (welcome to 1999) and only allowed 200 simultaneous connections. Perhaps instead of investigating the wireless carriers, the FCC should investigate its own [...]

By: Berin Szoka

Berin Szoka — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:45:00 +0000

It's really hard to say which is worse: EDOCS or ECFS.

By: Adam Thierer

Adam Thierer — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:28:16 +0000

But at least the FCC has a very user-friendly document retrieval service… oh, wait, strike that.

By: DB

DB — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:12:48 +0000

I've been trying to access the archived audio all day with no luck. Connection keeps timing out.

By: massagers

massagers — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:08:53 +0000

I totally agree with Ryan here, good pick.

By: Ryan Radia

Ryan Radia — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:48:11 +0000

Agreed. FCC should definitely offer its streaming video in an open format, though I think it'd be OK if the FCC were to also offer it in a proprietary format.

By: dmarti

dmarti — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:11:12 +0000

There's no way that accepting either the Real or Adobe EULA should be a condition of hearing a public meeting. That's like giving TicketMaster the exclusive contract for a courthouse.