Thursday, March 15, 2007
Sports Sites Media Preferences
I took a visit to the NCAA site to watch some of today’s action live online.
To stream today’s games, they’re using Windows Media.
I was a bit confused as I remembered Sportsline using Real Media. I visited, and there it was.
However, I do remember there being another option, perhaps flash. So I checked Sportsline out on a computer without Real installed and there was nothing but a blank space.
Then I checked in Internet Explorer (I was using Firefox in both of my previous visits). There was the same video, this time in Windows Media format. Interesting.
Sportsline’s video help page has links to both players.
Perhaps a deal was cut with both Real and Microsoft, or perhaps they were using one format and have a limited deal with another.
ESPN uses Flash.
Fox Sports’ current partnership with Microsoft points me to something interesting. On the front of foxsports.com, they use Flash to deliver video. If you click “video home” below it you’ll see Fox Sports video player is “powered by MSN Video”. In Firefox MSN Video uses Flash and is labeled “beta” (oooh, must be 2.0), but is skinned to look like a common Windows Media Player skin. In IE there’s a Flash intro, but the player itself loses the “beta” label and uses Windows Media.