[GoDucks]

I'm a big fan of a certain college football team and every year for the past 4 years, I've used broadcast.com (now part of yahoo) to listen to the games over the internet. I've always done this using my iMac under OS 9 with no problems at all. For the past two years, the software/system detection software on the yahoo.com site didn't seem to work on the mac but I was able to listen to the game by clicking on a link that let me access the audio file directly (billed under the yahoo site as a direct link for Mac and Unix users.)

This past saturday, i spent 2 hours trying to get this to work on my new iMac (G4 800Mhz) running OS 10.1.5. Nothing worked - not using netscape of IE, the windows media player or the real player software for OSX. I tried to post the direct link into both media players but both times recieved a message telling me that the codec was not supported.

I ended up using my dreaded corporate issued Thinkpad (running Windows 2000)and the whole think worked without a hitch. Not exactly the experience a Mac fan is looking for...

Any suggestions as to what I did wrong? Has anyone else got this to work? Any suggestions appreciated.

[T Allen]

What kind of stream is it? http, rtsp?
What is the file extension? .mp3, .ram, etc?
What players (and versions) did you try? WMP, iTunes, Real, QT?

[GoDucks]

I'm not 100% sure what stream it is.

The link is http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/teams/ooe/

When I click on the audio link, the window that pops up has been designed to check my system for installed mediaplayer software and the speed of my internet connection. This only seems to work on a windows machine. Even though I have RealPlayer (OSX Beta) installed and running, the only available radio button on the screen is for windows media player.

I select that option and the next page gives me the following message:

CLICK HERE FOR DIRECT MEDIA LINKS
Linux and Mac users use this link

I click on the link and the browser launched a new window with the following url:

http://playlist.broadcast.com/makepl...%2Eyahoo%2Ecom

When i try to paste this link into the Realplayer, I get a message telling me that there is no software update available from realone to support the content: video/x-ms-asf. Trying the same thing using the Windows media player tells me the player does not support the codec.

To answer your direct questions:

What kind of stream is it? http, rtsp? - I don't know how to tell the answer to this...

What is the file extension? .mp3, .ram, etc? - I don't think it's mp3 - it might be ,"asp" if that's a valid file type...

What players (and versions) did you try? WMP, iTunes, Real, QT?

I tried RealOne Player for OSX, Windows MediaPlayer for OSX, and Quicktime Player 6.0, and iTunes 3.0

[T Allen]

Originally posted by GoDucks:
I'm a big fan of a certain college football team and every year for the past 4 years, I've used broadcast.com (now part of yahoo) to listen to the games over the internet. I've always done this using my iMac under OS 9 with no problems at all. For the past two years, the software/system detection software on the yahoo.com site didn't seem to work on the mac but I was able to listen to the game by clicking on a link that let me access the audio file directly (billed under the yahoo site as a direct link for Mac and Unix users.)

With 9.2.1 I was able to listen to the last (archived) game using Windows Media Player 7 on my iMac.

<rant>
I listen to internet radio all day long with iTunes, QT, or Audion. Most stations provide 'generic' mp3 streams Ð so you can choose the player that *you* want to use. The Yahoo link that's suppose to let you access the audio file directly is total BS - I HAD to use WMP. There is no generic stream. Yahoo/MS/Real seem to have the college football market totally locked up with their proprietary crap. I wonder what the financial arrangements are with the universities? It's hard to believe that this is the only viable business model. Given the ubiquity of cross-platform mp3 players it's hard to understand why they wouldn't cast the largest net. More listeners = more ad dollars.
</rant>

This past saturday, i spent 2 hours trying to get this to work on my new iMac (G4 800Mhz) running OS 10.1.5. Nothing worked - not using netscape of IE, the windows media player or the real player software for OSX. I tried to post the direct link into both media players but both times recieved a message telling me that the codec was not supported.

Can you boot in 9 and use WMP 7?

I ended up using my dreaded corporate issued Thinkpad (running Windows 2000) and the whole think worked without a hitch. Not exactly the experience a Mac fan is looking for...

I agree. I wonder if 10.2 would make a difference?

Any suggestions as to what I did wrong? Has anyone else got this to work? Any suggestions appreciated.

Sounds to me like it's an issue with 10.1.5 and/or WMP. Have you tried the mac WMP forum (assuming they have one) at MS? Bet you're not the only one who's having this problem. Good Luck.