UPDATE: October 2007 - BlogTalkRadio site has been totally updated.
This may not be a problem for some users, but after reading the BlogTalkRadio forum, there are users who are having problems listening to BlogTalkRadio LIVE with a Mac. I decided to test a live broadcast out Wednesday evening and found it wasn't a click away to listen, but took four hours of research to find the right combination of programs to do it.
My husband's Mac was set up to just click on a live program and it worked. So we had to find out the combination of software to make it work on my Mac. I have the latest Windows Media Player for Mac and Flip4Mac WMV. That was not enough to play the live broadcast. What made it work for my Mac was installing VLC Media Player for Mac OS X. (the latest version, not older ones, which had problems) The software is free at this link.
I had no problems listening to live broadcast before, it's just BlogTalkRadio does take a different combination of software to make it work on a MAC. So for you listeners having issues, I hope this might help. Happy Listening...
Follow up: I had a message saying if I had FIREFOX installed on my Mac, I wouldn't have had this problem. I had FIREFOX since it first came out and have updated it regularly. Just to be clear, I was using the latest FIREFOX with the latest Media Player for Mac and Flip4Mac (even tried it with other browsers) during the test, and it would not play any of the live BTR programs. When we decided to load VLC, that is when it finally played the live streams. So FIREFOX alone was not the answer. Not anybody has the same system, but this was the first time I had any problems listening to a live broadcast on the internet. Just hope to answer the question for others who run into the same problem. Thanks for your message... - L
Follow up 2 - Well, I had a rush of emails on this today. I had some of the same problems as you. For MAC, Firefox is the best browser I have seen for the PROGRAMMING GUIDE page (where the LIVE shows are listed). Safari doesn't work right on that page (it needs to be fixed), as all the information is pushed together on the right hand side. And yes the link to the live programming page doesn't scream at you, but sits quietly with other links on a bar of links. Maybe it should say LIVE or ON AIR NOW. Anyway, it appears to be very popular and will grow and improve with time.
4 comments:
Well...first off, the blogtalkradio site is weird. Their main page loaded with an entire set of empty cells to the left of the main content. I had to scroll laterally to see it. Even then, some of the text was superimposed over other stuff. I would find it hard to think the designers of this site know how to make it compatible with anything but their own computer.
It's not hard to see why Flip4Mac wouldn't play back content there, based on what I experienced just opening their home page. I've had fantastic results with Flip4Mac most of the time. There are weird, unsupported, formats of WMV out there, but Telestream keeps updating F4M to accommodate them (depending on priority).
BTW, I never did find a link on the Blogtalkradio to listen to anything. Anyway, if this turns out to be a popular site, that streams WMV content, then I suspect Telestream will work on updating F4M to make it work, but people will have to send them requests to do so. The more they get, the more likely they'll do it. support@flip4mac.com
Hello Antonio,
I can only speak for Safari on a Mac, but it didn't load properly and did exactly as you said. That is because the designer didn't check it out on Safari on a Mac or they would have seen that right away.
In Firefox, it looks proper.
I find the problem page when I click on PROGRAMMING GUIDE.
As for it being popular, it appears to be growing fast. I never heard of it before, but hundreds of program already. Time will sort the good from the bad, like anything...
Well, just when I thought this BlogTalkRadio connection was really working (for a couple of weeks anyway), it is back to not working again.
I never had so many problems just listening to something live online.
The latest solution is to copy and paste the live shows URL address into WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER file list. That is working, for now...
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