The continuing disappearance of MSNBC live video streams

[LVZ]

Many of you probably know that "live" video feeds come and go. Some will last longer than others but the ones for "live" MSNBC tend to disappear and be replaced more often than others.

I certainly wish that MSNBC could figure out that it should make available its own "live" feed for the internet so that people could tune in at work or folks in rural areas and foreign countries where MSNBC is not available could also be viewers.

I guess they think they'd lose paying customers but that seems silly. Small-box lower-quality video streams don't compete with higher quality television viewing. OTOH, internet viewing could convince some MSNBC fans that they want more than the limitations of viewing online.

Until about a week ago the Las Vegas Mixx web site had three MSNBC "live" streams, a good quality Windows Media version, a P2P TVU Networks version, and a lower-quality low-bandwidth RTSP version. The first two used the same external Akamai video feed. They disappeared first. Now it appears that the lower-quality RTSP MSNBC feed has also stopped working.

They temporarily added a new external stream:

http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/msnbc-slow-loading.html

As the name suggests, it loads slow and, for me at least, it is choppier than the other video streams. Maybe that is due to internet interference from the Olympics or maybe it is suffering delays caused by distance. Sometimes external "rebroadcast" video feeds are located in areas of Asia where reliable internet service is chancy.

Summary of some MSNBC "live" internet links (please add your own):

http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/msnbc-wmv.html --- not working for a week or so
http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/tvu-channels.html --- ditto
http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/msnbc-rtsp.html --- stopped working two days ago

http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/msnbc-slow-loading.html --- working but choppy video

[havocmom]

1. Um. "live" v taped at earlier date? "Live" has a short shelf life.

Live ain't live unless it's live? I can see why they would take down 'live' video after a spell. Do they archive video so one can find OLD news that WAS live at one time, but became, well, not live due to being several hours/days/weeks old?

I haven't looked at their site to see if there is any sort of archive, but with live news happening all the time, I can see why they would take down older 'live' stories. Gotta make room for the new news, I reckon.

[itsrobert]

2. The Olympics are on. So NBC is probably working overtime

to keep the unauthorized streaming down. This is also to appease the IOC as some countries don't air events at the same time due to time differences.

[NashVegas]

7. That's a Safe Bet

If NBC is streaming it, somewhere there's a geek out there who can capture and re-stream.

Is has already become apparent to media that they cannot afford to produce content for no/low-overhead middlemen who demand free use to re-distribute said content.

techie to trad media type: "find a new business model!"
trad media type to techie: "find your own fucking payroll budget - without hitting up a venture capitalist"

[tabatha]

3. Yes, that disappointed me, too.

I bookmarked another link sometime ago that someone provided, and it seems to work reasonably:

http://www.tvchannelsfree.com/watch/4144/MSNBC-Live.html

[LVZ]

4. Tried the link but unfortunately that one didn't work for me either. n/t

[tabatha]

8. Are you using FireFox?

It works just fine with FireFox.

[LVZ]

9. Yes, I use Firefox - the link works - but the video never starts ...

All I get is the Quicktime Logo in the middle.

[tabatha]

10. Hmmmm

Mine is displayed with RealPlayer.

Do you have the latest version of RealPlayer?

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. I don't get MSNBC's thinking. Why give away potential audience to..

Faux and CNN. It doesn't make any marketing sense to me. You would think that they would want to pick up whatever viewers they could. Pick them up at work and keep them when they get home. Go figure.

[LVZ]

6. Totally agree. MSNBC? Is someone out there listening?

To gain greater viewer market share you need more exposure. How many TV viewers have never even seen MSNBC because of some limited satellite or cable package?

[LVZ]

11. One of the MSNBC live feeds is working again ...

The Windows Media and TVU online video feeds of MSNBC "live" are still down.

However, the http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/msnbc-live2 RTSP feed is working again.

It is not the highest quality but it is less choppy than the new backup one:

http://www.lasvegasmixx.com/msnbc-slow-loading.html

[earth mom]

12. Easier to hide the truth that way isn't it? nt

[TransitJohn]

13. It's the cable companies.

The cable companies, along with the two satellite companies, and also the damn mobile phone companies nowadays, all want to charge real high end prices and act like they are content companies, denying the fact that they're all just dumb pipes. In the ideal future world, they would be, and would charge for bandwidth, them we consumers could pay a la carte to the actual content creators for what we wanted to be streamed to us over said bandwidth.