CNN Now Offers Free Online Video

Drinian writes "It seems that CNN is now offering its video FREE to the public. Apparently, this is a response to pressure from FOX News who has always offered free video. Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?"

is this Microsoft only?

[worldthinker]

Confirmed. Requires Windows Media Player. blech!

Re:is this Microsoft only?

[Mnemia]

It works 100% fine for me with the mplayer plugin under Linux (w/ the WMP codecs, of course).

Re:Pressure from Fox?

[GarfBond]

It might also be important to note that CNN has switched from Real SuperPass (and hence the RV9 they used to use) to Windows Media 9. To me, this means that they lined up another big sponsor in Microsoft.

This is a disappointment to me, as it means that I'm not entirely sure I'm always going to be able to watch these videos on a Linux or Mac system; WM10 isn't out on Mac, and obviously never will be for Linux. Real has generally been fairly consistent with clients being available for all 3 big platforms. Mplayer is nice but official clients are even better.

Re:Ive Given Up on Internet Video

[cayenne8]

" everyone wants a different version of some player, and all the players want to own my box."

Use MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] , it plays just about everything out there....and does lots more than just play....

Re:Wasn't it "free" before?

[ndege]

You are correct. CNN previously did offer "free" (with a small Ad at the beginning of the video stream) for free....after ad-based support was shown to be unprofitable, they yanked the "free" streams.

Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...

[stonedown]

That study is flawed. Their methodology determined that the ACLU is a right-leaning organization! (WTF?!)

Here is a long detailed article debunking the Tim Groseclose study [eriposte.com], which has apparently never been peer-reviewed, yet another reason to ignore it.

The methodology used by the authors for assessing media ideology is completely untenable. There are three principal reasons for this:

(a) The approach G-M use establishes media ideology indirectly, by using the media's think-tank citations and comparing those to think-tank citations by legislators in order to find the legislator whose citations are the closest match. Thus, if a legislator is liberal and the media's think-tank citations match that of the liberal legislator, they would declare the media to be liberal. Momentarily setting aside the fact that this definition of media bias is itself incorrect, their claim would make sense only if it can be independently proven that the think-tanks cited by the liberal legislator are actually liberal. Their study does not prove this at all, considering that their methodology to establish think-tank ideology is itself deficient. Thus, at a fundamental level, their entire conclusion on media bias breaks down. (NOTE: It is not at all implausible that left-leaning legislators may cite more centrist think-tanks in public than progressive/liberal ones, especially considering how the liberal advocacy groups and think-tanks are tarred negatively by the GOP in the illiberal conservative media).

(b) The use of weighted-average ADA scores (for the House and the Senate) is slightly more meaningful than the Median (which they used in the original version of their paper), but even this is completely deficient and incorrect because the ideological center is set not using an independent, objective measure of ideology but based on the (political) positions of the people in Congress at a given point in time. Thus, their model simultaneously assumes that ADA scores can provide an absolute picture of a legislator's ideology but that media and think-tank ideology should be determined not using the same absolute reference but a relative, moving reference that is highly dependent on who's the majority in Congress and how they think or vote. This is not an acceptable model, for, if the minority party becomes the majority party in the next election, the derived ideology of think-tanks or the media could change significantly even though their actual positions underwent ZERO change.

Put another way, if the Republican majority suddenly decides to become 100% conservative, guess what happens. The weighted-mean ADA score would drop, even if the Democrats in Congress DID NOT change at all, and even if the media outlets that are considered "liberal", by the G-M definition, remain STATIC (i.e., no change in their think-tank citation ratios and that of the corresponding "liberals" in Congress). In this case, even though the media's ideology has NOT changed at all, it's adjusted ADA score(s) will artificially look more liberal compared to the lower weighted-mean ADA score. (BONUS FOR LEFTIES: This is right in line with one of the long-time Republican strategies of declaring the media (and Democrats) to be too "liberal" by moving the country to the Right). This is not a partisan issue though. The opposite could occur when we are talking about media outlets that are considered "conservative" because they match the citations of conservative Republicans and if the Democrats decide to become 100% liberal.

(c) The final, and perhaps most serious, problem with their analysis is their attempt to derive a conclusion of media bias using this study - because their definition of media bias, is in itself, completely flawed. Their confident conclusion that they have demonstrated "liberal" media bias is wrong because the study

How to play CNN video on Linux

[thisisauniqueid]

It's a bit convoluted, but here's how to play these videos on Linux without having to delve into HTML and JS, and without having to use an embedded video plugin (lots of which seem to lock up and crash frequently):

- Install the GreaseMonkey extension to Firefox: http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/ [mozdev.org]
- Install the Unembed script for GreaseMonkey: http://dunck.us/collab/GreaseMonkeyUserScripts [dunck.us]
- Install xine and the Windows codecs: http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/ [puc-rio.br]
- Go to http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html [cnn.com] in Firefox (the links on each story don't work, they check to see if WMP9 is installed, and then they fail)
- Click on the story you want.
- Right-click on the title above the embedded video (it's the name of the video in blue text, and it's in the same frame as the embedded video). Select "This Frame->Show only this frame" from the context menu.
- There should now be a link next to the video that says "[download]".
- Shift-click on the "[download]" link to open it in a new tab (right-click doesn't work, so you can't copy the link destination).
- Switch to the new tab, and press Ctrl-L Ctrl-C to copy the URL.
- Open a terminal, and type "xine " then Ctrl-Shift-V to paste the URL. Press enter and the movie should play!

Phew!

If this is the end...

[aslate]

According to the summary:

Is this another nail in the coffin of paid content on the internet?

Funny, i've been getting free news broadcasts off BBC News [bbc.co.uk] for ages, and it's decent news programming at that! No "free registration", random cookies and adverts either.

Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...

[smooth wombat]

Just yesterday they replayed the speech of the final ultimatum to Saddam and it did NOT focus on WMDs. It stated that his days of tyranny and murder were over and they had 48 hours to leave Iraq.\

That's because Bush knew there were no weapons there. Bush changed the reasoning for invading and now occupying Iraq several times. First was the link to 9/11 but when that didn't pan out it was the weapons. Then it was blocking inspections (which Saddam wasn't. The inspectors left because of Bushs march to war). Then it was because of the things Saddam had done in the past (with a wink and nod from the U.S.). Then it was to free the Iraqi people and now we're at 'to spread freedom and democracy'.

Liberals also conveniently forget that the entire world was behind a resolution to his regime and they all thought there were WMDs.

False. The whole world was not behind the resolution nor did they all think there were wmds. In fact, even when the UN inspectors who were on the ground asked for the 'evidence' that the White House had of supposed wmds, every single piece proved to be false. There were no weapons or evidence of weapons at any site the White House pointed to.

Further, Scott Ritter and others, people who were directly involved with the inspections, stated that there were no wmds and were immediately singled out for the propoganda machine to try and discredit them.

The fact that you keep using the word liberal shows your bias. There are many of us true conservatives who didn't believe Bush and certainly do not approve of his policies. You aren't by chance a shill for Fox are you? After all, their people, commentators and reporters alike, like to throw out the word liberal as a means of denigration but which only goes to show how biased they are.

Re:CNN is apparently in the midst of a new plan...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think USA would be a world health leader if it was all socialized?

Welcome to America! Leading the developed world in Infant Mortality! Beating the other countries' golf scores for average life expectancy!

The best part? The rich go on "hospital tours" of other countries to get their medical care!

Re:Free as in beer?

[wo1verin3]

I would think that competition from MSNBC would have been a factor as well. While CNN video used to be free, they went pay for video while MSNBC and others did not...

Re:Free, but Windows only

[gavinroy]

Not that I'm advocating its use, but my OS/X box has a free Windows Media Player that's native to the OS. So, I suspect that narrows the list to *NIX based systems as being unsupported.

Re:Damn communists

[aslate]

Of course, the network accused of being biased against all 3 major political parties, by the respective party, is obviously highly biased!

Liberal is considered an insult in America from what i gather (Even the tone of "BBC is to the left of even the two most liberal senators" suggests that). You might want to know that the "Liberal Democrats" got 22% of the vote (After 35.2% and 32.3%) [wikipedia.org].