Note 1: I got somewhat sidetracked and into a rather lengthy rant while writing this. If you want, you can skip it and get straight to installing Sopcast, otherwise, read on.

Note 2: The method (eventually) described below is legal, since the Chinese TV stations are themselves streaming the coverage online.

I despise TV, but every four years, I like to indulge for a couple of weeks and watch Athletes from around the world compete in the Olympic Games. I also love living in Thailand, but, as with many countries I guess, coverage is limited to one channel, which obviously can’t cover all of the events I’m interested in watching.

I began looking at other options to watch the Olympics online, and frustratingly, most of the usual avenues at some point lead to cul-de-sacs. The first thing I tried was the BBC, however, all of their online coverage is via the iplayer, and thus only available to license paying British citizens – even http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics/default.stm is restricted to the UK. The fact that I AM a British citizen (sorry… Subject), and paid the (rediculous) license fee for many years (even though I didn’t actually watch TV – I owned one for the sole purpose of watching DVDs, but, absurdly we still have to pay for a TV license regardless…) doesn’t seem to count. In an ideal world, the BBC would recognise this fact, and let me watch the Olympics via their iplayer – after all, I’ve paid more than enough to earn that right over the years. But that’s another rant…

Next, I tried the NBC Olympics website, hoping that they may have some decent live coverage. Unfortunately, not only is their coverage pretty slim, but they are also in cahoots with the repugnant bloatware behemoth, Micro$oft, and are using the new (not particularly) “cross-platform, cross-browser” (read as “non-Linux”) Silvershite… sorry, Silverlight. While I have absolutely no qualms about obtaining a pirate copy of XP, I just don’t want to pollute my computer with sub standard bloatware. So, the search continued…

the CBC also seemed to offer live online coverage – I managed to get on to the site, select a live stream, only to find out that the CBC, like the BBC limit viewing to Canadian IP addresses. The increasingly frustrating search continued…

Youtube almost comes to the rescue, with their Beijing 2008 site (not available in some countries) – I can access the videos (yay!), but unfortunately, they’re not live. Almost their…

The search finally came to fruition with Sopcast. Most of the major Chinese TV stations are covering the Games, and most of those channels are available via Sopcast.

I find it dissapointing that the coverage of a global event, which includes athletes competing from almost every country should be restricted so much. What the hell is wrong with these guys?!

Installing Sopcast

First, I downloaded Sopcast, from the Sopcast website, then extracted the file, and copied the executable to /usr/bin:

cd ~/Desktop
wget http://download.sopcast.cn/download/sp-auth.tgz
tar -zxvf sp-auth.tgz
cd sp-auth
sudo cp sp-sc-auth /usr/bin/sp-sc

the sp-sc executable can be used from the command line, by running sp-sc <sop://url> <localport> <playerport> and openning up the resulting stream in mplayer/vlc, e.g.:

sp-sc sop://sop.sopcast.org:1234/5678 3908 8908 &
mplayer http://localhost:8908/tv.asf

but the CLI involves knowing the broker, channel number and so on. There is also GUI available (actually, 2 GUIs – GTK, and QT, but I’ve only managed to get the GTK GUI working so far), which does all this for you, and makes the process much easier. The GTK Gui can be set up as follows:

cd ~/Desktop
wget http://linuxtoy.org/files/deb/gtk-sopcast_0.2.8-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture gtk-sopcast_0.2.8-1_i386.deb

32 Bit users can omit the –force-architecture option, since this is essentially just telling 64 Bit Ubuntu to shut up and use 32 Bit libraries.

Sopcast will only pull in the stream – a media player is required to actually view the stream. VLC, or mplayer both work – I currently use mplayer with the GUI, without problems. gsopcast is actually set up to use mplayer by default, so if you don’t have it, it can be installed by running:

sudo apt-get install mplayer

Once the gsopcast GUI is installed, there should be a new menu item under Applications -> Sound & Video -> Sopcast TV Player. Alternatively, the GUI can be run from the terminal:

gsopcast

Once launched, the GUI will populate the channel list. Double click on the channel you wish to view, and wait for the buffer to reach 90%-100% before clicking the “player” button. So far, I’ve found CCTV-1, CCTV-2 and Shanghai Sports to be offering live Olympics coverage thus far, although the commentary is obviously in Chinese. I’m still searching for English commentary channels which Sopcast can pull, but for now, this is better than nothing.

References

1. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3972647
2. http://www.myp2p.eu/broadcast.php?matchid=16130&part=sports

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The BBC has always been a commercial-free television channel – and indeed, radio, and every other form of media the BBC uses have also been free of advertisements. The BBC is paid for by the British Public – we pay an annual license fee, to ensure the BBC remains commercial free – whatever the media. However, it seems that their website doesn’t count. I pointed my browser to news.bbc.co.uk today, and saw Sony adverts, and various other content related adverts. What’s going on BBC? What happened to keeping your output commercial free?

Interestingly, I haven’t seen any more adverts on their site today, so maybe it was some kind of marketing experiment? If the BBC are thinking of placing adverts on their news website, that would really REALLY suck, as it goes against all the BBC’s principals of commercial free broadcasting… and kind of negates the need for the British public to pay a license fee!

What’s the score BBC?

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It’s nothing to do with Ubuntu Linux, or the Jungle, but it’s definitely worth a cheeky post on my blog! iwouldntsteal.net have produced a great video to replace the Multinationals’ propaganda which we’re forced to view almost every time we pop a DVD in to watch. The tossers who produce this propaganda, as most of you will be aware, associate downloading and reproducing films etc. with stealing handbags, cars, B&E, and all sorts of unsavory and nefarious criminal acts. As most people know, this is in fact, a big pile of stinking poo. Anyway, check out the movie, and support the Artists, not the Multinationals! Copy this blog entry to your blog if you like – anything to spread the word

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I recently got married, and my Wife is from the Lisu Hill Tribe (originally from Tibet, and have migrated – walked – to Northern Thailand in recent years). We had the ceremony in her village, the Shaman informed the Ancestral and Nature Spirits that we are married, and we’re happy, our families are happy, the village is happy – in fact, everyone is happy. Except for the government.

If we want to be recognised (yes, that’s correct – no “z”) as “legally” married, we have to obtain an anonymous signature, from somebody neither of us have ever met – and what’s more, we have to pay for it! To be fair to the Thai government, there are no costs involved in obtaining the marriage certificate from the Amphur (city council), but there’s a horrible chain of, not surprisingly since the British Government are pretty tight-arsed, non-free bureaucracy from the British side. First, I have to download a document from the British Embassy’s website, which I then have re-type in the exact same format (since they can’t even be bothered to supply an editable document) declaring that I am not currently married, and can legally marry. I then have to take this document in person to the British Embassy in Bangkok (bear in mind that I live in the Jungle of Northern Thailand, and that I absolutely despise Bangkok), and pay someone 3500 baht to sign it. That’s about £50 or $100! For an anonymous signature, that probably takes approximately 2 – 3 seconds. Now, that’s a wage bracket I’d love to be in! Not only that, but I have to wait 24 hours for the dude to sign it! More expense require to stay a night in Bangkok.

When the consul has finally decided that it’s worth his time to sign it (and it should be for 3500 Baht), I have to take the document and get it translated (another 4000 – 5000 baht), and signed again… for another fee.

So, once I’ve paid someone I’ve never met to tell me I can get married, we can finally go to the Amphur and be registered as married. Yay!

My Wife is also pregnant, and due to give birth in a month and I would like to register my Child’s birth with the UK registry office. If He/She is born in the UK, then this would be free. However, He/She will be born here in Thailand, so once again, I have to pay for someone to tap a few keys and click “Add to Database”, followed by “File -> Print” for the UK Birth Certificate. I honestly wouldn’t mind paying reasonable administration fees, but I have to pay 15,000 baht! 15,000!!! That’s £242.52 at today’s rate. Where the hell did they come up with that figure? That’s more than my Wife’s family earn in 6 months – and they work bloody hard every day! Certainly harder than the Consul, with his benefits and Bentleys…

Ironic, since I moved to the Jungle to get away from the expense of living in the UK…

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