The video streaming at thedailyshow.com and colbertnation.com does NOT work very well. I love to watch these shows, but it’s often almost impossible. (IIRC, these shows are available at another site which is not available in my country. I also understand that the programs are free and “beggars can’t be choosers” but why present them if they don’t want me to watch?)
I wasn’t sure whether to post in GD
Tell me the interesting technical differences between Youtube videos and TheDailyShow videos
or in BBQ Pit
Let’s stick a red-hot poker up the ass of whoever develops TheDailyShow’s video method
so I compromised and post in IMHO.
When I had only very slow Internet, even Youtube was frustrating, but now I have 2+ Mbits/sec (with hiccups) and Youtube works like a charm. Worse-comes-to-worst I can click stop and let it load for a while, or even download via Firefox for off-line viewing. When it does stall, moving the cursor backward a few seconds usually unstalls it.
But nothing works right with Thedailyshow.com. When it fails, it skips to the next segment. If you try to backup you get, at best, video with no audio (or vice versa) until the end of that segment. If you click Stop to let the buffer fill, you find the buffer only accomodates 15 seconds; when it overflows the only recourse is usually to start at the beginning of a segment. Sometimes the video is presented in a lower-quality mode, but AFAIK there’s no way for me to signal that I want lower-quality.
I ended up starting Chrome just to view these videos but lately Firefox may work as well, or slightly better.
Watching these shows isn’t a high priority for me, and perhaps I should be satisfied just to watch the initial fraction of each segment. But I have compulsive behaviors and often spend so much effort to watch the shows I don’t even enjoy the few seconds of the shows that I’m able to watch. :smack: