August 18th, 2007 . by polyGeek
NOTE: If you are having trouble viewing the videos at NFL.com then try this page where many users have offered solutions that they have discovered.
For years the NFL.com site has been using RealMedia for their video streaming. They finally updated their site and are now using Flash video. Go Team!!!
Beyond that they have greatly increased the amount of video they are delivering. Each game will have video highlights and they have lots of interviews and analysis delivered with Flash video. Their video player has maximum dimensions of 640 x 360 and has a full screen mode in IE but not Firefox.
I checked the source code of the homepage and they are also using the SWFobject to embed the HTML code dynamically to get around the Internet Explorer’s Eolas/ActiveX activation crud.
Preseason practice
On the downside I had lots of problems browsing to some of the videos and getting them to play correctly on a Win XP machine with IE7 and Firefox 2.0. Of course the commercials play just fine but the content often fails to queue up.
The video content navigation is handled in HTML so the problem is likely the Javascript communication between the HTML container page and the Actionscript. It’s amazing how often that gets messed up but as everyone knows Javascript can be more than a little finicky. Hopefully they’ll get that sussed out before the regular season is underway.
Close, but not perfect
They could have used video.Maru for their video player but it doesn’t look like they did. Oh well, I can dream. :-)
Fantastic
As a fan I couldn’t be happier. I’ll be on the NFL.com site on a daily basis during the football season. I don’t have cable TV because there isn’t much to watch besides football and the History/Discovery channel. The way things are going it won’t be much longer before I’ll be able to watch anything I want via the Internet.
Addendum: one day later
I’m working with one of the dev’s at NFL.com to help trouble-shoot the problems I mentioned above. Here on my system at home everything works flawlessly. At my friend’s house on the same setup I had all sorts of problems. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?
If something here has proved valuable to you then feel free to drop a couple of bucks in the tip-jar.
Posted in Tags: Adobe News, RIA News, video.Maru
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39 Responses to “Another touchdown for Flash Video”
Hi,
I’m part of the nfl.com team who developed the flash video gallery. I’m interested to hear more detail on the problems you had viewing videos. We’re continually trying to improve the experience for all users, but of course we’re in the early stages so there are bound to be some hiccups.
Thanks.
-Mike
and the baseball lot staggered off blindly in the direction of Silverlight..
Here’s the error message I get –
Line: 21
Char: 1
Error: Permission Denied
Code: 0
URL: http://static/site/scripts/video/firebug.html
The page is perpetually Loading after the error icon appears. I am running IE7 on XP home. IE6 on XP at work does just fine. At first I thought it was because I have Comcast, but that might be a bit paranoid…
I want my freaking football!
I’m having the same problem with the video section at nfl.com
I don’t get an error message but the site perpetually loads.
Running on Windows xp with firefox 2.0.0.6/ IE explorer
I can’t get the NFL.com videos to load at all on my xp explorer or my firefox browser….nothing.
Today I went and tried to click on Jeff Fisher’s wired comments on the sidelines and it just gives me the endless loading visual. I can play the feature video on the front page but that page never loads for me.
I’m with comcast and use their McAfee Security Center. I reinstalled my flash player today and still get the endless load. I’m going to take some time to look at all my settings…but for some reason NFL.com is the only site I’m having issues with as far as I can remember. I’m a NFL junkie so I’ve been wanting more video but it doesn’t do me much good if they never load :(
I also cannot get any of the videos to run at nfl.com. I cannot get the ads or even get a waiting to load symbol.
I am using XP Pro, Firefox 2.0.0.9 (but also tried with IE7), have javascript, java etc enabled and the latest version of Flash Player. I have not had any problems with other sites.
I do live in China, so sometimes I have a problem with sites being blocked, but this is not a problem with nfl.com as I can access all the other material fine. I even tried going through a proxy to see if it helped, but it didn’t.
I would be enormously grateful if you could help. If not, at least I hope the feedback is useful. I cannot see games or highlights here in China, so watching the clips on the website woudl be a lifeline.
That’s weird! I have been trying to get the NFL video to work for weeks and nothing. But I tried again after posting the last message and it works perfectly now. I have not idea why. Maybe there is something magical about this blog!
I have Windows XP, the latest version of firefox (2.0.0.9) and the latest realplayer…However, when I go to the NFL video archive (or any sort of NFL video on NFL.com), it says Loading with the loading sign and no videos ever come up…..Why does it not work???
Sorry, I meant flash player and for some reason it doesn’t work…I tried reinstalling flash player and javascript is enabled….I’m also with Comcast and use their McAfee security center (like Vinny above)…maybe that has some relation with my problem?
Thank you Polygeek, I temporarily shut down McAfee and the videos worked perfectly…Thanks again for your help and I hope someone on nfl.com realizes this problem.
Make sure you aren’t running Firefox add-on AdBlock Plus. I’ve noticed it’s blocking the video for me because it starts with an ad. I’ve posted over at the AdBlock Plus forums for help. In the meantime, just disable ABP (by middle-clicking on the icon in your toolbar/status bar) before you load the page with the video you want to watch.
Good luck!
Im running windows xp, the latest firefox, IE6, and zero antivirus (i just watch what I d/l, ha), and I havent been able to get video going for weeks
Ive checked all javascript settings, disabled adblock plus and any greasemonky scripts, searched through the source code to try to see if I can at least grab the .flv or whatever they are streaming to me, and no luck whatsoever
Anyone find any more workarounds?
I’m running firefox v2.0.0.10 and/or IE7 on Windows XP.
I can play embedded video on the front page of NFL.com, but I get the perpetual spinning loading circle on their video gallery page. Also, gamecenter live updating doesn’t work – everything just stays blank until the game is finished. Yet, live scoring for NFL fantasy works just fine.
Java is enabled, I’ve reinstalled flashplayer about 5 times now, I’m allowing cookies from every —-.nfl.com site I’ve been able to see that exists so far, I don’t have the adblock plus addon…and to make matters worse, I emailed NFL.com tech support about this and they completely ignored me. No response in three months or so.
What’s the deal? I just want some videos.
Ok, I tinkered around with my flash program, my firewall/virus protection settings, my browser settings, my file type associations in media players, etc etc. I finally got the videos page to work, though I’m not sure which individual thing made the difference.
Game center pages still don’t work though. Not in firefox, anyway. I was able to load one in IE7, but after about 10 minutes it stopped working again too.
Still though, baby steps in the right direction.
I got nfl.com videos to work now! If you have comcast w/ the McAfee security here’s how to fix it. Click “Internet and network” click “configure” on the right side. Under web browsing protection click “advanced”. Simply uncheck the “block advertisements” box and hit apply.
One stinking little box checked has cased me 3 months of angst!!! Ahhh!
Hope this helps comcast users for nfl.com videos.
[...] seems as though the post I wrote about the NFL.com switching to Flash video has become the de facto support page for people having trouble watching their videos. There are 30 [...]
Ok, I believe I figured out what exactly it was. For users of the Norton Personal Firewall (not McAfee…), if the stuff isn’t showing up, you likely have the ad blocking feature on the firewall turned on.
Open up your Norton security center and configure your ad block settings. In that window uncheck “Turn Ad Block on.” Now you’ll need to probably clear your firefox cache and reboot your computer, or firefox will just attempt to load the pages with the content already blocked.
The downside is, obviously, that annoying ads will come through. But, the entire NFL.com site *should* work after this. The videos page does, and I noticed today that some of the rollover flash content was working as well. I’ve yet to test the game centers in Firefox, but I’ll know about that come Sunday.
Hope this helps some people.
As a side note, it looks like all the solutions involve disabling ad blocking tools of some sort or another. Isn’t there a better way to encode all the site’s java and flash content so that it won’t raise that red flag for so many different programs? Just a thought…
I’ve been having the same problem with the videos at NFL.com this fall. Have tried to download and install latest versions of Flash player, checked firewall settings, gone over ad blocking, etc.
Finally I downloaded Avant browser from Microsoft and have been enjoying NFL videos ever since.
Yeah i have just used the avant browser to watch the nfl videos. Had problems before so if you have continous problems definetly opt for avant browser.
Not sure if you ever found a solution for the non playing NFL videos. I see the last post has been quite a while ago. If you have a solution I would be very appreciative.
Thank you,
Tom
Mike
