VM /ETC

hi – I did the same thing – xp in virtualbox on ubuntu, for the same reason (go dawgs!). I had a pretty annoying problem though, I couldn’t get the full screen of the espn360 player to work. I was using IE7, and the picture was clear and the stream was good, but the ‘go fullscreen’ button did nothing. I spent forever on chat with the tech support, but apparently the only thing they know how to do is read from a scripted list of things to do, so they were of no help.

Did the full screen of the player work for you? I am thinking maybe somehow it has to do with the window manager (in ubuntu) i am using (dwm), but still I am not sure.

Thanks for any help!

Hi Rich, Thanks for the replay – I meant to reply back quicker but got caught up in some work.

I was using virtual box in full screen (not seamless). One issue here may be I am in europe, and so using the european version of espn360 — the player looks a bit different than your screen shot, and I’m not sure what you mean by mosaic mode. I am not sure if it was a video card problem or not for me.

Basically when I start the stream, I waited a minute then the game starts playing. There are rewind/pause/forward and volume controls on the player, then under the player two buttons ‘back to menu’ and ‘go fullscreen’. Everything worked except ‘go fullscreen’ — the cursor recognized it was a button (changed symbols) but clicking just didn’t do anything.

Unfortunately, I can’t preform any tests until I have another live stream, so not until this weekend. I have reinstalled xp on virtual box and will try that, and also using another window manager. If neither of those two ideas work I am really at a loss as to what to try next…

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the screen shots. The european player is definitely different from the US version. The european version now also has archived games, so I have done a few test – I have reinstalled a different version of XP, and tried a different window manager. In both cases I get the same problem. I think the problem is something to do with both flash and how VirtualBox is interacting with IE. At this point I am thinking there is not much I can do about this problem, and I will have to make do as is, but below I give you a little walk through to show you what I am dealing with, in case you have
any ideas.

XP running in VirtualBox inside ubuntu (not fullscreen) with the espn360 european start page:

stashbox.org/203995/1_startpage.png

Now I go in fullscreen mode, and press ‘Launch Player’. This is what I see:

stashbox.org/203996/2_playerstart.png

I don’t know why this message pops up, nor why it says I need to upgrade flash player — I have the latest version. Another thing to note is that the IE window that pops-up is unresizeable. Once I click ‘Yes’, I get sent
on to the main espn360 page:

stashbox.org/203997/3_playermatrixview.png

This is the default page, which I think is similar to the ‘matrix mode’ of the US player. To watch live (or replayed) games I go to ‘NCAA Football’ and the archive tab, and where the flash window is in the above screen gets replaced by a ‘press here to watch’ button for the selected game. After pressing it this is what I see:

stashbox.org/203998/4_live_starting.png

After a minute or so the player starts playing:

stashbox.org/203999/5_live_playing.png

Notice the controls on the screen. Rewind, Pause, Forward. Then on the right side a volume option. At the bottom the ‘Back to Player’ button exits to the
matrix-like view. And the ‘Go Fullscreen’ button – this is the problem – does nothing. When I scroll over it the cursor changes shape (recognizing its clickable), but clicking it does nothing.

Now, I have found at least two ways to ‘break’ the player at this point. First, if I right-click down by the ‘back to player’ and ‘go fullscreen’ buttons, the flash options menu comes up. If I choose the flash ‘settings’ option, the settings menu does _not_ come up, and the mouse loses control of the buttons on the video player. Once I do this I can not go back to player/pause or do
anything – the playback continues but the controls are gone, and the only way to exit is to force the window closed.

The second way to ‘break’ the player is if I toggle the fullscreen mode of Virtual box (on my computer its ‘Right-control–f’ after doing this once to get out, and once more to get back it, the player window looks like this:

stashbox.org/204001/6_live_after_fs_toggle.png

Note that the two bottom buttons are now gone. The player is now also again unresponsive to the mouse. Note again that this IE window is unresizeable,
so I’m basically stuck.

So – because of how I can ‘break’ the player, I’m thinking the problem behind the lack of fullscreen is to do with the interplay of flash-IE-virtualbox.
But honestly I am at a lose as to what to try next, if anything. I also am not too impressed with the european implementation of espn360′s player — I think
some of the issues my be its fault as well.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I figured I would give you the whole picture in case you have any ideas, cause I am about out!

Thanks for any help!

Adam,

Thanks for the info and screenshots. Too bad the European version is different, but I guess getting to watch the Bulldogs in a small window is better than not watching them at all.

I did get your email and I apologize for not replying – got caught up in the rest of the week and forgot. I did not know the spam filter blocks full URLs, so I’m glad you figured that out.

hello rick,

have you had any luck with xvid movies using either vlc or media player classic on the xp vm?

the video players on ubuntu are giving me a lot of trouble and i thought, i might try this method if someone has had any luck.

i am having a dickens of a time with audio. i haven’t even tried streaming video yet. my sound is choppy, playing something like a half second of audio every second or so. what settings are you using for your guest XP?

i think it must be OSS vs ALSA. i’ll tackle that first. thanks for posting.

Solaris,

I have not tried recently. I'd expect it to still work. I'll check it out this weekend and let you know. BTW, VirtualBox is now version 2.1.2 with improved performance and graphics so I am expecting even better things. If you've upgraded too be sure to reinstall the guest additions to the latest version as well.

George,

Glad to hear your setup works.

This is the wrong year to defend the Dawgs so I will defer to better
days …

Sent from my iPod

George,

Glad to hear your setup works.

This is the wrong year to defend the Dawgs so I will defer to better
days …

Sent from my iPod