Broadcast News

Colleagues in the field highlighted a couple of nice broadcast news sites outside the United States using Silverlight. Even better, they aren’t geo-locked so you can have a play with them no matter where you are. And even better if you are French or Italian speaking – they are in your language!

France Télévisions Infos

image

Video on demand TV news stories from across France. Bitrate is 300kbps.

image

I’ve highlighted some of the nice features enabled by the custom Silverlight player. Of course, there are the playback controls, but there’s also content rating and the ability to add the content to your playlist or send a link via email. The program guide appears overlaid above the video at the top of the screen. Other clips are shown overlaid at the bottom of the screen. These overlays disappear when you want them to.

Try it out for yourself here.

 

RAI

RAI in Italy has a large site with some content that is not geo-locked. Go here to see the video wall.

image

Some of the video on demand content is viewable outside Italy (like Telepredicatori). Below you can see the embedded player with playback controls.

image

The live 24 hour news channel is available outside Italy. Look for Diretta RAINews24.

image

Some of the unique features are the remote control in full screen mode, that gives the viewer a TV-like viewing experience.

 

 

image

Other non geo-locked assets on the RAI site are some of their virtual channels. These are not live, but they are group similar content together. Look for Primo Piano, Rai Kids, Rai Tween, Sanremo, Rai Music, Fiction, Comici, Millepagine, Science & Technology and Viaggi e Paesi.