Now for some good news. I’m back. Back on this continent, back to responding to reading articles and posting 25 comments in a row, and back to re-establishing my net-presence. There will be a few more articles after this to get me caught up on things, but in the meantime enjoy reading a post that has nothing to do with the, oh, what’s that word? Rhymes with “dyke?”
And now for some Colbert issues for Canadians…
One NFZ reader (tip of the hat to BettyBeeFour) wrote to me a while back:
Sent: October 24, 2007 10:37:45 AM
To: thelakeeffect@nofactzone.netHey LakeEffect,
CRISIS! The Canadian Comedy Network is now blocking access to comedycentral.com.I just went to ColbertNation and then clicked on “official show site” and it won’t let me get to Stephen. Tried www.comedycentral.com. Nope. Every time I get redirected to the stupid ComedyNetwork site.
ARGH. This is absurd!!!
Please check this out and tell me it’s not just me who can’t get past them.
I was still in Hong Kong when I got this, so there was no way I could actually test the redirect myself until I got back home. Essentially, if you are surfing from Canada and you type in comedycentral.com, you will get redirected to comedynetwork.ca. You will also find that if you access Motherload, videos may inexplicably get choppy or not appear altogether. There are certain methods into getting to the site, like finding an address that is strangely unrestrained by the redirect, or proxies – whatever those are.
At first I was relieved when a big sign saying “FULL EPISODES” pops up on the site, and The Colbert Report is found in the feeding trough. However when I click on Stephen, I’m led to a short list of videos that tell me that for the “full episode,” I should click on “full episode,” but it’s not a link, and I can’t find it on the page. Even worse still, even after downloading the plug-in for Firefox, I still haven’t been getting ANY videos from the site. Is it just my computer? Is anyone else having problems with this site?
UPDATE: The CTV/Comedy Network Broadband Player is working, but not very well. I’m getting a considerable amount of chop and I’m just scared it will shut off for long periods of time again in the future.
UPDATE: Tip of the hat to nifty for the link to the CTV Primetime Broadband player, which seems to be more reliable (and more amenable to showing full episodes) than the one on comedynetwork.ca. That’s right, 1:30 am is still primetime for Canada, a nation of insomniacs.
Just to the right of the video player, there’s a column that says “full episodes” at the top, and has links to each show’s page at the bottom. TCR is at the very bottom.
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Yes, that’s the big sign I was talking about, and Stephen is under that sign. What I can’t seem to find is anything leading to ACTUAL full episodes. There are notes everywhere telling you to click on “full episodes,” but alas, there is no link to be found…
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its just that god doesn’t like canadians…
I had a short conversation with one of the developers from thedailyshow.com, and he said that they are revamping their efforts to work all the bugs out of it, now that the people who have been working on other projects have been freed up because of the strike. This might be one of the roots of the problem.
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I wish to thank you, TheLakeEffect, for your article. I’m just relieved that I’m not the only Canadian member of the Colbert Nation that has experience a state of “unhappiness” with this situation.
I absolutely do not agree with the fact that as a Canadian, I have lost the choice to visit the official site of the TCR on the American Comedy Network site.
And is it me, or does someone else find that the TCR site on the Canadian Comedy Network does not contain the videos of the show for Year One or all the videos for Year Two. It is possible that I’m not navigating properly on the site, but I cannot find the videos that I used to view on the official site maintained by the American Comedy Network. And I cannot access the Motherload at all. Grrrrr.
Anyway, I’m a very proud Canadian, but having my number one source to Colbert Report audio/visual records cut off is really ticking me off!
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Welcome back, TLE!!!
Sorry I can’t help with the ComedyNetwork problem… it won’t play anything for me and although the “click full episode” note is all over the place “full episode” is not.
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That’s weird… you guys aren’t seeing this?
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/Toresica/Other/fullepisodes.jpg
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I live in Jersey, and I can’t tell you how many problems I’ve had trying to access Motherload videos without it crashing my web browser and computer entirely. I made sure I had all the necessary upgrades to Firefox and Safari (for both Macs AND PCs), but neither seemed to make a difference. I had such problems that I actually just gave up trying to watch them online all together. I have yet to try accessing any of the videos, I’d say, in the last month or so, but hopefully, others will have better success that I’ve had thus far. Good luck, Nation.
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Welcome back!
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@ Jennie and MC Esteban
It’s good to be back. Though one wishes he had more time to buy more dirt cheap Chinese products and to inexplicably give thanks to Chairman Mao.
@ Toresica
As Jennie pointed out, the big mystery in question is about the existence of a “full episode” link. We’re all seeing those play buttons, but those buttons don’t do anything special. I’ve pressed it, and it says its “transferring data from esi.ctv.ca” on the bottom left of browser, but it takes too long for one to care. It can’t be lying because it can’t be possible for a website to lie! It doesn’t say FULL EPISODES, and as far as I know, it doesn’t give a FULL EPISODE. I’ve checked the videos they have on hand and so far I haven’t found any collection of clips that would constitute a “FULL EPISODE.” For all we know, the Comedynetwork.ca webmaster might just be a tease…
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“We’re all seeing those play buttons, but those buttons don’t do anything special.”
Weird, can’t help you there. The clip plays when I press the button.
“It doesn’t say FULL EPISODES, and as far as I know, it doesn’t give a FULL EPISODE. I’ve checked the videos they have on hand and so far I haven’t found any collection of clips that would constitute a “FULL EPISODE.””
The full episode is split into three sections (1/3, Clip 2 of 3, and Clip 3 of 3), but it’s all there if you can get it to play.
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If it all plays for you then you are luckier than some of us, Toresica. I reach a point where I give up on it and just play that South Park fighting game on the Main Page.
If anyone else is having trouble, be sure to open up about it. We’d like to see this all up and running by the time the writers get their 2.5% of the webspace ad revenue…
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Welcome back, TLE! I’ve been too bitter to even go on the CC website, but I hope it gets sorted out for everyone.
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Thanks Kina.
Any problems with the CC website should be separate from the comedynetwork.ca site – but then again the way viruses spread, it’s like internet herpes these days.
Seriously parents, teach your websites to practice safe netting!
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About damn time. :)
We missed you.
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Welcome back TLE!
Us being unable to access the CC site is the same reason we can’t access thedailyshow.com, right? I was fine for almost the first week or so after the site debuted and then one day it was no more. I’m pretty sure last time I checked, I couldn’t watch the embedded videos that NFZ puts up from any of CC’s sites. It’s driving me insane.
Why aren’t we allowed to watch these sites? It’s not like as if we don’t have Hyundai dealerships in Canada, so the advertising could be directed at us as well.
As it is I have problems with the comedynetwork.ca site too. *sigh*
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@Em: It’s due to CRTC new media rules. See my post/rant about this: http://www.awesomeness.net/blog
And yeah, I am particularly bummed out about how now they have even blocked the videos from being streamed from sites that embed the video. I used to be able to watch videos from TDS.com at NFZ but now, I can’t.
Those having troubles with the full episodes, have you tried viewing from the original CTV Broadband site? I don’t know how well the search is to find old episodes but anyway: http://primetime.ctvdigital.com/primetime/
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