The Progress & Freedom Foundation Special Event -
HELP! With video webcasts and
webcasts with slide presentations.

Windows Media Problems:

  • I open up the page, I can see the slides, but don't see or hear anything.
  • I open up the page, I can see the slides, I can hear people speaking, but I don't see anything.
  • I open up the page, I can see the slides, I can see the video, but I cannot hear anything.
  • I see the video trying to connect, but it says "Closed, The Server could not find the requested file, The Server is Busy, or A General Error has occured."
  • My Player gets stuck buffering for a long time and doesn't do anything.
  • I can hear the webcast ok, but the picture is awful.
  • I have some other problem you haven't addressed here.

Real Player Problems:

  • I open up the page, I can see the slides, but don't see or hear anything.
  • I open up the page, I can see the slides, I can hear people speaking, but I don't see anything.
  • I open up the page, I can see the slides, I see the video, but I cannot hear anything.
  • I see the video trying to connect, but it says "Closed, The Server could not find the requested file, The Server is Busy, or A General Error has occured."
  • My Player gets stuck buffering for a long time and doesn't do anything.
  • I can hear the webcast ok, but the picture is awful.
  • I have some other problem you haven't addressed here.

I open up the page, I can see the slides, but don't see or hear anything.
There are a few possible causes for this problem.

  1. Your Plugin is not properly configured - this means if you're using Netscape, try Internet Explorer. If you are using IE, try Netscape. If neither works, then download the newest version of the player and reinstall. If you are on a corporate network you may need to get a System Admin to help you.
  2. You don't have the player installed at all. Download it and install it.
  3. If your player looked like it tried to connect and couldn't, then you must be behind a very restrictive firewall. There is nothing more we can do about it from our end. This is somehting that will have to be handled by your IT people, who will have to open up a port for you. If they require IP addresses of the servers, give them these: 208.185.65.0/26, 128.121.19.0/26.

I open up the page, I can see the slides, I can hear people speaking, but I don't see anything.

  1. The player requires codecs to decompress the video and display it in the player, your player either doesn't have the right codec, or is misbehaving, try restarting your computer and try again.
  2. If you use Windows Media Player, you might need to adjust your internet security settings to a lower security. Open up Internet Explorer, in the menu bar (File, Edit, View....) Select Tools, then Internet Options, click the Security Tag and Click the button labelled Default Level, then move the Slider to Medium or lower.
  3. Try installing the latest Windows Media Player / Real Player release, you may have just installed it a couple weeks ago, or a month ago, but these releases change periodically to fix bugs and mistakes in the player. You may have a buggy version.
  4. After you install a new version always restart your computer, especially with Windows Media Player. It may not tell you to, but you will have better luck.

I open up the page, I can see the slides, I see the video, but I cannot hear anything.
This is one of the most frustrating problems, because you assume that if you can see the thing, then you should be able to hear it too.

  1. This problem is usually operator error (your fault). Your system has 3 places to control the volume of the program,
    • A. Your computer speakers (do you have them on, is the volume turned up, do you even have speakers - we get this one more than you'd think)
    • B. Your "System" volume, this is that little speaker icon near your clock, click on it once and you'll see the volume slider pop up, make sure it's turned up and the the mute checkbox is unchecked.
    • C. Your player volume, click on the Test your Player link, when the application opens, adjust the volume and click the mute button on and off to see if you can get audio.
  2. If this fails, uninstall your player (Click on Start--Settings--Control Panel--Add/Remove Programs, restart your computer, go download it again and reinstall the new version, then restart your computer.
  3. If this fails, then call in on one of the technical support numbers above and we will try to resolve this for you.

I see the video trying to connect, but it says "Closed, The Server could not find the requested file, The Server is Busy, or A General Error has occured."

  • This could be a Firewall Issue coming back to haunt you. Usually, larger corporations have very advanced firewalls and will block Streaming Video even over HTTP. The only other possiblity is that the server you're trying to connect to crashed, but this is highly unlikely and we will advise you by chat if that's the case.

My Player gets stuck buffering for a long time and doesn't do anything.

  • You're probably experiencing net congestion in your local area or on your network, try a lower bandwidth stream.

I can hear the webcast ok, but the picture is awful.

  • The stream is designed to favor audio over video, so that you can hear even if the video degrades. This is due to net congestion, a condition on your network or through your Internet Service Provider that we cannot control.

 

Technical Support Contact Numbers

Help Lines:
703-961-9250

  • ext. 223
    ext. 229
    ext. 220
  • ext. 221
 
Download the Free Real Video Player
Download the Free Real Video Player
Download the Free Windows Media Player
Download the Free Windows Media Player