Second Life: State of Video

With the release of the VLC viewer (4.1.1.320331) we will see the video market in Second Life start changing. It as of today, it hasn’t changed much. As it has in most of the rest of the RL world. So, with 4.1.1 we will have a better experience with YouTube and other services.

VLC Viewer and Streaming Media - TV's

VLC Viewer and Streaming Media – TV’s

NOTE: On starting the 4.1.1 viewer I started crashing. I changed regions and all seemed OK. Before I logged off I got a notice that a newer version was available: 4.1.2.320461. I’ve installed it and it seems to be OK. 

There are a number of TV’s and other media devices that require a SL 3+ viewer and Adobe Flash Player. There are instructions for installing Flash on your Windows machine. I wrote Flash & Second Life @ v4.0 about a year ago when reviewing the UKanDO Viewer. The basic thing to do was follow the directions at: How to use Adobe Flash in Second Life Viewer 4.0 and later.

The additional install was needed as the Lab had dropped the WebKit browser and replaced it with Chromium Embedded Framework browser. The newer browser uses newer tech. But, much of the content in SL is OLD and it requires Flash, the older tech. We need new content. Adobe provides a way to convert content from Flash to HTML5. Providers of content just have to do the conversions, no small feat considering the volume of material.

So, you can buy an old style TV that supports v4 viewers and try to install Flash. Or wait for new content.

I said ‘try’ because the basic install instructions provided by the Lab don’t work with this latest viewer. At least not as I read them. All I get is a message saying the version of the plugin Adobe wants to give me is not supported by the viewer.

Instead go here: https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions. Download and install the plugin using your external browser, not the viewer’s internal browser. Restart the viewer if it was running. Now the Flash TV’s will work

I’ve been bouncing around SL seeing who has made updates, hoping they anticipated this coming change. It isn’t like it has been a secret. I haven’t found any that have. But, I haven’t checked all of them. I do find I can see more than I could pre-VLC and no-Adobe. But, just enough to be frustrated.

I installed Flash and tried a number of the same places. Some TV’s still suck. Others worked very well.

I haven’t decided if I’ll leave Flash installed or not…

And in some places you are encouraged to install QuickTime. Don’t. It is an even worse security risk for Windows users.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *