The Top 20 (or so) non-commercial video webcasts.

The Top Twenty (or so) non-commercial Video Webcasts

by Oliver Seely

Revised March 27, 2008

Are you tired of conventional television via the airwaves, cable or satellite? Do you find yourself driven to distraction by a 30-minute program with 15 minutes of commercials? Are you beginning to yell back at the newscaster who shouts the news at you? Are you half-bald from tearing out your hair for having to pay a monthly premium to subsidize channels which have no interest to you? Fed up with the synchronization of commercials between channels so that there is no way to escape them? Not interested in the Shop at Home Network, the Beauty and Fashion Channel, Jewelry Television or Horse Racing TV? Then perhaps non-commercial webcast television is in your future!

Did you know that an s-video output from your laptop computer is compatible with the s-video input jack or the yellow composite video RCA jack on your TV? If you have a laptop computer and a TV with an RCA jack or an s-video input jack, all you need is the appropriate cable to send your laptop video signal to the TV. Transferring the audio requires a separate cable, but one which is easily obtained. You will of course need a connection to the Internet for your laptop computer.

How much television is streaming your way over the Internet? A Google search on the keyword “webcast” yields 26,100,000 hits, as of March 21, 2008. Some are simply text files in which the word “webcast” is used. Some others are duplicates of those listed earlier, but there is plenty of genuine streaming video among the more than 26 million hits.

The title of this page is consistent with the exaggeration, obfuscation and hyperbole of our age. That is to say, it is misleading. In an attempt simply to find what is out there, every link which yielded some noncommercial video webcasts which could be put in “full-screen” or “theatre” mode was added. I stopped when I had collected a handful out of the first 70 links. They represented the "top 20" sites in the first list I created. Several other sites have been added since this page was launched in 2007. They include the NASA channel (not from NASA but from a site which allows full screen video), the Classical Arts Showcase (not from CAS but from a site which subscribes to it), and the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Both live streaming video and “video on demand” or “archived video” sites were included. If you find a commercial message on any of the links below, please write to me at

oseely@csudh.edu

so that I can remove it immediately from the list. I found the following sites by looking at fewer than 70 Google hits, so I leave it to you to continue the search. You have only 26,099,930 hits to go!

What was included and what was excluded?

All noncommercial sites with streaming video and archived video were included. Many national government agencies have streaming video and video archives, as does the United Nations. They were included. Sites which require the visitor to login have been excluded with the single exception of the Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution. Excluded also were all sites the video of which could not be expanded to fill the screen. If the video offered at a site was “one shot” only, for a conference or single presentation, it didn’t make the list. Sites which offer only live streaming video but no archival material were excluded because all such sites were found to be "off the air" when I did my search. Any site which requires one to download software carrying a monetary obligation was excluded as were all sites which require the visitor to register (with the single exception of the Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution). Audio-only webcasts were excluded. Sites which require the installation of free video plug-ins were allowed. Where a site which satisfies the “accept” criteria was found, but was sub-linked from a home page, the link to the home page is given if that page clearly has a pointer to the page which was found to be “acceptable” for this list.

Videos from private companies? No.

Increasingly, private companies are offering video announcements and presentations via webcasts. Microsoft, not surprisingly, is one of them. Others are offering self-help videos for their products. Black & Decker is one of these. Such sites were not included in this list.

Webcasts are being offered by organizations in many countries. After I had found around 20 hits originating in the U.S. I began to search specifically for sites in other countries. I have included samples of streaming video from France, Switzerland, Belgium and Micronesia via the French television service TV5 as well as CityNews from Toronto, Canada and some press conferences from the government of Finland.

Quality of streaming video webcasts.

You will find more than a few talking heads in this collection. That ought to remind you how much time we spend already watching talking heads on conventional television. A picture may be worth a thousand words unless it is a talking head; a talking head is worth less than ten words in this writer's opinion. But the offering here is not entirely a lost cause. There are a few gems. Some archival films from Rice University, the analysis of the Archimedes Palimpsest carried out at the Stanford University Linear Accelerator and presented at the San Francisco Exploratorium, a series of descriptions of the unmanned NASA planetary missions and the presentation files which one can view on the cable or satellite channel UCTV from the University of California are cases in point and examples of the variety of material you will be able to find with a little resourceful searching. In addition to the abundance of ill-at-ease speakers there are some superb, professionally produced videos worthy of prime-time television, but which likely will never make it.

When all is said and done, if you begin to suffer a panic attack because you need a commercial fix, you'll find the most creative and the zaniest commercials on the Web, most of which will never find their way to prime time television because of the number of people they are bound to offend. You'll also discover some interesting cultural differences between intended audiences. I'll let you be the one to search for those. Using Google, the keyword "banned commercials" yields 862,000 hits; "silly commercials" finds 5,710 and "zany commercials", 558. There's bound to be a pony in there somewhere.

This page is provided for discussion and reflection only. I do not intend to keep it up to date and it will soon begin to lose its currency. Within a few weeks it will be possible to estimate the longevity of this collection by counting the "404 error, page not found" sites and comparing that number to the time elapsed from the date given at the top of this page. It is in any case heartening to know that the Web is virtually exploding with video material which gives us some welcome alternatives to conventional television offerings. Enjoy!

The “top twenty” (or so) non-commercial video webcast links:

The Archaeology Channel. At this writing, the offerings at this site allow you to choose between two or three download speeds. Sometimes the slow speed gives the client surprisingly good resolution: http://www.archaeologychannel.org

The Archimedes Palimpsest: http://www.exploratorium.edu/archimedes/webcast.html

BBC World

http://www.bbcworld.com

UC Berkeley Webcasts: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

Canadian Broadcasting Company. This site is offered tentatively. At this writing, the news comes without commercials. The CBC logo is given during commercial interruptions but that may end any time in the future. The great thing about these CBC offerings is that local Canadian news at 6pm local time, interspersed with national and international stories, can be viewed starting with New Brunswick in the east and ending with Vancouver in the west four and one-half hours later. It almost amounts to "news on demand." You may get stop-motion video depending on the competition at the server, but the audio is usually okay. http://www.cbc.ca/

Christmas Lectures from the Royal Institution. The Christmas Lectures were started in the mid-1820s by Michael Faraday and have continued up to the present time. You must register with a username and password, but at this writing all of the offerings are non-commercial and free. Don't let the "add to shopping cart" put you off. Evidently the Royal Institution uses standard commercial billing software, but all of the prices (at this writing, anyway) come up as 0 pounds. Go to the link below, click on webcasts and go from there.
http://www.rigb.org/events/christmaslectures.jsp

City News from Toronto, Canada: http://www.citynews.ca/

Classical Arts Showcase. This is probably available from more than one source. This source is from Cal Poly, Pomona and the Classical Arts Showcase material is often preempted by course material on video.
http://video.csupomona.edu/LiveOne-245.asx

U.S. Department of Education. Education News Parents Can Use – Webcast Center

http://www.connectlive.com/events/ednews/

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Webcast archives:

http://www.hud.gov/webcasts/archives/

Duke University Law School Webcasts: http://www.law.duke.edu/webcast/

Dominguez Hills Live: mms://dhtv1.csudh.edu/Live/

Exploratorium Upcoming Webcasts: http://www.exploratorium.edu/webcasts/index.php

U. S. Federal Communications Commission. Audio/Video events:

http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/

Finland’s EU Presidency archived webcasts:

http://www.eu2006.fi/media_services/webcasts/en_GB/webcasts/

Caltech JPL Webcasts: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/webcast/galileo/

U.S. Library of Congress Webcasts: http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/

NAACP 98^th Annual Convention in Detroit, July 8-12, 2007:

http://www.naacpwebcast.com/naacp2007/player_naacp07_01.asp

The Research Channel

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/

History of Rice University Series: http://webcast.rice.edu/index.php?action=details&event=734

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Channel. This source is from Cal Poly, Pomona and the NASA material is often preempted by course material on video. This source is used because it does not appear to be browser dependent, as does the official NASA site.
http://video.csupomona.edu/LiveTwo-245.asx

TV5 French Channel: http://www.tv5.org/TV5Site/programmes/accueil_continent.php

U.S. Department of Education.

Summer Programs: Keeping Students Reading and Learning — Webcast

http://www.connectlive.com/events/ednews/20070619.html

UCLA Webcasts: http://www.webcast.ucla.edu/

University of California Webcasts. The same non-commerical video programs both recent and archived which you see on the cable and satellite channel UCTV: http://www.uctv.tv/