1. You don't have media player installed or it is not configured correctly

2. You don't have the correct Windows Media Player codecs installed

3. You aren't using a supported configuration

4. Is there a problem with your Internet connection? How to find out

5. You are behind a firewall, proxy server, or NAT which blocks the incoming streams

 

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1. Media Player installation and configuration

  1. JumpTV uses an embedded version of Windows Media Player 6.4. If you are using Internet Explorer as your web browser, Windows Media Player should automatically install and configure itself if not present on your system. Some users have changed their security settings to prevent this feature from working correctly. In the event that you wish to install Media Player manually, you may do so by downloading it directly from Microsoft.
  2. You may need to check your security settings regarding automatic download of programs such as Windows Media Player.
  3. In addition to Windows Media Player, you also need to have the correct codecs installed to be able to see and hear our video. NOTE: Internet Explorer can automatically download the required codecs (within the restrictions imposed by the security settings), however Netscape can not. Once the codecs are installed, either manually or from Internet Explorer, either browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) can use codecs.

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2. Media Player codec installation

Internet Explorer is the best browser to use when watching JumpTV. Most users alerady have their browser set to automatically download any codecs required. If your copy of IE is not doing so, you can verify your configuration with the help of the list below. If you want to see if Windows Media Player has codecs loaded, follow the instructions below to see what components Windows Media Player has installed.

  1. NOTE: You must be the administrator or have administrator rights to install new software or change security profiles on NT or Windows 2000.
  2. You must use Internet Explorer 3.02 or later. If you are using IE version 3.02 considering upgrading to at least version 4.
  3. You must have your Internet security settings set to Medium. If you are using a recent version of Internet Explorer, you can find this in the menu Tools / Internet Options. Then click on the Security tab, and set the security to Medium, which is the default for the Internet zone.
  4. You must be connected to the Internet for the download to be sucessful.
  5. You must wait for the download to complete. If you are impatient and close the window before the download completes, your system will not install the required components. The status is displayed at the bottom of the media player window during download and install.
  6. Some other "third party" codecs such as AngelPotion can prevent successful installation of standard codecs used by JumpTV.

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3. Supported Configurations

The configurations listed below assume that the PC is only being used to view JumpTV broadcasts. If you are also using the PC for other tasks at the same time -- particularly those that use the CPU or Internet extensively -- you will required additional capacity beyond the listed configurations.

Below is the minimum configuration you will need to view our broadband (high speed) service.

  • Pentium class CPU at 200 MHz
  • SVGA video (PCI) with at least 15/16 bit color. (thousands of colours)
  • Screen size of at least 640 x 480 pixels
  • High speed connection to the Internet, with a minimum download throughput of 120 kbps (thousand bits per second). This is equivalent to a download speed of 15 KB/sec (kilobytes / second).
  • No more than 300 millisecond latency in your connection with JumpTV.

Below is the recommended configuration to view our broadband (high speed) service.

  • Pentium class CPU at 350 mHz or better.
  • SVGA video (AGP) with 24 bit color (millions of colours).
  • Screen size of 1024 x 768 or higher.
  • Connection to the Internet, with a download throughput of 400 kbps (thousand bits per second). This is equivalent to a download speed of 50 KB/sec (kilobytes / second).
  • No more than 150 millisecond latency in your Internet connection with JumpTV.

Below is the minimum configuration you will need to view our dial-up service.

  • Pentium class CPU at 200 MHz.
  • SVGA video (PCI) with at least 15/16 bit color. (thousands of colours).
  • Screen size of at least 800 x 600 pixels.
  • 56K connection to the Internet, with a minimum download throughput of 42 kbps (thousand bits per second). This is equivalent to a download speed of about 5 KB/sec (kilobytes / second).
  • No more than 350 millisecond latency in your connection with JumpTV.

Below is the recommended configuration to view our dial-up service.

  • Pentium class CPU at 350 mHz or better.
  • SVGA video (AGP) with 24 bit color (millions of colours).
  • Screen size of 1024 x 768 or higher.
  • 56K dial-up or single channel ISDN connection to the Internet, with a download throughput of 50 kbps (thousand bits per second) or better. This is equivalent to a download speed of about 6 KB/sec (kilobytes / second).
  • No more than 250 millisecond latency in your Internet connection with JumpTV.

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4. Testing your connection to the Internet

In order to view our broadcasts, you must actually be connected to the Internet. Even if you can see our web pages, those web pages could be stored locally on your computer, in your "Temporary Internet Files", or as part of a proxy cache. If you are using a dial-up connection, make sure your connection has not timed out or disconnected.

You can test your connection to JumpTV using two utility programs that are usually installed on your PC with Windows. Ping and Traceroute These utilities are "command line" utilities, which mean that they are intended to be used from a command prompt window, or "MS-DOS" window.

In addition you can trace the connection from JumpTV to you using our test utility web page. This is perhaps the most important test, as it is the one that reproduces the path taken by the streaming video most closely.

Testing your conenction using Ping

  1. From the start menu select 'Run'
  2. In the input box that appears type "command" (without the quotes) for Windows 95 or Windows 98 or Windows ME. For Windows NT or Windows 2000 type "cmd"
  3. Click OK
  4. A command window will appear with a prompt, probably something similar to "C:\Windows\>" depending on your configuration.
  5. Type "Ping www.jumptv.com" (without the quotes), and then press the enter key. You should see results similar to this:
    Reply from 66.28.10.71: bytes=32 time=112ms TTL=241
    Reply from 66.28.10.71: bytes=32 time=136ms TTL=241
    Reply from 66.28.10.71: bytes=32 time=144ms TTL=241
    Reply from 66.28.10.71: bytes=32 time=142ms TTL=241
    Ping statistics for 66.28.10.71:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
    Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 112ms, Maximum = 144ms, Average = 133ms
  6. The important numbers to note are the times and percent loss, shown above in bold.
  7. If the times shown are higher than 250 ms you probably will start to notice the quality of the stream is reduced. If you see any percent loss at all, you may have a problem with your Internet connection. Try repeating the test using the command "Ping -n 100 www.jumptv.com", which will send 100 pings instead of just 4. The longer test will give you a better indication on the true amount of packet loss. If the packet loss is greater than 5%-10% you might want to consider asking your ISP for assistance with the problem.

Testing your conenction using Tracert (traceroute)

The ping test may identify that you have a problem with your connection to our site, but it doesn't help identify where the problem is happening. It could be a problem between you and your ISP, a problem at the JumpTV end of the connection, or somewhere between your PC and JumpTV. The Traceroute utility is designed to help identify where a problem is located, so that the correct people can be identified to resolve it. For exmaple, JumpTV support staff get a fair number of e-mails from users that are having problems, which often end up being issues related to ISP's or core Intenet routers. This utility will help you pinpoint where the problem is.

  1. From the start menu select 'Run'
  2. In the input box that appears type "command" (without the quotes) for Windows 95 or Windows 98 or Windows ME. For Windows NT or Windows 2000 type "cmd"
  3. Click OK
  4. A command window will appear with a prompt, probably something similar to "C:\Windows\>" depending on your configuration.
  5. Type "tracert www.jumptv.com" (without the quotes), and then press the enter key. You should see results similar to the examle below:
    Tracing route to www.jumptv.com [66.28.10.71]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:
    1 1ms 2ms 1ms 24.1.1.0
    2 29ms 28ms 53ms 24.1.1.1
    3 31ms 29ms 28ms 10.1.1.1
    4 60ms 36ms 33ms bb3-pos14-0.rdc1.on.home.net [216.197.153.110]
    5 57ms 36ms 34ms c1-pos10-0.bflony1.home.net [24.7.79.45]
    6 76ms 46ms 47ms c1-pos3-0.washdc1.home.net [24.7.69.41]
    7 1173ms 1163ms 1152ms above-athome-oc3.iad.above.net [209.249.203.81]
    8 1143ms 1166ms 1172ms core4-core3-oc48.iad1.above.net [208.185.0.142]
    9 1147ms 1160ms 1170ms main1-core4-oc48.iad1.above.net [208.185.0.154]
    10 151ms 160ms 210ms 64.124.112.cogentco.com [64.124.112.5]
    11 143ms 148ms 161ms p15-0.core01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.21]
    12 177ms 160ms 159ms p4-0.core01.phl01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.18]
    13 159ms 154ms 156ms g50.ba01.b003002.phl01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.5.86]
    14 209ms 176ms 180ms www.jumptv.com [66.28.10.71]
    Trace complete.
  6. In the example above, note the times shown in bold. These values indicate excessive delays, called packet latency, which can cause your video to choppy, jerky, or even not display at all. The problem in this case was a saturated link between home.net and above.net. After this bottleneck is passed, the times drop to lower values as JumpTV sends the video stream to you via a different route to avoid the congestion. This can be seen clearly in the example below, where we trace the reverse path -- from JumpTV back to your PC.
  7. In your test, if you see values that are higher than 150ms - 200ms early in the trace, contact your ISP and ask them to investigate the problem. If the problem appears to be at the end (JumpTV side) of the trace, then please send us an email.
  8. Note: When you run this test, the first IP address listed (on line 1) is likely the IP address of your PC or of the device that connects you to the Internet. You will need to know this address to use the next utility.

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5. Firewalls, Proxy Servers, and NAT Gateways

Firewalls, proxyies, and NAT gateways are all technologies which in some way control, or alter your connection to the Internet, through the use of an intermediate server. Instead of your PC connecting to JumpTV's server's directly, your PC connects to the intermediate server. The intermediate server then connects to JumpTV (or not) on your behalf. If your connection to the Internet must use a firewall, proxy server, or NAT gateway, then the details below may assist you in configuring your PC to work within the restrictions imposed, so that your can enjoy our programming.

About Firewalls

Firewalls are often used to protect computers from unwanted connections coming from the Internet. These unwanted connection attempts can often be initiated by unscrupulous 'hackers' trying to access your computer to install a computer virus, or use your computer resources for unauthorized activities, such as sending 'SPAM' e-mail or to launch 'denial of service' attacks on other web sites. Firewalls are commonly found in corportate computing environments, where there is a significant investment in computers and information to protect. Recently, many people have also installed personal firewall products to protect their home computers. In general, the more computers you have, and the faster your connection to the Internet, the more attractive you appear to be as a target for hacking attempts.

Corporate firewalls work by separating your internal network from the Internet. The firewall server has two network connections. One of these is connected to your Internal network, and one is connected to the Internal network. Incoming connections from the Internet are inspected by the firewall, and routed to the correct destination in the internal network. The same thing happens when an internal computer tries to connect to a location on the Internet. In general, outgoing connections are less of a risk than incoming connections, so these are generally subject to fewer restrictions than are incoming connections from the Internet.

If your PC is behind a firewall (or you think it might be), changing the settings for Windows Media Player may make it possible to view our broadcasts. Windows Media Player, which is the software that runs our "TV", can use several different ways to connect to our servers. Some connections may be allowed by your firewall, which others may be denied.

Multicast connections are a "broadcast" type of connection which is often used in local networks, but does not work well over most of the Internet. Multicast connections are not used by JumpTV.

UDP connections are a 'connectionless' protocol which allows us to send video to your PC without your PC having to send back acknowledgments for every packet of data we send. It is the most efficient way to connect, and generally results in the best picture quality but, it is the method least likely to work with a firewall. When the data arrives from our servers at the firewall, the firewall generally doesn't know what the data is or which computer to send it to, so the data goes no further. If UDP is selected in your copy of Windows Media Player, changing it to one of the two other methods below may allow the video to reach your PC.

TCP connections are connection based protocol, where your PC initiates a specific connection to our servers to receive the video stream. Because the 'connection' is initiated by your PC (on the inside network), it is generally trusted by the firewall. The firewall also can use the connection number to know which PC should receive the data when the video packets begin to arrive from the Internet. If you are behind a firewall, this is best protocol to use, if it works with your firewall. The TCP protocol has more overhead than UDP, and the protocol also requires that all the data be received. If a packet is lost in transmission it must be resent by our servers. Occassionaly, if there is congestion in the Internet, TCP connections will suffer must worse quality than the UDP connections, as the UDP connections skip over the missing data and continue to play as best they can, while the TCP connected PCs stop the video, and wait for the missing data to be resent.

HTTP connections are the "last resort" to get data through a firewall. If your firewall doesn't allow TCP connections, probably for security reasons, then switching to HTTP may still allow you to connect. HTTP is the protocol used by web pages, and is generally allowed by most firewalls. If you can get to our web site, then we should assume that the firewall allows HTTP traffic. Windows Media Server can 'repackage' the video stream to make it conform to the HTTP protocol. While it doesn't look like much in a web browser, Windows Media Player can extract the video stream from the "web page" sent by the server and play the video. The quality is worse than TCP, due to the extra overhead of converting to and from web format, but on slightly faster computers, you might not see much of a difference. You should note that HTTP protocol is sometimes used in conjunction with proxy servers, which is described below.

Proxy servers

Web (HTTP) proxy servers are often used by companys to control web access from inside their internal network to the Internet. The proxy server can be used to limit access to certain web sites and/or keep a log of web surfing activity. ISP's sometimes use proxy servers as a way to conserve their bandwidth. This is accomplished by having the proxy server keep a copy (cache) of web pages that have been downloaded. If the same page is requested again, the copy can be delivered to the user instead of fetching a current copy of the page from the web site. This can result in 'out-of-date' pages being delivered to the user. Normally, most proxy caches are kept somewhat current so that the pages are not stale by more than a day or two. In some cases, however, a proxy cache copy might be out of date by weeks or months. If you are using a proxy and experiencing problems with the site, try disabling the proxy. If after disabling the proxy setting, you can't view streams at all, you can re-enable it again.

NAT gateways

NAT (Network Address Translation) is one technique used to allow many people to share a single connection to the Internet. It is very similar to a firewall in many respects. If you are behind a NAT gateway which allows multiple computers to use a single Internet connection, you might find that UDP connections for our streams don't work. Chances are, however, that TCP and HTTP connections do work, so as long as your Windows Media Player settings allow TCP and HTTP, you should be able to use our site.