Inauguration Address Video – The Do-Over

I, like many people in the United States, had to work yesterday during the swearing in of Barak Obama.  Despite permission from on high, or at least from the head of Human Resources, employees were given permission to use their work PC’s to tune in and watch the event, it just didn’t happen.  I  ended up listening instead of watching.

I tried.  I really really did.  I tried MSNBC, CNN, PBS, my local PBS affiliate, as well as the official Silverlight stream from the transition website.  Every single site would work a little, then degrade to an unwatchable state.  (If anyone cares,   this was via a 50mb/20mb Verizon Business FIOS circuit with very little load on it.   The PC I used is running Ubuntu 8.04LTS, Firefox 3, Flash 10 and Moonlight 1.0)   And all these video issues began before Mr.  Obama even took to the stage.

Rather than miss any of the speech, I gave up on video and jumped on WHYY in Philadelphia’s audio feed and that worked flawlessly.

I’m sure the new team in the White House is well aware of these problems becuase I just got this email from the Obama-Biden Transition Project:

Dear JD,

Barack Obama is now officially the President of the United States. In his inaugural address yesterday, he laid out a challenge for all Americans to unite in common purpose and tackle the challenges our nation faces.

In case you missed it, or would like to see it again, the full video, along with the text of President Obama’s remarks, is at WhiteHouse.gov.

Watch the video now at WhiteHouse.gov.

Thank you,

Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Project