State of the Union

January 21, 2004 4:07 AM

To the horror of my inner political geek, I was called away to Mommy Duty partway through the State of the Union address last night and didn't see much after the recognition of the head of the Iraqi transitional government. Does anyone know where I can get the full speech in either audio or (preferably) video format online? I can read the text in a number of places, but I'd like to get that sense of emphasis and audience reaction that cannot be garnered from a transcript. [MI]

I should note that while I have plenty of bandwidth, my Mac is not polluted with Real or Windows Media players, so a non-proprietary format is what I'm really after. Google isn't particularly helpful this soon after the fact.

posted by Dreama to Law & Government (11 answers total)

There's a real video feed here, and C-Span has lots of coverage. You're not going to find video without adding one of those two media players, I'm afraid, although you may find an MP3 audio feed somewhere.
posted by ascullion at 4:53 AM on January 21, 2004

I don't know, seems like the audience reaction was pretty scripted as well. The perfectly-timed applause, the half-room ovations, Kennedy knowing just when to shake his head, etc. You could probably get just as much from a written version somewhere online. :-)

(And am I the only one that thinks that it looks stupid when the Republicans stand -- it only seems to emphasize that half the room isn't supporting Bush. If they'd just sit and applaud, I don't think people would notice as much.)
posted by oissubke at 6:17 AM on January 21, 2004

Here, too.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:44 AM on January 21, 2004

Response by poster: Geeberus, even the Whitehouse wants me to have crappy software installed in order to access public information. The hell? I should probably open a new thread for this, but does anyone know off hand of Real or Windows Media options, software which can play those formats without all of the spyware and tentacle-raping of my system that would come with installing actual Real/WM players?

(Btw, the "history of the SotU speech" quiz on the Whitehouse page is funnier than hell inasmuch as one of the options is Franco Harris. Pittsburgh area news is all over the fact that yesterday, Franco Harris endorsed John Kerry. Of course, anyone who is voting based upon the endorsements of a football player [albeit a kickass hall of fame football player] is an idiot, but the coincidence is rich.)
posted by Dreama at 6:58 AM on January 21, 2004

Anil recently had a good post on Real Alternative.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:02 AM on January 21, 2004

Response by poster: Alas, Real Alternative is a Windoze program. Useless for sensible Mac users such as myself. Seems I shall have to content myself with a transcript.
posted by Dreama at 9:23 AM on January 21, 2004

As far as I know, the RealPlayer for OS X does not have any of the spyware or additional feature of the crappy windoze version - i.e. Jukebox and all that. I've found that it is actually a nice port.
posted by grimley at 10:12 AM on January 21, 2004

I was reluctant to put Real on my Mac too, but I eventually broke down and put the new OS X version on, and it is a much better experience than I have on my Windows machine at the office. I also recall a thread on Ask Me about this exact same issue where I learned about an ap call VLC(?). I'll poke around the AskMe archives as see if I can find the thread, Dreama.

[P.S. Nice Steelers props ;) ]
posted by terrapin at 11:01 AM on January 21, 2004

I can't vouch for the usefulness of the information found in the thread, but here it is.

I can't find any 411 on VLC though, so maybe I found that on Apple's site. I have had success using VLC to view .wmv files.
posted by terrapin at 11:12 AM on January 21, 2004

SOTU in Arabic even!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 2:00 PM on January 21, 2004

Psst! You want some spyware-less Realplayer? Blackjack! Um, I don't know why it's called blackjack, though...
posted by whatnotever at 4:34 PM on January 21, 2004