Flash Enlargement?

In lieu of a housewarming, we are planning to extend a classic British tradition and hold a Eurovision Song Contest party. For those not familiar with this annual European freak show, the Eurovision is ostensibly an international musical talent contest, but seems rather more like a parade of mediocrity, bizarreness and - just occasionally - interesting music. Adding to the amusement is the voting, which generally boils down to neighbour countries giving each other maximum points.

However, there is a catch. To my knowledge, no US-based TV station is airing the show, and although there is a webcast at the official Eurovision website, the Flash feed is rather tiny. Not exactly ideal for public spectacle.

So I have to ask:

• Does anyone know how I can get a Flash-based webcast to broadcast in a full screen mode? Or a package that can intercept a Flash webcast and display it in full screen?
• Or does anyone know of a cable channel in the US that will be carrying the Eurovision?

Any help appreciated!
 

Comments

[VagabondX]

Dear Mr. Bateman

I've just finished reading your excellent book (21st Century Game Design) and I'd like to ask you some questions about game design in private. To keep your address private I'd like to ask you to contact me. My address is [removed to protect privacy].

Thank you in advance

Robert

[Neil]

I see you describe the Eurovision as an international event in the same way Baseball World Series might be... :-)

Hope you find a feed for it...

[Chris]

VagabondX: I've emailed you, and edited your comment to censor your email address for privacy. ;)

Neil: More than 25 countries take part in Eurovision - how is that not International?

And for that matter a whole *2* countries take part in the World Series - Canada and the US - that's *two thirds* of the countries on the planet that play Baseball. Only Japan is left out. ;)

[VagabondX]

And I have replied. Thank you for the fast reaction.

About the topic: With a little html magic I was able to play the albanian song in 800x450 instead of the original 400x225. These constraints are intentionally set on the eurovision site. I'm not able to overcome them on the original site, so I'm afraid you have to watch it in their original sizes.
Btw, I didn't give up yet :)

[Chris 1911]

If you don't get anywhere, and you're not adverse to a bit of programming...
Maybe you could hack up a GreaseMonkey script for the eurovision media center site to force the flash player to be at full window size at least?

Maybe the BBC will be streaming it? iMP if you have an account (and it still exists)?

I'd assume that the eurovision site won't be carrying the full BBC endorsed Terry-Wogan-enhanced version, which is most of the fun (for me anyway:))

[Chris]

Thanks for the attempt, VagabondX

Chris 1911: I changed your name from 'Chris' to 'Chris 1911', since I comment under the name 'Chris'. If you have some other name you prefer, I can change this, but it's confusing to have someone else commenting under my 'ID' so to speak. ;)

I'm not sure I have the skills to hack up a GreaseMonkey script... I haven't done any serious programming in years. :( I don't know if the BBC will be streaming it or not... it would be great to catch the Wogan commentary! I guess I should look into this...

Thanks!

[Jack Monahan]

One possible alternative is to grab a torrented recording of the show--Eurovision is big enough that I'd be surprised if people weren't ripping the broadcasts. Search Eurovision on torrentz.com or whatever your favorite bit torrent search engine is, and I think you might find what you're looking for in a format more amenable to full-screening.

[Chris]

Jack: wouldn't I have to wait until after the event? We're having a "Eurovision Party" while it's happening, so I don't think this would work. :( Thanks for the idea, though!

[John Witherspoon]

I came here to check out play with fire. I think there are already a few greasemonkey scripts that allow you to unimbed movies from flash. check out this site:
http://uneasysilence.com/archive/2005/04/2597/

theres also some sites that do it for you, but you can find those on google...

[Chris]

Thanks John! It turns out Eurovision will allow full screen in the actual webcast, so everything should be fine. Thanks for the assistance!