Using Google Hangouts to Play Windows Media on the iPhone

Last weekend I was watching the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship through the NASA TV streams. I had to run out to baseball practice during final alliance selections and was going to miss it, unless I could get the stream working on a mobile device. The problem is that their streams use Windows Media. First I tried VLC and GPlayer on my iPhone but neither worked. Then I tried my Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7.8. It's Microsoft, so it should work, right? Nope. Then I went through several Android media players on my Nexus 7 but none I tried could support the stream.

I was on the verge of just leaving something running to record the stream at home and watch it later when it hit me. I set up a webcam pointed at my laptop viewing the stream and started a Google Hangout. I could easily connect and reconnect to the Hangout with my iPhone or any of my devices (except the Windows Phone - still waiting on a Google+ app there). So I got to catch the alliance selections live, thanks to Google Hangouts.