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Hm. I sympathise with your line of thinking.

Nonetheless I think they'd be hard-pressed to use open source stuff on a widespread basis. Remember when they used to stream Radio One using ogg?

They refuse to do things free of commercial considerations because at the end of the day and notwithstanding their highblown language, they still have to think about the all-mighty pound.

'OK,' I hear you say, 'you sure about that?'
Yes, I'm sure.

Really sure.

Don't believe everything you hear on NPR, especially if it comes from Matt Groening...

On the Digital Spy website, an article states that the broadcast flag is necessary, and without it, high quality programming will migrate off of free television.
My question is, didn't this happen years and years ago, or was it even there in the first place?

On the Digital Spy website, an article states that the broadcast flag is necessary, and without it, high quality programming will migrate off of free television.
My question is, didn't this happen years and years ago, or was it even there in the first place?

It does not (as Kazaa does) tell us how many people are currently on-line. They claim 15,000,000 (whereas Kazaa routinely has about 3,000,000 at any given time) -- but no proof.

It requires reboots to install and uninstall. This is going overboard -- ZoneAlarm installs a service, and does not require rebooting after installation.

I set it to put my files (both incoming and shared) on my G: drive, and it's downloading to my K: drive (where the OS is installed). The G: drive have 6 GB free so it can hold a few movies -- but the K: drive only has 80 MB free, so it's going to fill up in a few minutes and I'll let you know how it handles the error condition.

I don't see a whole lot of content on the system, either. (I wouldn't be surprised if I had been keylogged. Good thing I run ZoneAlarm!)

Well, I didn't wait for it to fill up the drive as it started to slow down after a period of time. So I exited it, uninstalled it, then ran Ad-Aware. Lo and behold, Ad-Aware found some spyware.

Mostly it was "navexcel" which I don't know much about but here are some links: PestPatrol knows about it; there's a forum discussing it, and another here ; and perhaps more but I couldn't find them...

The channels aimed at British audiences (ie. for those who pay the licence fee) do not carry adverts. These are BBC1, 2, 3, 4, Children's BBC, CBebbies (for toddlers), News 24 and BBC Parliament. Same goes for audio services Radio 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, Asian Network, BBC Cymru (Welsh language), BBC Local Radio etc. These are almost entirely funded by the licence fee.

In the case of advert-free satellite signals these are quite literally "aimed"; the BBC broadcast advert-free from a satellite with tight coverage of the UK mainland with only very minimal bleed into the rest of Europe.

The channels aimed at international audiences (ie. for those who do not pay the licence fee) are funded by a mixture of foriegn office taxpayer's money, adverts and in some cases subscriptions. These include BBC World, BBC Prime and BBC America and are handled by a slightly seperate commerical company called BBC Worldwide and are broadcast on a number of satellites with coverage for most countries.

The international audio stations such as BBC World Service and BBC English By Radio are funded solely by the foreign office (similar to the funding for the Voice of America).

British viewers can also see BBC programming on non-BBC channels with advertising such as S4C (Welsh language), UK Gold (comedy & soap repeats) and UK History (documentary repeats). Some of these channels are entirely funded by advertising, some also have small injections from various government departments such as the Welsh Office, Scottish Office and European Union, in the case of regional language programming such as Welsh or Scots Gaelic. For instance, the popular Welsh soap opera Pobl Y Cum (Valley People) is made by the BBC but broadcast on independent station S4C supported by both advertising and government funding [PDF, Welsh and English].

Bit of shame, because the UK population votes for the government and then is compelled to pay a tax to the BBC so it can attack and deride that very same govt. Hey, it even uses large amounts of this tax to create (and subsequently re-create) digital channels that most of the UK population can't receive (thought that is changing thanks to rivals Sky and the ill-fated ITV Digital).

The BBC also uses it's massive income stream to start new channels and enterprises that effectively destroy legitimate competition (e.g. Artschannel channel), and uses it's multiple channels to cross-advertise other BBC channels (so not really advert-free).

News stories are not always well researched or written (c.f. the one about broadband barrage balloons reported on Slashdot - pure puff and ill-considered comments).

The sheer size and bias of 'auntie' (as it is 'affectionally' known) makes many other media organisations feel free to take rather obvious pot-shots at it (e.g. The Times newspaper has a story that the BBC was known as the Baghdad Broadcasting Corp by the British Navy and sailors switched to Sky News to avoid the overwhelmingly anti-UK bias on the BBC - of course this might have something to do with Murdoch owning both The Times and Sky News).

The BBC's 'unique way of funding' has crippled objective political reporting and media output in the UK; pro- and anti- govt propaganda bounces back and forth between so-called independent news organisations; as do irrelevant TV programmes (independent TV does a reality show, the BBC does a reality show and props it up through its many output formats and channels, etc.).

Did I hear someone say that the BBC's musical radio channels are the best in the UK? Of course they are! However, this might have something to do with the BBC having the almost all the national music channels in the UK. Effective competition again stifled by the fact that BBC radio does not have to make a profit because it is funded in it's own 'unique way', i.e. by enforced taxation; oh, and they shut down pirate stations using govt-biased legislation (I'd like to say that this legislation is BBC-biased but I'm not sure emergency crews would agree, then again it does get some geek-points for coolness.) Though even I would admit that BBC music radio is 'ok' sometimes, nothing will eras the memories of DLT and never-ending Fleetwood Mac from the p***-poor Radio 1 of old (and, alas poor controller, it isn't much better now).

They don't do anything new or innovative (except deliberately mess up the scheduling for top-class programming like Seinfeld, Larry Sanders, Star Trek: TNG etc. so no-one realises how bad BBC stuff really is, oh, and show pictures of dead soldiers). Not unless they are coming up to the regular review of the BBC tax by parliament; such a review is coming up, and those of us who loathe the BBC (but still have to pay it's tax but never watch any of their TV channels) can only hope an pray that the govt finally sees sense and makes them pay their own way in this world. Hey, it might happen!

Forgive the rant (but it's not as bad as

> [Interactive TV] just is never going to happen.

Maybe iTV is never going to happen in the States, but just as with cellphones, DAB and many technologies that gain momentum through standards and cross-border co-operation , the US is being left behind, as Interactive TV is thriving in Europe, especially in the UK, and I'm amazed that many tech-savvy Americans don't seem to realise this

~45-50% of UK households *with a TV* have digital TV, and of them 65 percent of have access to ITV

In simple numbers ,that's about 8 million households have Interactive TV in the UK. As a comparison, there are about 10 million Uk households with access to the Net.

There are about 6.25 million households with digital satelite alone. All of them have access to very, very advanced interactive services. There are about 2 million households with digital cable, using Liberate middleware

The new Free to air DTT boxes are selling like hot cakes, and there are many Interactive services available through the BBC and others

Here's a wide range of iTV screenshots

In europe as a whole 'interactive TV was estimated to be available in 31 million European households at the end of 2002, creating a potential audience of 72 million viewers'

> [Interactive TV] just is never going to happen.

Maybe iTV is never going to happen in the States, but just as with cellphones, DAB and many technologies that gain momentum through standards and cross-border co-operation , the US is being left behind, as Interactive TV is thriving in Europe, especially in the UK, and I'm amazed that many tech-savvy Americans don't seem to realise this

~45-50% of UK households *with a TV* have digital TV, and of them 65 percent of have access to ITV

In simple numbers ,that's about 8 million households have Interactive TV in the UK. As a comparison, there are about 10 million Uk households with access to the Net.

There are about 6.25 million households with digital satelite alone. All of them have access to very, very advanced interactive services. There are about 2 million households with digital cable, using Liberate middleware

The new Free to air DTT boxes are selling like hot cakes, and there are many Interactive services available through the BBC and others

Here's a wide range of iTV screenshots

In europe as a whole 'interactive TV was estimated to be available in 31 million European households at the end of 2002, creating a potential audience of 72 million viewers'

I've been staying on top of this right over the weekend (and had a /. story about it rejected 36 hours ago, grrrrr), so for those new to it, some links:


Massive thread on nthellworld.com, a offical ntl gripe site.

Complaint site

Basically, ntl are somewhat losing their nerve. I've exchanged emails with the MD of their home products range who claims to have only found out about this key strategic business decision on Saturday morning; he's either lying or incompetent, I suggest. The biggest gripe amongst the sane posters (barring all the "I pay for 24/7 and I'm going to damn well get it" breast-beating") is that the 128bps, 600kbps and 1024kps services all have the same download limit, making you wonder why you pay for the higher speed service.

It should also be pointed out that, unlike many other ISP's schemes, NTL offer no FTP mirror service with "free" bandwidth and recently started dropping alt.binaries groups from their newsspool, which is in any event so slow as to be unusable. So for big alt.binaries downloads or Linux ISOs, for example, customers are forced to external sites, pushing up ntl's bandwidth.

The biggest fear is that this is the thin end of the wedge. In the last two weeks, ntl have dropped a few warez newsgroups and introduced a fairly generous cap that won't inconvenience too many people. That's all well and good, but many think it won't stop there; once you get the caps in place and the groups erased, you can squeeze them down and down. ntl is desperately short of cash, newly emerged from Chapter 11 protection, and this would appear to be a beancounter-led efficiency drive that is turning into a PR nightmare.

I was part of a similar revolt over a no-servers line in the AUP a few years back (more info) and ntl backed down and clarified their position with a set of clear-cut and sensible rules. Let's hope that happens again.

Ther is an article about Tivo releasing commercial viewing habits from last year's superbowl. Though the winning kick by the Patriots was the most Replayed event, The ritney commercial cam in second. In fact a number of comercials were Replayed by more viewers than any other actual part of the game, including an amazing trick play.

This is a perfect example of additional creativity in the production of commercials resulting in great ratings and even repeat viewings.

I know I can watch the Bud Light commercial with the two chicks wrestling in water and then mud every single time it comes on. :P

Similarly, Digital Spy and NTHellWorld are pretty good for coverage of NTL cable services.

1. BT monopoly. There are tales of people 'phoning BT to get broadband and being signed up for unmetered dialup (56k) instead due to BT customer service idiocy. The BT/ BT OPenworld/ BT whatever split makes Railtrack's look sensible.
2. UK Cableco current funding. This does *not* indicate any future network upgrades will be forthcoming soon. I am with Telewest Blue Yonder - my service is excellent for what it is (>60 days same IP, between 100-250k down, 40-80k up) but does not come close to US definitions of broadband. I pay 25 UKP/ month for this. NTL are bringing in 1mps for 50 UKP/ month (!) in selected areas, but have many pockets of analogue only TV / dialup subs.
3. 3) The UK government's terrible record on encouraging broadband - hell, even dial up - access. Last year the Guardian reported reported that the UK has committed

   £30m to extend broadband technology outside metropolitan areas. Sweden is committing £1.19bn.

   This despite the UK 'e-zar' loudly boasting about how good things are.
4. Basically, the UK gets whipped at non-LANned betwork gaming evry time :(