Slashdot Mirror
BBC Reopens Ogg Streams
garf writes: "Once again, back by popular demand, the BBC has opened up live streaming of Radio 4, to test with the new codecs, especially for modem users. Hop over here.
And for those wishing to listen to Radio 1 try these (link one),
(link two).
But beware: '[Radio 1 streams] are available sporadically at the moment. Don't be surprised if it cuts off, as I've probably just killed it ready for restarting with different settings.'
Please email support to the BBC for their continued support for the ogg format. Happy listening."
NPR should do this since they're kind of the "GNU/Linux" of the radio world. Instead, they only offer support for QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Windows Media streams.
In my opinion, National Public Radio (whose mission is to aid the growth and development of noncommercial radio) should definitely be supporting an open audio standard such as Ogg Vorbis.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
That's like testing a car for highway safety with a hydrogen bomb, you know.
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
I seriously don't think .ogg files will ever be able to reach the ascendancy of .mp3 files. The reason is aesthetic- .mp3 sounds slick and space-age, whereas .ogg sounds like egg and/or the noise of vomiting. I do not like eggs or vomit, and I would put neither into my computer.
This might seem like a minor quibble, but I would venture that it's the little things like this (design considerations) that distinguish popular products/formats from the scores of unpopular ones.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
I'm glad to see this... MP3's have received so much attention, none of the other codecs haven't been in the news much. Sure, there's the random article comparing 4 or 5 codecs that no one's ever going to use, or the little articles saying that people hear an improvement in Ogg over MP3. But have you seen people using .ogg's? I do. Everything I've ripped is now in Ogg. Better quality, more flexibility, and a superior acoustic model.
I thought listening to the BBC over Ogg was cool. I remembered the first time I'd heard it over shortwave. Not to mention that it worked flawlessly. Then again, I'lve always got the latest plugin for my Winamp, and my XMMS. No annoying RealPlayer crap. No proprietary codecs. It works on my non-Windows boxes.
I sent a brief, yet eloquent note to the BBC webmaster when the original test completion was finished, and will probably send another encouraging this continued project. I would encourage the same from others.
Support your local hackers. (no, not crackers. hackers. Damn Hollywood crap.)
You're kidding right? Either that is one whopper of a troll, or you are a wannabe audiophile. *REAL* audiophiles would NEVER use those phrases.
That, and the compositions of Rachmoninoff aren't exactly sonically varied.
If you had put Schoenberg, Mahler or Shostakovich you would have had a little credibility. But Rachmoninoff?
If you are serious, go back and do an actual double blind test (something even real audiophiles have problems doing), then say you can 1) tell the difference between 256k mp3 and 256k ogg AND 2) conclusively say that ogg is worse.
Others who HAVE done this have reached completely different conclusions.
Honestly speaking commercial streaming providers are suffering from outragous fee charged for using proprietary codecs. My friend was surprise when RA charged them per *access*. Talking about *free* educational streaming-media website for charity...
Proprietary codec hurts the widespread of multi-media information exchange. WWW would not be the same if it started out as pay-per-acess. I can foresee free codec format could make a revolution, now we only need some big corps create the market drive.
*Hat off to BBC*
You didn't mention which version you tested with. The recently released RC3 (jan 1 2002) is improved over RC2 in the treble area, so if you encoded with RC2, give RC3 a try.
If you want a lossless compression format for audio, check out shorten. It's not as drastic as mp3 or ogg, of course, but it does cut file size in about half.
Btw, the 'way it was meant to be enjoyed' format for Rachmaninov is live performance, not CD, mp3 or ogg.
_KhlER3L
The answer of course is probably obvious; technically superior technology doesn't guarantee success. VHS vs. Betamax. QWERTY vs. Dvorak. Windows vs. Macintosh. By the time VQF came on the scene, MP3 was firmly entrenched in internet culture. VQF never had a chance.
Here's an interesting, naive snippet from the VQF FAQ: While you can find thousands and thousands of MP3s out there, the number of VQFs is comparatively tiny. But this is only a matter of time. Once people begin to realize how incredible these are, their popularity will skyrocket. VQF.com says "Copyright 2000" at the bottom. They've had a year or two to skyrocket. Raise your hands; how many of you have even one VQF on your hard drive?
Now, listen to how familiar this sounds: Though not as popular as an MP3 file yet, Ogg Vorbis will eventually replace the MP3 format by popular demand, and like cassettes and 8 tracks, MP3's will be a thing of the past. This will happen because the Ogg Vorbis file format is a smaller file size, has a higher quality of sound clarity, and is FREE.
I'd like to believe in Ogg, but I've been burned one too many times.
The BBC is funded by every household in the UK that owns a TV paying approx 100UKP/year for a TV licence. This licence is required to watch *any* TV, or even to own one, I think. The money goes straight to the BBC. None of it goes to ITV, Channel 4, or any of the channels available on satelite, cable or digital terrestrial.
What do we get for our 100UKP? Well, on the upside, we get quality programming, that I am assured by a BBC advert, is the envy of the world. Not really. What we actually get is 2 channels of mediocre TV. Most of the shows I watch on BBC are American imports, and about two years late at that. 2 channels for 100UKP/year also seems kind of expensive, even for rip-off Britain, considering Sky (the satelite TV company), offers 30 or 40 channels IIRC for that money.
That's not all though. The money splays out sideways, to cover BBC radio, which covers 50% of the FM band, while commercial self-supporting AM stations such as Virgin have been unable to get FM space for 10 years.
We get BBC news 24. it's own progenitor described it as "the news service nobody wanted". It's not quite as good as CNN for news, or Bloomberg for business.
And we get the Perfect Day advert from a few years back. The BBC spent a huge wad of cash recording various artists singing one sentence each of Perfect Day, and then paid to have this played in Cinemas. An advert for a non-commercial service that you have to buy anyway. AMAZING!
Realistically, the BBC's time has come. 50 years ago, it was reasonable to stimulate growth in TV (and fitted in nicely with the more socialist Britain). Now, there are plenty of commercial services that do the same job better, and cheaper. Australia abolished its TV licence many years ago, and America never had one. I think it's about time we join the late-20th century and abolish ours.
Hmm, that came out longer than expected.
not_cub
q='echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"';s=\';b=\\;echo "q=$s$q$s;s=$b$s;b=$b$b;$q"
Well, since it's a test transmission to see if Ogg is popular, then slashdotting it sounds like a plan.
BTW, for those not familiar with the BBC radio staions, R4 is speech and R1 is pop music for young people. That sounds dreadfully patronising, doesn't it? Perhaps I should explain, they have R1 for young people and R2 for people who aren't young, so that ancient 30-year olds like me can listen to pop without our heads hurting. Of course, there's a certain amount of Jazz and Big Band music in the R2 Schedules as well, but that can be fun too.
It is a rite of passage in the UK when one grim day you wake up and don't like R1 anymore, and subsequently begin to mutter "dreadful noise, when I was a kid we had proper musicians like Duran Duran". Oh, except you can continue to listen to John Peel as long as you like.*
R3 is classical, R5 is rolling news and sport.
World Service is a mixture of new programming and "best of" to make one channel for world-wide broadcast. Consequentially it is a popular choice at home as well.
*I thought that CowCube session last week was excellent; why has this guy got a hotmail account instead of a record contract?
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
although i am a gpl enthousiast i am also a coompression enthousiast. In that respect realaudio and wma DEFINATELY outperform ogg in ultra low bandwidth circumstances for me (0-64kbps) in their latest incarnations. You cannot honestly say OGG blows them out of the water at those bitrates. A choice between quality and principle for me. What would you choose?
although I only get to watch it late at night on BBC1. Much less annoying than CNN (I used to have cable).
Hands up who has more than 1GB of mp3s? How about 5GB? 10GB? 20GB? 50GB?
.ogg format).
.ogg and once in .mp3. All for a little bit more quality? I can tell a 192Kbps from a CD, but damn - it's more than good enough to listen to on the whole.
.ogg taking off the way mp3 has. Nearly everyone has heard of mp3s, in the newspapers, on TV, they know what Napster is, they know how to create and share mp3s.
.ogg is worthwhile - you have just started building your collection of music files from your CD collection, don't have an mp3 player, and have lots of time on your hands. For the average person though, I'd be amazed if they ever hear of .ogg, let alone switch their whole collections over.
I'll bet a lot of you have huge collections of mp3s, and at the least a few gigabytes. Now just think about how long it'd take to rip all your cds again, download the downloaded tracks again (if you can even find them in
Think of the portable, car or hifi mp3 players you invested in that can't play the files, which will mean you'll need to keep every track on your hard drive twice, once in
I can't really see
The inertia behidn MP3 is too big to bring a total change in formats for most people for I'd say around 3-5 years. DVDs have been around for a while now, and STILL most people have a video player, huge amounts of videos are still sold and rented. Probably an unfair comparison - cheap DVD recorders aren't around - but you get the point.
Maybe for some
I think you underestimate the importance of a lack of adverts. The BBC show no adverts. The average American watches 44000 pieces of carefully crafted pieces of corporate propoganda every year, each 30 seconds long. These encourage them to eat more fast food, drive more, consume more, go into debt, and vote for the politicians who are most friendly to corporate interests (the candidate with the most corporate sponsorship can afford the most adverts).
If you watch US television for long, you will start to understand the obesity levels. Sandwitched between 10 minutes worth inane rubbish featuring potentially beautiful but dangerously starved people, you be subjected to 5 minutes of carefully crafted inviting you to go further into debt, then pig out on sugered drinks and ultra high fat junk.
Paying a paltry £100 a year to make a dent in the level of brainwashing we are subjected to is peanuts. The cost is justified by the decreased load on the NHS alone.
Of course, a better solution is to avoid TV altogether. If you must watch TV, at least buy a mirror to put up above the screen. That way you can look up from time to time and compare the excitement on the screen with the futile existence of the vegtable on the couch.
Why would anyone want to go outside, meet people or do things ? Instead, you can watch others have fake adventures or get your opinions and desires programmed in rather than going to all the trouble of figuring them out for yourself. You can achieve a state of lower consciousness - it helps pass the time while you wait for death.
For those too weak to avoid TV altogether (like me), advert free TV is the low-fat/filter-tipped option.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/