Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Open Source... Television?

Posted by michael on from the someone-tell-him-about-mbone dept.

jarit0z writes: "In Robert Cringely's latest column he toys with the idea of creating a TV show to go along with his rants. The show would be freely (as in beer) distributable, to hopefully keep bandwidth costs down. And it would also be freely (as in speech) modifiable, since he would also be releasing the "source" or raw footage of the show. Very interesting ideas if you ask me."

3 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Re:pbs by foobar104 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't believe it works exactly like that. The stuff that ends up going out over the various PBS stations is finished programming. Somebody had to produce that programming. I live in Dallas, and the local PBS station, KERA, has been doing a lot of production lately, shooting and finishing various shows.

    When a production company or station makes a program, they turn over only the finished piece to the distributor or broadcaster. The production company or station keeps ownership of and rights to the stuff that went into making the program. Sometimes there are agreements between the distributor and the production company, like the production company promising not to turn around and use the same footage to make a different cut of the same program and sell it to somebody else for instance.

    So what PBS gets is actually just the finished programs, not the raw footage or anything like that. It's not theirs to release.

  2. 'Open Source' television already exists by banuaba · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's called the local access channel. And it's full of right wing conspiracy junkies and left wing bean eaters making shows with a handicam. No editing, so the 'source' is released, and many of them encourage you to copy the show all you want.

    --


    Brant

    Argle. Bargle.
  3. Re:Start with by NeMon'ess · · Score: 4, Informative
    If you read the article you'd know it isn't just a webcast. What's open about it is that not only could anyone download any or all of four differnt "cuts" of the same program, they would then be encouraged to share those programs. The biggest problem with webcasting vs. broadcasting is that it costs nothing to reach more people when broadcasting. As long as the viewer is within the radius of the broadcast signal, they get it. Webcasting costs money for every additional stream. By making this "Open", the idea is for everyone to share the files in an organized manner so they are easy to find and the bandwidth burden is spread out. The four different streams would be the Uncut version for geeks wanting to watch every little thing. Then there would be an edited cut for geeks wanting to get the most information and geeky tidbits. A made-for-business cut would be shorter and condense topics down for those with less time, more like TV news instead of the newspaper. Lastly, a Headline News type cut would just cover the basic facts, keeping people up to date on stories.