BBC to Put Entire Radio & TV Archive Online

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC is to to put it's entire radio and television archive online, free for everyone, as the BBC Creative Archive." The article is a little thin on how far back these archives go, but regardless, this is a gigantic amount of data, and to see it go online, and open to the public is very cool.

Comments

Re:BBC currently uses realmedia

[garcia]

considering that he mentions that because of the availability of broadband as being one of the methods that allows this to happen, I doubt that they will continue to cater to the 56k realmedia format.

How far back the archives go

[Beniamino]

[History of the BBC]

The BBC was founded in 1922. They broadcast radio only until 1936 when they started their first TV channel. A lot of cool stuff.

Hitchhiker's guide!?

[JordanH]

If this includes the original Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy Radio shows from the early 80's this would be GREAT!

Everybody I know who heard those broadcasts agrees that it was the best HHGTG of all. I don't believe they've ever been released exactly as originally broadcast. Transcripts are available of those shows, but these miss the subtle music and audio effects that made the show really wonderful. I know I was disappointed with some audio tapes I purchased years later.

I've never been interested in ripping off Douglas Adams, or his family, by downloading mp3s that purport to be copies of the original show.

Re:Hitchhiker's guide!?

[gidds]

I don't believe they've ever been released exactly as originally broadcast.

[fx: glances over at CD box sets of the two series, (c) BBC Worldwide 1996]

Er... excuse me?

Well, technically, you're right; I believe that there were some very minor changes; especially to the last couple of episodes which were recorded and mixed in a terrible hurry. But they are substantially as broadcast, and certainly what the original producers intended.

And if these CDs really aren't available where you are (which I suspect they are), I expect that at least some of the MP3s out there are from them. (Not that I'm condoning that kind of thing, of course...)

Canadian Broadcast Corp. (CBC) archives online

[Lust]

CBC has archives back to 1938 online HERE. The radio broadcasts from the front line of WW II are really something.

Re:This would be great!

[Jon Chatow]

This is a diagram showing the BBC's overall network architecture.
This is a set of graphs of their current RealMedia throughput usage.
This is a set of graphs of their current overall Internet throughput.