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

BBC currently uses realmedia

[Neophytus]

All of the programmes currently avaliable are in streaming realmedia, catered to the 56k audiance. I could see this initiative falling flat on it's face unless a burnable, portable and high quality format is used.

Re:BBC currently uses realmedia

[Joe Tie.]

Real media is a sick, sick dog that people just aren't willing to put to sleep.

I'm very glad real is still around. The situation might change when Theora has an offcial release, but for the moment the only viable codecs/formats for low bitrate encodes come from Real and Microsoft. And while Real's support for non windows machines isn't perfect, it's far better than Microsoft's. Admitingly real's player is pretty bad, but most techy people are just going to be using real's codecs with another player anyway.

This would be great!

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be a great use for Bittorrent. It would be expensive for BBC to distrubite these; with Bittorrent, it would keep the costs down, and present a non-piracy method to the public.

Re:This would be great!

[AntiOrganic]

As a bonus, it would legitimize BitTorrent in the public eye, which is, unfortunately, regarded commonly by industry lobbyists in the same piracy context as Kazaa. While Red Hat uses BitTorrent to distribute ISOs, what legislator cares about Red Hat? Besides, everyone knows ISOs are pirated software. The BBC is much more influential.

Meanwhile, in the good old USA . . .

[acceleriter]

. . . taxpayer and contributor supported NPR only makes audio available in proprietary, streaming formats. Perhaps if they want to lock up their content, they should stop taking taxpayer money and donations, hmm?

P.S.: Those things that sound like commercials in the NPR broadcast can't be commercials, because public radio doesn't have commercials by definition. They must be "sponsorship acknowledgements."

Re:Will this actually include *entertainment*?

[Scarblac]

Well, since they have the copyrights over loads of stuff, and they are a public organization, not a company, I think they'll just have to shut up. They're simply serving the public like they're supposed to :-)

I think I speak for all of us when I say

[Lord Kholdan]

Please let it be divx instead of realmedia or other crap!

The BBC is paid for by British taxes...

[gmcraff]

... And I, not being a British subject, would still be willing to pay a lesser "TV tax" subscription for the access to a near-TV quality, downloadable archive in a portable format.

Let's be fair: the cost of these fine productions (and let's not get into the nit-picks about cardboard sets and cheesy sci-fi aliens) has already been borne by the TV-tax paying British public. They got to see ad-free television produced by people who were willing to take artistic risks because the they weren't subject to the tyranny of the marketing department.

If this is your style, I suspect you'd like to support them in producing more of the like. I like the sci-fi and the some of the comedy the BBC produces. If I could have access to new productions, even if it was a year or so after the first run in England, I'd would be willing to pay for it.

I think this archive of older radio and TV is a fantastic idea, even if it's not in a portable format right now. Fair enough: if you getting it for free, you can't complain how you're getting it. If the BBC would like an extra revenue stream, earmarked to support risk-taking entertainment that might not be universally popular, but still take direct feedback from the public, rather than markerters, I'll find a way to convert a few US dollars to pounds sterling to support it.

So, a question for anyone who wants to take it on: What would be a good business model for the BBC to take, understanding that their mandate is to produce entertainment for the British public, to enable foreigners to have access, provide support and feedback without jeopardizing that mandate?

Re:Remember who's paying for this!

[danila]

Believe me, we (people outside UK) do and we are really grateful to people like you (no kidding). Tuning to BBC World is literally like a stream of fresh air in almost all countries. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism for us to support BBC, except to occasionally buy some DVDs, but Britain gets our most sincere gratitude.

On an unrelated note, Global Business just started airing (and webcasting) the first episode of the 3-series programme about Russian business that I helped to make. :)

Re:What and when?

[mickwd]

"recently BBC changed even its teletext format to prevent users who receive spill-over broadcast (like myself in Belgium) to fully access teletext information; I have my doubts on their willingness to make something available for free outside of Little England"

Rather a snide remark from some-one who used to get something for free that people in "Little England" have to pay for.

You still get all their web content for free, don't you ?