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BBC Discusses PVR Software, Creative Archive Plans
Fidigit writes "You may have heard something about the BBC Internet Media Player {iMP) - a computer-based PVR for the BBC's TV and radio content, 'only... available to UK broadband users', which'll use P2P to shuttle content around between downloaders. Now we hear the iMP content will distributed using DRM, using Microsoft's DRM technology, 'in a break with the BBC's long-standing support of Real.'" The previously mentioned BBC Creative Archive is also discussed - apparently its content "...will be downloaded using a similar application, but will not be restricted by DRM, enabling people to re-edit it, or use it to make other programmes" - the content "will not be the complete BBC archive", but an example given of the initial content is "nature programmes".
No, the BBC doesn't need to keep a lot of its content secure because it has all been paid for by the license fee. In fact, the BBC is pretty much obliged to distribute its stuff as far as possible - we own it already!
Most of the people at work (non IT - all over 34yrs) look at me funny when I mention I listen to music on my PC - even though its ripped from CD's i purchased years ago. The notion that I have "MP3's" makes me look suspect (sheez - imagine if I had ripped everything to OGG !).
Downloadable Nature shows - now that's a Good Thing - Once the average person understands that "you are not a pirate if you download music/videos", then its a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
So they use P2P so that I can send part of the contents to people with MY bandwidth (baid by me on a monthly basis), but comes with Digital Restrictions Management so that I cannot actually use it as I want?
Yeah right, that'll happen.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
so you pay the TV licence then even though you don't have a TV?
Since it is a public service, it really should become much more open.
Embracing open source seems an obvious first step.
However after talking to the head of IT at BBC Manchester, I discovered that most of the techs are very much for open source solutions, but are restricted due to internal politics.
Essentially, the governors that control the BBC tend to nix any moves to open the BBC - and that filters down to BBCi (bbc online services).
This is very very good news - lets hope that DRM is used to only allow TV License owners to experience the content thus causing we few people who do not need a TV License constantly receiving threatening letters.
ugh.
Yes things were always better back in the good 'ole days.
I agree the signal to noise ratio is lower (?higher?) but the BBCs making just as much good stuff as it used to. You forget that though the BBC has made many GREAT shows over the years they've always been surrounded by whatever commercial crap is cheap to make and pulls in the viewers.
get some perspective please.
This distribution of programmes is part of the BBC's public service agreement as all BBC content is supposed to be free, as in no money required and as in to be used by other people.
You over simplify; the BBC archive os beset by complex ownership issues; especially the older stuff. In many cases, the actors, writers, directors have rights involving repeat showing fees etc. Much kudos to the BBC to attempt to find a way through these problems. ... Yes the new contracts have this sorted out.
I'm a bit jealous because it won't be available outside UK (well, I understand the legal mess it would be, but BBC is a real reference outside UK, and I'd be glad to watch legally some of their programs).
The good point is, at last, somebody big understood what P2P could bring technically. As they are close friends with Real and its network, it means a lot for the future if this experiment works fine.
The really bad point is this MsDRM. It means no standard and even no cross-platform; it means no freedom for the player (I don't really appreciate WMPlayer and usually watch wm file using VLC which brings me many more functions I like).
When will big company understand that opening their offer to as many customers/users as possible is a good thing? If you've got a shop, you try to make it accessible to anybody, with or without a car, with or without disabilities; you try to be opened as much as you can!
Why the technical options are not the same (and it's so easier with the Internet and the standards than with real world places)?
Why consider all the Internet users/customers as thiefs? Imagine a shop where you are systematically checked walking out, will you come back?
Why can a UK citizen rip/mix/burn as much BBC programs as he want from his TV plug but not from his IP plug?
I hope they will change their mind with the time (for example after the experiment!) but I know they have also to face the rights owners (producers, agencies) who are certainly a bit less interested in what final users experience
ClaudeBBG
Yeah, because quality programmes such as Dead Ringers, Little Britain and Nighty Night, all three of which are new shows that the BBC has come up with in the last couple of years are just figments of my imagination.
At least two of those three debuted on BBC3, one of those new digital channels, and it's hard to imagine that all three would have been made if the BBC still had only two channels.
So that's three great new shows and those only touch one genre (comedy). I think perhaps you're writing off the BBC's ability to foster and develop talent a little too quickly.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
...meaning the 14 DVD's of The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus. If we're lucky, all future incarnations of DRM will either flop in the marketplace, or become the joke that is now CSS...
Both Dead Ringers and Little Britain started out on Radio 4, not TV. The main problem with the Dead Ringers transition was that the impressionists look absolutely nothing like the actual people - after all, it doesn't matter on radio.
Radio 4 seems to be a last bastion of quality on the BBC.
I always wonder how governments can complain about monopoly and unfair advantage on one hand, and then purchase from these "monopolies" on the other. Isn't that what's going on here?
Take U.S. v Microsoft. The United States government is a huge customer. If they decide to place a bunch of PC's on the desks of their departments, and all those PC's run Windows, that more than anything helps foster Microsoft's continued dominance. Why don't they standardize all documents in XML, or plaintext. No! See how many times you're asked to submit something in Word format.
Goverments could just as easily begin converting to open source, or begin a Linux initiative; they could require a certain number of computers be Macintosh; or they could choose to buy something other than the Microsoft Office suite. Now, the British government is going to switch to MS, dumping Real. All these actions encourage the same company they complain about.
Am I the only one who sees conflict and hypocrisy?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
In the UK it is illegal to make MP3s from your own CDs. The copyright exceptions for "fair dealing" don't cover nearly as much as the US's "fair use".
Any one else noticed that the quality of productions on the BBC has fallen off drastically the last couple of years?
No, not really. Memory has the effect of compressing things from the past together (like how you only remember all the good songs from the last decade, and not all the crap), so it probably just seems that way.
The TV license provides a broadcaster that is not dependant on advertising for revenue. In theory it can broadcast programmes that are not popular with advertisers. It doesn't always work, but when it does it works very well.
So that means it just needs to be installed - even if the TV was never plugged in - you would need to pay for a licence
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Although there's been a lot of announcements recently about the BBC's Creative Archive, I can't really see it being launched for at least a couple of years.
One of the major issues with distributing BBC aired programmes, via the Internet, is rights management. A lot of BBC produced programmes use material that is not actually owned by the BBC. It may have been commissioned from independant produces who retain some rights over it, or even purchased from other broadcasters. For example, the BBC archive has no World War II footage. That's because the BBC didn't start broadcasting until the 1950's. So every time you see a documentary on the BBC that has original WWII footage incorporated, that material has been purchased from a 3rd party (say Pathe for example). So clearing all material from all BBC shows is going to be a total headache! This may be in part why only a portion of the archive, and not the whole thing, is going to be initially available online.
The other issue is of course digitising all that content. It's a big ask and not going to happen overnight. The whole process of getting the tapes from the Windmill Road archive, selecting the content that you want to use, encoding that content (let's hope for MPEG4 but most likely to be MPEG2. Although Creative Archive doesn't have to be broadcast quality for personal use, only VHS quality, they'd be crazy not to encode at a higher quality so that content could be re-used in a digital format for other projects), cataloguing that content with all relevant keywords and metadata and then publishing the content. As for storage we're talking several (tens) terabytes at least.
I think building the website itself if going to be the easy bit!
Creative Archive is a project I'd love to work on as I think it's going to be quite exciting, but the shear scale is also quite enormous.
Brought to you by the author of such childrens' classics as "Some Kittens can Fly!" and "All Dogs go to Hell."
What a cretinous line of reasoning.
So - without the BBC we would all be free to "choose" to watch all of the wonderful American crap on Sky, the lowest common denominator pop-idol crap on ITV or the absolutely top-notch house-buying and top tens content that they have on Channel 4. And then there's the radio, with no more Radio 4 we would all be free to choose to listen to Virgin, Capital Gold and News Talk - all complete and utter shite.
What a wonderful vision of British broadcasting the way it could be!
That was classic intercourse!
Although I'm not sure on the precise details, but I think the TV license is illegal under European law..
Why would you think that?
The BBC's charter is up for renewal in 2006, and they've been hit hard by the Hutton report (those who say that will have no bearing on the charter renewal, yeah right!).
Blair knows full well not to mess with the BBCs charter. As was proven by Hutton & the Iraq war, more people trust the BBC than MPs. Messing with the BBC is a good way to ensure you loose your majority.
Not only that but the cripling the BBC would be a shot in the foot for any political party; todays current ruling party are tommorows opposition, and I don't think Blair is foolish enough to forget that the BBC can be a useful ally when you're in opposition.
Maybe there should be an open DRM, an alternative to the obvious MS lock-in version?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
To step in here
Copyright violations are not theft because they do not deprive the owner of the work they have created.
In your mechanic example you have deprived the mechanic of his time without compensation. He does not have the time he spent back, nor can he sell his time again.
Your electricty argument is getting a little absurd. I would argue the fact that anybody who designed a building to have an eletric outlet open on the sidewalk is a dumbass, anybody who charges $20 for the juice to charge a cell phone is a jackass, and anybody who pays it is a moron.
Further more you are assuming that even solar generated electricity is not a scarce resource when it is. But for your argument for some reason the city may have needed the amount of electricity being generated by the solar array to preform some necessary function and you have deprived them of that (say electricuting the guy that designed the building.)
The fact that a song generated in digital format and shared via P2P is never a scarce resource. My downloading media never deprives any else of anything.