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BBC Begins Open-Source Streaming Challenge
bus_stopper copies and pastes: "The BBC is quietly preparing a challenge to Microsoft and other companies jostling to reap revenues from video streams. It is developing code-decode (codec) software called Dirac in an open-source project aimed at providing a royalty-free way to distribute video. The sums at stake are potentially huge because the software industry insists on payment per viewer, per hour of encoded content. This contrasts with TV technology, for which viewers and broadcasters alike make a one-off royalties payment when they buy their equipment." We've mentioned this project before but this story goes into a bit more depth about the goals and motivations of the developers.
This contrasts with TV technology, for which viewers and broadcasters alike make a one-off royalties payment when they buy their equipment.
Again, there are other countries in the world where things don't happen that way. In most of the EC in fact...
For your information Michael, the Beeb is in the UK where your statement doesn't apply.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Nice comment! For 125 GBP you get...
8 channels of television
11 radio stations (not including local radio)
BBCi (http://www.bbc.co.uk) including live streams of all of the radio content and 'listen again' facilities
BBC research labs contributing to the open source community.
I would say that the license fee is a bit of a bargain!
John
I have paid for ten TV licenses in my life, and I have to admit that I am glad the the organisation that gets some of this money is developing something like this...
...although I have to admit, the BBC would have probably have been better off using my money to become the "offical" sponsors for an existing open source project such as Theora, rather than starting from scratch.
The link is the story is dead, I found the home page here, and the SourceForge site here.
Thanks,
Andrew McCall
http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/network/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/events03/uk_pol/ cons/leadership/nb_newsnightiv.ram
and its not open in some countries in the "free to use" sense. You collide with the various mpeg related patents
no KW required
BBC Dirac
The Dirac Project
Dirac is a general-purpose video codec aimed at resolutions from QCIF (180x144) to HDTV (1920x1080) progressive or interlaced. It uses wavelets, motion compensation and arithmetic coding and aims to be competitive with other state of the art codecs.
Theora is a conventional (block, motion, color transform, throw away bits, then ordinary compression) 2nd generation video codec, it is alive and well, and it reached bitstream freeze just a couple of months ago. Presumably beta and then final releases of the software & associated documentation will follow in good time.
Tarkin is the Ogg wavelet codec. You're correct that work on Tarkin has more or less stalled, but wavelet codecs are a legal quagmire today, in part because so many people have conflicting patents in this area and are just waiting for the chance to litigate. Are any of the images on your website JPEG2000 instead of regular JFIF? Thought not.
None of the above. Darwin SS is free (source and usage). To encode sometihng to it, you can use Quicktime Broadcaster, which is free (but not source), and only runs on a mac. You can of course encode with other solutions. The one of best ones on the market is Live Channel by Channel Storm, which runs about a grand as a one time price.
Mod point free since 2001
Dirac homepage and the Sourceforge pages
-- The Flying Hamster
ITV's shows are dire, as atested not only by critical failure (not winning many awards these days are you, ITV?) but also by poor audience figures. Some ITV regions are supported by the taxpayer indirectly, but it's true that the large part of programming and broadcasting is funded through the obnoxious advertising.
Channel 4 is partly government funded, and seeks grants for its, uh, unconventional programming from European projects which are themselves... government funded. Whether it means sending film crews to Italian beaches to film topless women, or showing 30 year old obscure Dutch movies about bicycling in 16:9 with subtitles, C4 reads the latest funding trends from Brussels and incorporates their needs into its schedule.
Channel 5 is entirely pointless and should never have been launched on analog. The government (the one you think shouldn't be interfering) forced them to add the movies and news bulletins which break up their otherwise relentless schedule of old material bought from other networks. In some cases the BBC (which you don't like) paid for this material (which you apparently DO like) to be made more than 20 years ago. Didn't you notice how the average C5 program seems kinda... retro?
In general I'm not in favour of government interference, but it's the reality we face. The technology for everyone and their dog to try to run a TV station doesn't exist yet, and might not for another decade. In the absence of that situation the invisible hand of market forces cannot operate properly, so the government inevitably must REGULATE broadcasting activity or we'll experience the spiral of reduced expectations. Once the government actively regulates the activity you're going to pay those taxes, and you might as well get something useful out of it. I think the BBC is fairly good value for money, and would support direct taxation rather than the "license fee" to support it until better means are available, despite the fact that this would inevitably mean that I personally wind up paying more for the same service.
It annoys me that I have to pay even if i own a set, regardless of what i watch, even if I only use if to play my XBox.
If you do indeed only use your TV in the UK to play DVDS or consoles, you can apply to be EXEMPT from a TV license as I did for 3 years. When you get the letter advising you have not got an up to date Television license, simply call the number on the bottom of the form, and advise them that you use your TV for console and DVD use and they will add you to the exemption list.
Of course when they show up at your door or sit outside and see if your TV tuner is actively tuned to broadcasted television channels instead of playing the XBOX or watching DVDs then you can expect to get heavily fined and rightfully so.
So if it bothers you that much about paying £125 for quite easily the best broadcaster in the world, I'm sure you will find my advice useful.
Our public TV has some good stuff (and some HD too), but it gets minimal federal funding and has to beg for donations all the time. (AFAIK, the congress mandated push to HD is reaming their budgets too, they won't survive this decade)
The pay options are ok, but still ad driven and you can end up with a $100+ a month TV bill if you get any "top tier" stuff.As for me, basic cable is bundled in my rent, so there's little choice in it.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
What a spanner.
The reason he asked the same question 14 times was that he wanted a straight answer and the politician concerned (as usual for all politicians) wouldn't give one.