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BBC Begins Open-Source Streaming Challenge

Posted by michael on from the fear-factor dept.

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.

9 of 373 comments (clear)

  1. Good old Auntie! by jdtanner · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It just proves that you get a hell of a lot for your 125 GBP license fee!

    John

    1. Re:Good old Auntie! by skaffen42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      8 channels of television

      Even better, you can usually find something worth watching on those 8 channels. Since I moved to the US I have 20 times as many channels, and the best thing on is still British comedy reruns on public access TV.

      --
      People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
    2. Re:Good old Auntie! by Shisha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the other hand, it could be argued, that many people benefit enormously from the BBC, despite not paying the TV license. Me, for one, I don't have a telly and so I don't pay, despite listening to BBC radio, reading the website etc.

      My point is that by developing this code, _eventually_ and _slowly_ less and less people are going to have a television in the house and hence less and less people will pay the license.

      Which means that the UK government will have to figure out how to finance the BBC. I would hate to see them deciding to sell it. It would be really unfortunate if this project marked the beginning of the end of BBC as we know it.

    3. Re:Good old Auntie! by Hungry+Student · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have to utterly disagree with you. After getting used to satelite TV ad breaks, moving back to BBC leaves me barely enough time to get a drink and get back to the tv, and I live in a modest sized flat. I think the BBC is fantastic, and if you've seent he volume of ads on American TV, you'll thank the BBC and the ITC for keeping the UK tv in check.

    4. Re:Good old Auntie! by Omni-Cognate · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It looks like the BBCs intention is absolutely not to compete with the likes of Real. All they are saying is that the license fees for the existing codecs do not scale, and that it will be cheaper from them to write their own. There is nothing in the BBC's remit that requires them to spend the license-payer's money on overpriced software they can more cheaply write themselves.

      While it is true that dirac may reduce the amount that Real, etc, can make from their codecs, once again there is nothing in the BBC's charter which requires it to prop up commercial software markets at the license-payer's expense.

      The BBC is not selling dirac. It is simply a tool they feel they need to do their job. However, they are releasing it under an open-source license. You may feel that this is anti-competitive as it undercuts Real, but Real et al are not the BBC's competitors. ITV, C4, etc are the BBC's competitors (though in an ideal world, the BBC is supposed to be about pulic service, not competition). By making the codec open-source, the BBC is freeing these other stations from the requirement to pay Real and its ilk. It is freely giving the products of its work to its most direct competitors, along with everyone else. This seems to be a very fair and competition-friendly way of going about things.

      As for public service, a primary use for this new technology is to provide a huge, free, online repository of BBC content. This is an extraordinary project, entirely in the service of the public, which would be absolutely impossible for a commercial broadcaster to attempt. Whatever else people may have to say about the BBC's scorecard in living up to its remit (and I certainly think it's gone too far on a number of occasions) this is an absolute bullseye.

      --

      "The Milliard Gargantubrain? A mere abacus - mention it not."

  2. Go BBC! by tdvaughan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Another reason why I'm glad to be a UK citizen - every time I start to wonder if it's really worth having a 'public service' broadcaster the BBC goes and does something like this. I'm hoping they'll be able to make a stand when someone tries HDTV regulations over here.

  3. Re:Ogg Theora by Gilesx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Perhaps because they are attempting to develop a broadcast standard codec from the ground up, which I would speculate would require different goals and optimisations to the Ogg Theora project.

    --
    Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
  4. Re:Ogg Theora by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Maybe because the trouble of making certain that no patented technology found its way into an existing project could easily become greater than the value of using that existing project.

    The started with a clean slate with much attention paid to keeping the IP clean. I think this was necessary, any excuse for MS or Real or whoever to shut down or slow down the project should be avoided.

  5. Do it quickly before Blair kills it by NigelJohnstone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's a green paper due on the BBC later in the year. A pre-report has already been critical of the BBC's online activities, suggesting it does too much itself.

    From an investigation in August 2003:
    http://www.culture.gov.uk/global/publicatio ns/arch ive_2004/BBC_Online_Review.htm

    You can bet MS (or Microsoft lobbyists the BSA) will try damn hard to kill this project.

    I wish the BBC would stop dragging its feet and do it, start releasing the archive now with their codec, before the politicians kill.