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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.
It seems to me that the best way to support Free codecs would be to throw support at an existing project such as Ogg Theora. Does anyone know why they're not throwing support behind it?
It can be used for passing video round home networks, rights-managed peer-to-peer file sharing, or playing media in handheld devices, as well as for web streaming.
And this is why it will be fought against on the political front. How much you want to bet that the feds will want to require some sort of keying/user tracing mechanism in order for this "free" technology to be made publically available? Big media will argue that in order for the government to protect copyright, they shouldn't allow technology that can subert other's copyrights.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Sure, it has its problems, but I'd trust the BBC over any politician, especially ones who make threatening noises about its charter every time it does its job by being independent and embarrassing the government of the day...
You must think in Russian.
And this is why it will be fought against on the political front. How much you want to bet that the feds will want to require some sort of keying/user tracing mechanism in order for this "free" technology to be made publically available?
Let the feds scream like stuck pigs.
Now that the Bush administration has completely gutted our diplomatic clout to such a degree we can't even rally people against emerging nuclear threats (remember the boy who cried wolf?), no one but no one is willing to blindly go along with the United States.
Britain is the last staunch ally we have, and at this point we need them more than they need us. If Hollywood's lackeys in Washington try to push London around on this one I suspect they will be in for a very nasty surprise.
Cheney/Bush: "Ban this subversive technology or we'll have to impose tarrifs on many British goods."
UK Prime Minister: "It would be a shame if the US felt it necessary to impose trade tarrifs on the UK. That would depress our economy enough that we could no longer afford the fiscal expenditure to maintain our presence in your latest cockup, that is to say, Iraq. It might well call Afghanistan into question as well."
Cheney/Bush: ??? Who knows if they would be stupid enough to do so anyway, and lose both wars before the year is out, or if they would cave and crawl back into their backrooms for some more Haliburtan deals. Either way the US will have lost even more political and diplomatic clout (which at one time had been our greater asset, far outweighing our military strength), and the BBC's free codec will continue to be developed and deployed, unabated.
And, lest Kerry think he could pull a similiar stunt (remember, as destructive as Bush/Cheney have been on every other front, they are equaled by the Democrats on this particular topic: selling the interests of the people out to Hollywood), he would face exactly the same reaction, and results.
So, I think the BBC is reasonably safe from the depredations of Washington, whether Hollywood and Redmond like it or not.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What's wrong with those products BBC?
"...a bit more depth about the goals and motivations of the developers."
Freedom of information is not about paying or not paying for commercial content. Freedom of information is about politics, human rights, rulership and ideology manipulation. BBC is on the side of freedom for some time, and currently under heavy pressure from the conservatives.
Letting free codec technology to public now may help in some near future, when independent journalists will be hunted to underground or illegality.
There you are, staring at me again.
I think the future of TV will involve less and less advertising and licensing fees. Instead, big content producers like the BBC will sell their archives on a pay-per-view basis. Yes, I know they are planning to offer them for free, but if they have any sense they'll bag the license fees and attach a small, reasonable price to each download.
Everyone agrees that the BBC makes great shows, so why shouldn't we cough up a quid or two when we download from their archives? This alone would let them finance future programming in spades, and a direct link between consumption and payment is a much better business model than wooly license fees linked to TV ownership.
Peer Pressure
This could be a perfect solution for conferences such as HAL 2001. I remember there was a need for sponsorship by a professional television broadcaster to provide licenses for realtime streaming of conference speakers back then.
A good alternative to Real and Media encoder that is free is definitely wanted in these areas.
Offtopic: I wonder why the DV's of this conference are still not encoded...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Channel 5 is entirely pointless and should never have been launched on analog.
despite it's poor start it is becomming a half decent channel it is already well above ITV in quality especially there documentry's, 5 is showing real potentiall. It is a worthwhile channel now perhaps they should scrap ITV and make 5 the new 3.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
Right, so the BBC have the resources to _develop_ a whole new codec, but not to set up Ogg Vorbis streaming of their radio programming, alongside the existing RealAudio streams?
The BBC, IMNSHO (as a licence payer), should be champions of open communications, and this extends to the openness of their distribution formats. I wish they'd stop wasting resources from crappy little mini-sites with gossip and games relating to soap operas.
Rik
The license for that software contains a rather - err - interesting clause, where the user grants back to all other users a license to any patents the user owns. This is a rather insidious and sneaky tactic, and I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of people decided not to use the software on the basis that it might weaken their IP portfolio.
Anyone who appreciates this work by the BBC, take note:
The BBC is currently under assault from the government, and from the other media companies (notably, News Corp AKA Rupert Murdoch). Its charter is up for renewal, and the government is packing the committee with businessmen who are qualified only to dismantle large part of the Beeb... they have no history or qualification in broadcasting and certainly none in public service broadcasting. On top of that, large parts of the BBC internet activity is going to be axed (thanks to more government appointed hatchet men) and the BBC technology division is being hawked off to Siemens -- which will almost certainly kill off any O/S or non-Microsoft oriented projects in the pipeline.
In short, it looks pretty fucking bleak for any BBC role other than meek and mild broadcaster.
Here in the US, the Comedy Channel is now widely considered to have the best news and political reporting. The Daily Show can be especially good at times (and just silly at other times, but any Monty Python fans will appreciate that).
It's too bad that ComedyChannel.com sends out such bizarre, often-broken HTML. They have some good clips there, but pretty much everyone I know who has looked at it complains about how confusing and, well, "broken" it is.
The fact that they seem to send only Real and Windows media formats might be part of their problem. But there are a number of blogs that link to their clips, and those usually work pretty well. So if we had a good way of extracting the bare URLs from the javascript, we could all see them online, and the whole world would understand US politics.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Infact Mr. Howard was only following a very old politicl advice "Say what you want to Bernard,and dont pay any attention to the question".
Wanted : A Signature.