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.

Comments

Darwin Streaming Server / QTSS

[Jeppe Utzon]

AFAIR, isn't that free of any streaming fees? If you install Darwin SS on Darwin (or use QTSS on OS X Server) and stream with MPEG4, is that a one-time fee (for the QT Pro license needed to encode = 30 USD) and then free for ever and ever. Or do you also have to pay a pr. stream fee on top of that too for the codec? I can't find anything on Apple's site about it.

http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/streami ng/
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qtss/

Re:Good old Auntie!

[REBloomfield]

Well, Hell's Kitchen was very funny. Where on the BBC do you get to see Gordon Ramsey tell Ednwina Curry that she f*cked the Prime Minister, and now she's f*cking him?

Out of context much?

[Okonomiyaki]

And Al Gore invented the internet, right?

Re:The Future of Television

[System.out.println()]

And so of course, they spend mod points to mod it...down. *doh*