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

Good old Auntie!

[jdtanner]

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

John

Re:Good old Auntie!

[jdtanner]

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

Re:Good old Auntie!

[skaffen42]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[REBloomfield]

Actually, you get two channels, without being digital. You don't need a license for the radio, nor the rest. So I'm coughing up £125 for the priviledge of *owning* a telly. Despite the fact I can get at least three other channels that I don't have to pay for. I'd rather see my money go into a system whereby BBC1 & 2 can be blocked to non-license payers.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Shisha]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[jdtanner]

True, but you'll have to be digital in a few years! Also, your 125 GBP funds the radio even though you don't need a license to listen to it...exactly the same with BBCi! The only radio station that isn't funded by the license fee is the world service (but that wasn't intended for UK residents anyway).

Just bite the bullet and get a digibox (they are only 30 GBP or so)! :-)

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Tet]

For 125 GBP you get... 8 channels of television

I think you mean "2 channels of television". Although the others are made by the BBC, IIRC their funding doesn't come from the license fee.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[jdtanner]

I think they are funded by the license fee...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/

and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/report2004/text/financ ia l_statements_review.html

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Anonymous Coward]

the others are funded by the license, but don't require you to pay the fee to receive them. there used to be a radio license, but a long time ago.

The BBC does have other sources of income to supplement the fee, but that isn't directly used for radio only or anything, and is dwarfed by the fee.

World Service Radio is funded by the Foreign Office, however, but uses BBC resources. That's why, of all the BBC, it's the bit that is scandalously being decimated.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[REBloomfield]

I don't want more channels, I'd buy sky if I did! I want the TV License rules changed!

Re:Good old Auntie!

[ray-auch]

like a lot of people, I would if it would do any good.

10 miles from the centre of major city (leeds) and can't even get C5 let alone freeview. They won't even give a date for possibly upgrading the transmitter (presumably they will do it before they switch off analogue, but maybe not, who knows...)

Re:Good old Auntie!

[kraut]

£125/year for watching decent shows and listening to very good radio (radio4, of course, I'm showing my age) withoutbloody adverts seems a good deal to me.

Giving people the ability to opt out would be theoretically nice, but is practically not feasible.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[REBloomfield]

Except they have just as many sodding adverts as the other channels. Yeah, you don't get 10 seconds of "This show sponsored by Creamsicles", but who cares about that? They're much less annoying than the tripe that gets served up every ten minutes just after you've sat down with you're cup of tea....

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Hungry Student]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[goatan]

The same bl**dy way the other channels manage. ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5? None of my Licence Fee goes to them, and IMHO, most of the shows are better...

What by reducing the quality and cost of the content and plastering adverts all over the place. The licence fee is the only way i can garuntee that there will be one programme a night that is high quality and watchable not rubbish like big brother. ITV, 4 and 5 put less watchable TV than BBC 1 does on it's own, add in the others you have a bargain. Much better than cable or satelitte where you pay a fee and get low quality TV with adverts. I would be intrested in what shows you consider better on ITV as it has been turned it hollow empty shadow of it's self, the best ITV programme is Bad lads army and that's very light entertainment.

By the way only humble opinion is an unexpressed one.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Omni-Cognate]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whine whine fucking whine. Go ahead and buy Sky; I've had it for years. Want to know a little secret? The vast (99%) majority of stuff on Sky are crap, or repeats of crap. BBC1-4 all have at least something worth watching on them. Stop trying to drag a perfectly good set of TV channels down to your troglodite level.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[tialaramex]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Midnight Thunder]

Despite the fact I can get at least three other channels that I don't have to pay for.

You don't have to pay for it, but they make their money through another revenue stream called advertising. Adverts on European channels are okay at the moment. What I don't like is the North American layout, where you get about 2 minutes of adverts for every 10 minutes of program. Sometimes it feels like the gap is less. Not only that, when they show a film they select the climax points for inserting the adverts - enough to drive anyone crazy. Are you surprised the concentration span is apparently so short in North America (see here)?

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Nurgled]

What are you talking about? There are no adverts at all on the BBC. Sure, they have trailers advertising other shows but these are always between programmes, not during them. Unless you're planning to just veg out in front of the TV and consume, you'll probably never see these trailers because you'll turn on the TV to watch whatever you wanted to watch and turn it off again at the end.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[REBloomfield]

erm, what about all those little sketches with soap powder and breakfast cereals? Did you think they were programs too? Bless...

Re:Good old Auntie!

[fyonn]

So I'm coughing up £125 for the priviledge of *owning* a telly

well, to be fair, you're paying for thr priviledge of receiving broadcast TV. you don't need a licence just to own a tv if you only use it for video's, dvd's, consoles and the like (ie no broadcast tv at all).

not that it should make you feel any better mind you :)

actually, what I dislike about people like sky tv is that they charge you the earth for alot less service (or so it seems). sky seems to spend it's time just buying shows from other people, while the bbc does that, it also makes shows itself, some of very high quality (some pretty crap admittedly).

sky just seems to be a huge rip off to me, how can they charge you a huge monthly fee for the posrts channel and then have the cheek to ask you to pay even moe to see some boxing match, and then not allow you to record it!

and then carpet bomb it with more and more adverts. ads, or subscription. pick one dammit. that just really pisses me off and I just won't sign up to it. but I suppose I don't watch a huge amount of telly now. I've got freeview (and a tivo*) and thats mostly enough for me.

dave

* please, give us a new UK tivo! I want a high quality dvdv/dvda/sacd player/dvdrw/tivo with huge HD, ethernet, multiple tuners etc. I'll pay a good fee for that

Re:Good old Auntie!

[goatan]

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?

Ok sounds a good one shame i missed that but hurray for repeats. However where on the other channels do you get jeremy Paxman telling....... well ok suggesting to a senior cabinet member that he's fucked the country. Also Apart from channel 4 the Beeb was the only ones who initialy dared question the prime minister's reson's for the Iraq war.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[goatan]

erm, what about all those little sketches with soap powder and breakfast cereals? Did you think they were programs too? Bless...

You are talking about the BBC right? the one that is not allowed to have little sketches with soap powder and breakfast cereals i.e. adverts as there supposed to be impartial.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[FireFury03]

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.

The only stuff in the UK worth watching these days are the British comedy reruns...

Re:Good old Auntie!

[goatan]

Agreed with everything you say except

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[null-loop]

Seriously, are you watching the same channel as the rest of us? Unless it's an advert clip-show that crops up sometimes, the only adverts on the BBC are for the corporations own content.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[SillyNickName4me]

> The same bl**dy way the other channels manage. ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5? None of my Licence Fee goes to them, and IMHO, most of the shows are better...

If the shows are better or not is debatable, but I simply refuse to watch channels that believe they have to throw comemrcials at me every 15 minutes (or every 20 when you are really lucky). If that is how the BBC should be funded as well, then you can count me out.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[null-loop]

I second that. We've got Sky @ home and to be honest I only watch BBC One, Two, News 24 or Sky One (for Simpsons and Futurama).

My wife's a slightly different matter, she's been sucked in by the allure of "Lifestyle" programming so she justifies us having Sky :)

Re:Good old Auntie!

[The Dark P]

I have to say. Whenever the license fee is discussed, you always get some people who claim, "I never watch any of the BBC's content so why should I have to pay the license fee. Yet, I have never so far met anyone who can prove to me that they never watch the BBC or make use of something paid for through the license fee. I would like to see someone with the guts to display an itemised list of their media schedule.

btw. What the hell are you watching if not on the BBC?

Re:Good old Auntie!

[The Dark P]

What, through advertising and corporate sponsorship?

It always seems odd that despite the overall antipathy towards big corporations on this website, that there are always some who are prepared to sell out their public service broadcasters to the private sector.

What shows are better on those three channels? ITV is a steaming turd of a broadcaster, and while both Channel 4 and Five have their moments, most of their money goes on imports. When was the last time that Channel 4 funded the creation of a programme not involving sex, or the last time Five funded the creation of a programme not involving the Nazis, (I know these are generalisations, but still accurate).

Re:Good old Auntie!

[zebs]

Just bite the bullet and get a digibox (they are only 30 GBP or so)! :-)

I'd love to, but theres no reception in the village I live in.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[jdtanner]

He's probably watching 'when insects attact magicians uncovered uncut'!!!

Damn, I've just given ITV another idea ;-)

John

Re:Good old Auntie!

[listen]

Are you talking about BBC america?
US != the world

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Malc]

"ITV, C4, etc are the BBC's competitors (though in an ideal world, the BBC is supposed to be about pulic service, not competition)"

The BBC doesn't have a choice about competing. Just like a commercial company: if it doesn't compete it will go under. For instance, it would be hard to justify the license fee if the BBC's marketshare dropped to 1%.

I personally believe that the presence of the BBC improves the quality of the commercial channels in the UK. The BBC keeps the bar high and so the commercial channels keep their content at a higher quality level to remain competitive themselves. This costs them money and lowers their profit margins (cry me a river - they make enough as it is!) which is partly why people with a vested interest in companies like Sky whine so much. Thank goodness for the BBC or else television in the UK would sink to the levels seen the other side of the Atlantic. I also personally think NBC during primetime is unwatchable due to all of the mindless drivel, and let's not talk about Fox!

Note: I'm not saying all American TV is bad. Some of it is fantastic, and most of the best appears on British channels in the UK (fewer channels results in filtering the crap ;)) However, even good British shows like MI5/Spooks become almost unwatchable on Amercian channels like A&E due to the constant interruptions of commercial barrages.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[mwood]

It's worse than that, believe it or not. Ever seen how they squash the credits for a show into the left half of the screen and drop the audio, so they can squeeze in a promo. for some *other* show at the same time? That way they can have their promo. *and* the revenue from one or two ad.s it would have displaced.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[invenustus]

From now on, I will be charging a $500 fee for anyone who views my web site. You may CLAIM you never view my web site, but unless you can PROVE it with an itemised list of every web site you visit, pay up.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[jdtanner]

Erm...there is a plane to provide it to the whole of the UK. Just because you weren't first doesn't mean you aren't going to get it!

John

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[AliasTheRoot]

I don't know about Channel 5, I couldn't receive it when I lived in Brighton, and now I live in central London I cant receive it either.

Channel 4 has been going steadily downhill, they used to show much better minority programming than BBC2, nowadays it's more sensationalist tat. They are good for quality imported programs tho and show decent movies.

I don't know why I even bother having ITV tuned these days, i'll occasionally switch over to watch some sport event the BBC doesn't have and rarely watch some crap movie, but even those are interrupted by 30 minutes of news break.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[Ben Hutchings]

Under the Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations 2004, a computer used to receive TV broadcasts over the Internet is a TV receiver and requires a licence. However, this doesn't apply to receiving video on demand, which is what the BBC currently provides. Also the definition of TV set does not include general purpose computers so purchase of a computer does not have to be notified by the retailer to TV Licensing.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[jc42]

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.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[norfolkboy]

Wrong

Channel 4 is actually partly state funded, which is funded by the license fee. Only partly though!

Incidently -

I have Sky - so that's several hundred channels, and all the good stuff on other channels, is at least half the time, from BBC!

Re:Good old Auntie!

[ilikejam]

Got any evidence for that? Why would the state fund Channel 4? I'm not trolling, I'd honestly like to know.

Re:Good old Auntie!

[arwel]

Well, Five was one of the co-producers of Lexx...

Re:Good old Auntie!

[arwel]

Well there was talk of the owners of Channel 4 and Five getting together a few months ago. Presumably the merged channel would be Chanel 9 (Scorchio!).

Re:Good old Auntie!

[danila]

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.

You never know. The problem is that if BBC said they want to make an excellent open-source codec that would drive Real out of business, there will be an uproar in the UK and people would argue that BBC should not be in the business of writing codecs - it's not in their charter. So even if that's their plan, they will deny it.

Ogg Theora

[SWroclawski]

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?

Re:Ogg Theora

[Gilesx]

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.

Re:Ogg Theora

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Ogg Theora

[meringuoid]

From what I read last time this was covered... Dirac kicks Theora's arse, and xvid too.

IIRC, it takes forever-squared to encode, but once done it beats just about anything in terms of file size and picture quality. Since the BBC's model is going to be encode once, then let the public download at will, this is fine by them.

Re:Ogg Theora

[deimtee]

Keeping the IP clean only works to guard against copyright infringement. You don't have to know about a patent to infringe, you just have to use the technology described in the patent. It doesn't matter if it was independently developed, you are still infringing.
This is one of the main reasons companies try to get software patents, as well as copyrights.

Re:Ogg Theora

[langarto]

Actually both projects seem to be using similar techniques (besed on the wavelet transform). But Theora didn't get very far and the project seems stalled long ago.

Re:Ogg Theora

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great, but do the BBC want to maintain the infrastructure around an open-source project or simply develop the codec?

There's more to running an open-source project than giving away your code. You have to maintain it, patch bugs, run a mailing list to inform people of the bugs, and so on.

Wouldn't it be better if they collaborated with the Ogg project so that, even though they are developing a new codec, the codec would be an Ogg codec, with the surrounding infrastructure maintained by the Ogg project?

Re:Ogg Theora

[garcia]

Since the BBC's model is going to be encode once, then let the public download at will, this is fine by them.

Personally I would think that this should be a goal for a lot of codecs. People want to fit movies onto a single CD with the best picture quality. Most people are interested in moving this video from a remote source (ahem BT) and put it on permanent storage for multiple views.

Re:Ogg Theora

[akb]

Theora (vp3) competes with current generation codecs, Dirac is a next gen technology. Dirac is also just a codec, so one should be able to use the Ogg container format or any other one for that matter. Since the BBC's stated goal is a royalty free system and they seem to be FOSS friendly I would assume they would be considering Ogg strongly.

By the way, I haven't seen a link to it so far, here is a link the a BBC info page on Dirac and here is the Source Forge page for those wanting the code.

Re:Ogg Theora

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems Theora (at least as of last year) is lacking some important interlace features. See this message in google cache...

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:8XDpTBHPdZQJ: www.xiph.org/archives/theora-dev/200308/0040.html+ Theora+interlace&hl=en

Also I'm looking for a decent real-time open source compression lib that does 422 interlaced. Anyone know one?

Mark

Re:Ogg Theora

[Daniel]

Well, they said that Dirac is sticking to techniques published at least 20 years ago, so patents shouldn't be much of an issue.

Daniel

Re:Ogg Theora

[Chris Hodges]

Well it sounds as though they took care to research and avoid patented "technology" as well.

And just a bit more money and legal experience than most OSS projects when it comes to showing prior art as published by academics before PCs could even show video.

Re:Ogg Theora

[smallfries]

Looking at their info I'm wondering about Our algorithm seems to give a two-fold reduction in bit rate over MPEG-2 for high definition video (e.g. 1920x1080 pixels), its original target application. Now assuming that MPEG-2 is DVD quality then the bitrates tend to be quite high, around 8000kbps. Divx gives reasonable quality at only around 1500kbps. If their quote is true then I'd expect Dirac to use about 4000kbps on broadcast video - so how does it compete with current codecs at all?

Re:Ogg Theora

[gbjbaanb]

Divx gives reasonable quality at only around 1500kbps. If their quote is true then I'd expect Dirac to use about 4000kbps on broadcast video - so how does it compete with current codecs at all?

reasonable quality != broadcast quality.

If Dirac had a 'reasonable quality' mode, then you'd likely see it at 2000kbps which is getting close. They say they are still optimising it, so perhaps they can come to within a gnat's whisker of Divx compression.

Re:Ogg Theora

[benwaggoner]

A 50% reduction over MPEG-2 isn't anything special these days. Codecs like WMV9/VC-9 and AVC/H.264 can do at least that well today.

Still, "seems to give a two-fold reduction" is a pretty squishy measure. It'll take a double-blind test before we can make a meaningful comparison.

But twice as good as MPEG-2 is a good minimum benchmark for a competitive codec these days.

Re:Ogg Theora

[Random832]

my impression was that most existing codecs used IDCT transforms [yes, i know that's a redundant acronym]

Re:Ogg Theora

[julesh]

application. Now assuming that MPEG-2 is DVD quality then the bitrates tend to be quite high, around 8000kbps. Divx gives reasonable quality at only around 1500kbps.

The difference between MPEG2 and DivX (i.e. MPEG4) isn't that big. In fact, I regularly recompress ~1Mbps MPEG4 into ~1.5Mbps MPEG2 with no noticeable loss of quality. The 8000kbps (or whatever the figure is, I forget now) of DVDs also has to include all of the alternative angles and multiple soundtracks, I believe. I think most DVD video is at about 4-6000kbps.

Re:Ogg Theora

[iabervon]

The BBC's FAQ says they started before Theora had gotten particularly far, and decided to continue as a separate codec because variety is good in codecs. Considering that there's already both Vorbis and FLAC for audio, it makes sense to have multiple video codecs with different characteristics, too.

They're working on it with a different packaging format presently, but they expect that someone will do Ogg Dirac at some point.

Re:Ogg Theora

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that discussions were held between BBC R&D and Xiph before Emmett was removed. People at BBC R&D are more video engineer than hacker, they wanted documentation and were interested in contributing experience, they are not expert at reading code to discover the algorithm. However the Xiph codecs were pretty much undocumented and weren't likely to change soon even though some funding may have been available.

Note that even Vorbis which has been version 1 released for a couple of years now and which was started many years ago is not properly documented. LibVorbis has no official documentation and this is the library which you need to use if dealing with asynchronous sources such as network connections. As far as I know the Vorbis encoding algorithm is completely undocumented.

You might notice that the source of the docs when they do appear isn't offtopic for this thread. The BBC do have one or two hackers ;)

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.multimedia.ogg .vorbis.devel/2891

From the article

[Megaweapon]

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.

Re:From the article

[jimicus]

I would imagine that the British Broadcasting Corporation doesn't much care about the feds.

Re:From the article

[mrkurt]

In the BBC's case, since they are non-profit, they don't have the same motives as for-profit "big media" companies do. And the potential for controversy is delayed, since the Beeb is shooting for streaming of standard definition quality video first. When BBC programming comes to the USA, it always seems to go to PBS anyhow, not a commercial network. It will be interesting to see what happens with Dirac, and as it says at the end of the article, there are commercial companies that have an interest in this too-- it means not having to pay MS or Real a "tax" for the privilege of using their players. Once again, it seems like it will come down to a struggle between broadcasters and content providers over control of the standard.

Re:From the article

[Bill_Mische]

The BBC is the biggest media organisation in Britain and goes regularly goes one on one with governments including our own.

If the "feds" were to ask the BBC not to release it we'd end up seeing one of your politicians getting an unexpected kicking in his next interview. A few years ago a BBC interviewer asked the Home Secretary (in charge of the police, prisons, immigration, "Homeland Security" etc.) the same question *14* times, when he wouldn't answer the question.

Re:From the article

[deathazre]

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.

I doubt they're going to complain about that.
now we just hope that it's a reasonable DRM.

Re:From the article

[Bill_Mische]

Weirdly enough he's actually head of the *Labour* Party, and he only managed to get rid of this clause from their constitution in the last 10 years:

"To secure for all the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry of service."

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, says a resident of the 51st state

Tut-tut, the Aussie government bent over first - the UK will have to be the 52nd state.

Re:From the article

[Blue Stone]

"A few years ago a BBC interviewer asked the Home Secretary the same question *14* times, when he wouldn't answer the question."

Jeremy paxman (the interviewer) asked that question 14 times because the computer he was using to view his question list had frozen, and he couldn't get to the next one. It was still a great thing to do, but it's not quite the 'revenge of the BBC' that you suggest.

Re:From the article

[Bill_Mische]

My understanding was he was told to keep the interview going as they were running ahead of time so he just went for it. Bloody good laugh though...and they do repeat it suspiciously often.

Re:From the article

[Anonymous Coward]

Jeremy Paxman is a great interviewer, he does all the "wrong" questions the public wants answered and doesn't let the guest answer anything but what he has asked.

Re:From the article

[16K Ram Pack]

He once said something like "I always ask, why is this lying bastard lying to me".

In these New Labour times, not a bad question to be asking.

Of course, lightweight toadies like David Frost and Trevor McDonald get knighted.

Re:From the article

[hoofie]

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.

Re:From the article

[goatan]

A few years ago a BBC interviewer asked the Home Secretary (in charge of the police, prisons, immigration, "Homeland Security" etc.) the same question *14* times, when he wouldn't answer the question.

Brings a tear to the eye and to that of the hoe secetary as well

Re:From the article

[dave420]

The BBC are the feds, dude. Part of the UK government. Seriously. They can do whatever they want when it comes to TV, as in most cases, they're the world leaders in it. As for the rights-managed peer-to-peer, that's a great idea, as if they're going to release their back catalogue, only those who've paid their license fees should see them. Everyone else can just wait for poorer versions on bittorrent or edonkey.

Re:From the article

[julesh]

Moderators: the parent article was almost certainly intended to be a joke. If you don't know who Paxman is, or know anything about his (highly original and amusing) interview style, please do not attempt to moderate it. Thank you.

Re:From the article

[aedan]

>>Jeremy Paxman is a great interviewer, he does all the "wrong" questions the public wants answered and doesn't let the guest answer anything but what he has asked.

Mostly but about 4-5 years ago he did a big interview with Bill Gates and even Paxo rolled over like a puppy wanting his tummy rubbed.

aedan

Re:From the article

[AliasTheRoot]

no, but it completely fucked the lying bastard he was interviewing.

Re:From the article

[Blue Stone]

To all the people saying my post is a troll or incorrect I point you here

"Paxman asked Howard a straight yes or no question. When Howard tried to prevaricate he kept asking the question for a total of 15 times. (It subsequently turned out that the tape with the next item had broken and Paxman had to improvise until it was fixed)."

It's the only online testimonial I can find to back me up and at least suggest that I'm not lying.

I saw it in an interview of Paxman on tv, where he admitted it wasn't his l33t interviewing skillz, but that he wasn't being shown his next question - and he stalled for time.

(Feel free to mod all the incorrect critics below, down.)

Re:From the article

[Blue Stone]

Actually I don't know what's wrong with me. I got my wires crossed a little. It wasn't that he didn't have his next question, it's that the next item wasn't ready and he had no more questions.

Even though it's a great bit of tv, it's a shame that Paxman wasn't really motivated to nail a shifty politician on his evasions. He's still a good interviewer, but he's not as far from the complicit interviewers we see day in and day out, as some people would like to make out. Which is a shame.

Go BBC!

[tdvaughan]

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.

Re:Go BBC!

[EdZ]

Pity that no boradcasters in the UK even offer HDTV. Still, this may even be a sneaky covert tactic to muscle in on the broadband crowd, with a media streming format setting them up for a HDTV service, and allowing them an excuse to offer cheap (and profitable for them), fast broadband. The clever bastards!

Re:Go BBC!

[16K Ram Pack]

Got to agree!

Sometimes I get home from work and there's Celebrity Pets Makeover From Hell Revisited on, and I just think it's all a waste of money.

But then you get series like Nighty Night or The League of Gentlemen or news like this, and it's all worth it.

Re:Go BBC!

[ph1ll]

In the UK "everything costs 10 times as much, it rains all the time, the roads are always blocked, the trains never run on time, you can't get a drink after 11pm or before 10 am, there's 70 million people crammed onto an island a third the size of Ohio, and the NHS offers the worst service and the filthiest hospitals in the developed world."

If you don't like it, move to any of the other 14 countries in the EU you have the right to live in.

Re:Go BBC!

[Billy69]

Yes, but it is coming! Although not too soon

Re:Go BBC!

[CapnOats.com]

Or move to Scotland.

Don't paint England as Britain. I live in Inverness and here the pubs are open to half-twelvish (maybe later depending if there are any police around) through the week and till 2am at weekends - 3am if its the clubs. And when you get this far north, blocked roads are rarely a problem and it has some of the lowest popn density in the country.

Re:Go BBC!

[The Dark P]

This is the perrenial moan of every single person on this island. But, it is rarely as bad as it seems.
Having made a string of trips around the country recently by train, I have had very few delays.
Having had a member of my family break his arm recently, he was served promply and well, and more to the point, for free.
And the licensing laws are under review.

Or you could live in the states, where healthcare costs a fortune, and public transport rarely runs at all.
Or in France, with the best healthcare system in the world, but who's economy hasn't been in the black for the last 23 years, and who are passing the healthcare bills to the next generation.
Or in Germany, where the government is trying to force through painful economic reforms which make Thatcherism look nice.

I think the operative phrase here is, familiarity breeds contempt.

Re:Go BBC!

[ph1ll]

If it were not for the climate, I'd move there tomorrow!

Edinburgh is one of the best cities in the World...

Only in the US

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

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.

Re:Only in the US

[JaredOfEuropa]

Again, there are other [tvlicensing.co.uk] countries [zdnet.fr] in the world where things don't happen that way.

A TV license is a payment against royalties on content, not royalties on TV technology. In contrast to existing TV technology, users of commercial streaming video applications pay a per-viewer/per-hour fee for the technology. That is what the BBC wants to avoid by developing their own streaming solution.

Re:Only in the US

[I confirm I'm not a]

A TV license is a payment against royalties on content, not royalties on TV technology.

This may be true now; but during the 1980s it certainly wasn't. I needed a TV License to use a portable TV with no tuner, that I used solely used for my "micro-computer"[1]. No tuner in the house, still needed a TV License. The reason given was that the license was a license "to use the technology" - what use I put the technology to was my business.

20 years ago, etc, YMMV.

[1] A ZX-81, a Spectrum and (finally!) a BBC Micro B. Ah, the good old days!

Re:Only in the US

[I confirm I'm not a]

Hmmm, interesting - thanks for that. I'd still quibble that it's a license to operate equipment, rather than a license to receive content, but 20 years on it's somewhat moot!

Thanks again.

Re:Only in the US

[Cyberdyne]

Hmmm, interesting - thanks for that. I'd still quibble that it's a license to operate equipment, rather than a license to receive content, but 20 years on it's somewhat moot!

The problem is that the licensing system was designed on the assumption that having the theoretical ability to access the BBC's services meant you should pay for doing so. Rather SCO-like, but in the days when this was invented we were nowhere near to having the encryption technology to enforce it more accurately as cable and satellite operators do now. Of course the licensing approach leads to stupid anomalies - your TV used as a monitor forcing you to pay the BBC for a service you don't want, a friend of mine in a valley in Scotland where the BBC didn't even broadcast having to pay for channels she couldn't receive - but it doesn't seem there's enough pressure for a change yet.

(Indeed, this is a change the BBC has been fighting against: note that when they took over the ITV Digital operation, they completely removed the 'conditional access' mechanism precisely to prevent a change to TV License enforcement through the same means Sky and cable operators use.)

Officially, the license is for "permission" to use that equipment - but in practice it is collected by and for the BBC to pay for their content, rather than anything else.

Already started on the CODEC

[jeffbruce]

The artical states that the BBC has been working on the project for some time. They are now looking for outside contributions because they believe the software may have wider applications than the initial scope.

The BBC

[payndz]

Another good reason (among many) why the BBC should remain a non-commercial operation. Yes, paying the licence fee is an annoyance, but everyone gets a lot out of the Beeb, not just TV (BBC Online has all but replaced daily newspapers for me, and after having grown up with BBC radio, I find commercial radio unlistenable). And they're even bringing back Doctor Who!

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...

Re:The BBC

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Yes, paying the licence fee is an annoyance, but everyone gets a lot out of the Beeb

Can I claim some of my license money back then?

Re:The BBC

[t_allardyce]

Not only that but you pay for some tv anyway - cable, satellite etc and you still get adverts! you pay just as much if not more money, for adverts!??!?! its fucking insane. Anyway, you dont need anything else, i get all my fix of southpark, simpsons, and any other american show that gets shown a series behind here online and if they dont like it they can damn well sell us the rights for the current season! Also the BBC has amazing training! ok so forcing you to pay the license is abit sucky, but fuck it, its a one-off tradition thats been going for decades.

Re:The BBC

[CarrionBird]

All in all it's probably a better deal than we get here (US). We have "free" TV, but it is Ad laden and restricted by what the ratings will support.

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.

Re:The BBC

[t_allardyce]

I was talking about hands-on training in TV, radio and film.

Re:Way to keep it quiet...

[bailey34]

Good luck slashdotting the BBC servers... They're very robust these days, with servers either side of the atlantic too.

I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[McCall]

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

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[REBloomfield]

the organisation that gets some of this money

How about: gets all of it? The Licence Fee goes straight to the BBC.

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[DataCannibal]

I'd prefer that the BBC spent it's ..er.. money on quality TV programmes such as good documentaries like we used to get (Civilisation, Ascent of Man, Alistair Cooke's America, Horizon like it used to be) rather than the drivel we get nowadays that makes me want to claw my eyes out most of the time.

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[mcbridematt]

Anyone outside Britain mind telling us what this TV license crap is?

To us Aussies, we don't know what the damn hell your talking about.

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[REBloomfield]

It's bollocks is what it is: License to print money

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[REBloomfield]

:) It just pisses me off. First thing I did when moved out was get a TV licesnse for the crappy 15" set I played my megadrive on... I couldn't afford the bloody thing. It also annoys me that you pay in advance for next years license, so half the year is spent coughing up for something I haven't recieved yet.

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[McCall]

I used to think exactly the same as you do until I heard a great explanation for it on BBC Radio 5.

Our elected government decided that there were a few things that our society needs. These things include, schools, hospitals, roads, police, libraries, schools. Television and radio is on that list too, it educates and informs the nation.

Put it this way, you may never use the hospital, take a book out of library or call the police service because your being robbed, but you can understand why you pay your National Insurance and TAX.

TV is the same, you pay a little so the nation, be it poor or rich can have good quality, advert free documentaries, news and entertainment.

Now I think 125 GBP a year is worth it, no matter if I use it personally or not.

Thanks,

Andrew McCall

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[mcbridematt]

Wow, it is bollocks to me (Free To Air TV here equals Free To Air and nothing more, nothing less). Paying people to run around in vans all day to see if someone hasn't paid up?

Brits better start rolling out super fast wireless networks with MythTV boxes with several TV tuners (or don't tell me they can detect multiple oscillators too?) to ditch such crap.

Down under, the BBC equivalent is funded from taxpayer government budget dosh, and revenue from selling merchandise. And half the stuff on the ABC TV is BBC content.... Ok ok, we don't have as much population and costs for public servicesm but shelling out money for TV? what the..

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[null-loop]

Agreed. The BBC does seem to following a lot of the commerical stations trends in terms of the "dumbing-down" of content.

I'm constantly sickened by the amount of money they spend on special effects in freeling documentaries when they add little to the subject. Get on with making informative programming and leave the shinies to Hollywood.

P.S. The prospect of Alistair Cookes Undead Letters From America fills me with a warm glow though!

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[LazySlacker]

Down under, the BBC equivalent is funded from taxpayer government budget dosh

A bit like a license fee then. The licence fee is basically a hypothecated tax. It's a bit rough round the edges i.e. only tv owners pay it but other people benefit (BBCi and radio spring to mind). Not based on income etc

don't tell me they can detect multiple oscillators too

Actually they don't bother - they have a list of addresses that have paid the fee and assume everybody should have a license - like I said it's a bit rough round the edges. Last I head they had 4 active vans!

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[The Dark P]

But because ABC receives money from direct taxation, its precise funding levels are determined by the government of the day, hence causing a conflict of interest and preventing it from reporting on what the government does.

The BBC license fee is ringfenced and guaranteed, because of the long periods between charter renewal, they can be secure in their funding to a greater extent than ABC in Australia.

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[dave420]

Do you have any idea about the quality of the codec the BBC are working on? It'll make Theora look like animated GIFs. The BBC are slightly more professional than a bunch of disparate guys all over the world. They are professional coders, coding this professionally, in a large company with a buttload of cash. It's not full of hobbyists ;)

Re:I am glad this is what my license fee pays for!

[cortana]

> It is basically a very unfair TV tax.

How is it unfair? If you benefit from the BBC TV channels, you must pay the license fee. There is even a rather large loophole, since you can recieve the radio stations and view the web site without a TV license. I won't even go into detail about the secondary benefits to society, such as a more educated public with a higher attention span, etc, which you *do* benefit from, even if you never use a BBC service directly...

> It is against the law to own a TV in the UK if you don't pay for a TV license. ... It applies whether or not you use the BBC services.

Incorrect. If you don't use the TV to recieve television signals, you don't have to own a TV license.

> Electrical retailers even have to take your name and address should you purchase a TV or related equipment, like a DVD player, so that the government can check that you have a TV license.

Funny, this has never happened to me. Probably because I paid with a credit card. If you want to game the system, buy second hand gear or pay with cash.

> Everyone has to pay

I believe we've covered this.

> so some people

I'm not aware of anyone in the UK who is unable to recieve the BBC chanels.

> can get advert free TV, free radio and a fairly decent news website. Sounds fair doesn't it?

Absolutely. Looking at the US, the alternative seems to be coughing up $100 (£65) a month for 150 crapshite cable TV stations that show an unrelenting torrent of absolute drivel, 1/3 of which is advertising which, according to the TV station execs, I must watch or else be considered a thief!

In fact, I found a schematic for the network

[bailey34]

http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/network/

Re:In fact, I found a schematic for the network

[CroyDax]

If you're interested in the guts of Dirac, here's a link to some documentation http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/dirac/documentati on/api/html/index.html

3GHz

[Janek Kozicki]

I'm in half of RTFA, and

The figures assume a 3GHz processor but the focus is on gaining speed by code optimisation rather than hardware because the BBC wants Dirac to be usable on a broad range of devices.

Who on the world has 3GHz processor in his desktop computer? Certainly not me, not my friends or relatives, nor even my boss, who has 2.4GHz.

Re:3GHz

[kzinti]

Who on the world has 3GHz processor in his desktop computer? Certainly not me, not my friends or relatives, nor even my boss, who has 2.4GHz.

Perhaps they're looking down the road. When Dirac is deployed, a 3GHz processor might be the norm. (By then your boss will have a 4GHz processor.)

Re:3GHz

[Troed]

Who on the world has 3GHz processor in his desktop computer?

Today: Me, among others (3.2)
In the future: Everyone ... everything depends upon the timeframe for "in the future"

Re:3GHz

[fozzmeister]

Well it aint being used yet is it, say it takes another 2 years to finish, then that will probably be about right. When id where making Doom3 no one was like "targetting 1.5Ghz, who has one of those". progress happens, if your making a product it makes sense to aim above the current standard speed cpu etc, as by the time your finished it may well be a very basic PC.

Re:3GHz

[RU_Areo]

I got one too, (3.06) but you're point is made

Re:3GHz

[Tet]

Who on the world has 3GHz processor in his desktop computer?

isengard:~% egrep '(processor|GHz)' /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz
processor : 1
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz
processor : 2
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz
processor : 3
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 2.80GHz

That'd be me, then! Or at least very nearly, although I freely admit I'm not a typical user. But the point is, by the time this is ready for prime time, that level of CPU power will be commonplace.

Re:3GHz

[Janek Kozicki]

oh well :)

absurd:~$ egrep '(processor|Hz)' /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
cpu MHz : 599.027
processor : 1
cpu MHz : 599.027

see? I'm not that typical too, lest people around (including me) do lack some power. (and isengard is supposed to have more power than some absurd shadow)

Re:3GHz

[$rtbl_this]

Could be worse. :)

C:\>egrep '(processor|Hz)' /proc/cpuinfo
The name specified is not recognized as an
internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Re:3GHz

[Just Some Guy]

dustmote$ egrep '(processor|GHz)' /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 1
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 2
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 3
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 4
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 5
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 6
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 7
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 8
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 9
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 10
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 11
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 12
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 13
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 14
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+
processor : 15
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+

OK, not really. But it made you blink, didn't it? :)

Re:3GHz

[julesh]

The point is, that's what they can do now. The software's written in C++, so is almost certainly not optimised for MMX or any other advanced processor capability, which is likely to get a 1.5-2x increase in speed. They reckon they've had a 10x speedup already during development, and they specifically state that they haven't finished optimising it yet. I would expect this requirement to drop to 1GHz or lower before they're done.

Re:3GHz

[Blakey Rat]

If you total up the two 1.8 ghz G5 CPUs inside my PowerMac, I have a 3.6 gigahertz computer. I don't know how many people do now, but by the time this codec is in wide-use, 3 ghz will probably be midrange or low for home computers.

Re:open codecs?

[flatface]

xvid is. And it's not streamable.

Will it run on low end hardware?

[Tryfen]

It would be nice to know if the codec will run on one of these? :-)

OGG streams off line though?

[Galik]

So why has the BBC shelved it's OGG streaming technology in favor of proprietary formats? This technology is available now and works very well. Hey BBC. Please give us back the OGG streams you used to run!

Re:OGG streams off line though?

[dunstan]

Because they have a chosen streaming audio technology: Real. The OGG streams were never more than a trial/proof of concept, and the kit on which it was running was needed for something else.

A huge amount of effort and expense would have been needed to get the OGG streams up to production standard for all the radio stations, not to mention the need to train up support staff etc. I don't think that leaving the experimental services publicly visible for any length of time was ever going to be a starter.

Besides, if the BBC were to invest in moving off Real right now, the shoe in choice would be WMP, and another change would be off the agenda for years. Remember that they started transmitting television on UHF shortly after the end of the Second World War, yet it was the 1980s before they were able to turn off the VHF trasmitters. By holding fire until there is a coherent set of audio *and* video formats there is a much better chance such a switch will come off.

Dunstan

BBC

[5m477m4n]

Did anyone else think it was funny that the BBC wants to provide something royalty-free? Me thinks that's grounds for a hanging.

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:Darwin Streaming Server / QTSS

[SlamMan]

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.

Re:Darwin Streaming Server / QTSS

[Jeppe Utzon]

Thanks for the reply... :)

Re:Darwin Streaming Server / QTSS

[Lifewolf]

Or do you also have to pay a pr. stream fee on top of that too for the codec?

The use of certain codecs (e.g. MPEG-4) may lead to fees in some situations. Additionally, a few companies (e.g. Acacia) are making grabs for cash regardless of what software, transports, and codecs are used.

14 times

[James The Gent]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/events03/uk_pol/ cons/leadership/nb_newsnightiv.ram

Re:14 times

[Insipid Trunculance]

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".

Last I checked the UK Was Not the 51st State

[FreeUser]

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.

Re:Last I checked the UK Was Not the 51st State

[gbjbaanb]

Cheney/Bush: "Ban this subversive technology or we'll have to impose tarrifs on many British goods."

you mean, like steel imports. Good job the WTO told them where to stick their tariffs,but not before the rest of the world stopped buying US steel.

Re:Last I checked the UK Was Not the 51st State

[Coryoth]

On the other hand, what do MI-5 and MI-6 have to say about this codec? I've heard NSA has derailed certain technologies in the past.

Pure drivel. An open source video codec is of no interest to such organisations. Why would they care?

Jedidiah

Ogg Vorbis & Theora

[fozzmeister]

What's wrong with those products BBC?

Re:Ogg Vorbis & Theora

[Sloppy]

As Anonymous Coward pointed out (mod him up, not me), Theora is missing some features that BBC may want.

One of the things about Theora, is that while it's a free codec and therefore accomplishes its mission in that regard, it's not really technically impressive. With Vorbis, not only was it a truly free codec, but it also kicked ass and is just plain better than just about everything else (even those who disagree with that assertion, have to admit that Vorbis' performance is at least quite competitive with its contemporaries). But with Theora, that's just not the case. It's a generation behind, so unlike Vorbis, you really do need to be idealogically motivated to use it.

A bit of politics

[Maljin Jolt]

"...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.

Parliament TV

[unmuzzled and mean]

I hope it gets adopted for streaming coverage of the Houses of Parliament. It irritates me that as a voter I can't easily watch.

Re:Parliament TV

[pjt33]

Can't you?

Re:Parliament TV

[REBloomfield]

I'm assuming it's an "I deliberately use a minority operating system just so i can bitch about the system man" post. Bloody hippies.

Re:Parliament TV

[unmuzzled and mean]

No it's a matter of holding sincere beliefs that happen to mean I expect Government related things to be open.

I don't for example expect them to come out and say only drivers of Ford cars can use the M6 motorway. Or that you are only allowed in to the physical Houses of Parliament to watch proceedings if you are wearing glasses with Gucci frames.

Re:open codecs?

[Alan Cox]

and its not open in some countries in the "free to use" sense. You collide with the various mpeg related patents

Videolan

[Hi_2k]

Why develop your own streaming software when VideoLan is already out there and working great? I regularly use it for any media viewing, and I've had great sucess with the streaming features.

Re:Videolan

[elandal]

VideoLan is not a codec but an application. Dirac is a codec. You could stream dirac-encoded video with VideoLan I presume.

Project homepage

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Ogg Theora is alive

[tialaramex]

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.

Do it quickly before Blair kills it

[NigelJohnstone]

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.

Re:Do it quickly before Blair kills it

[dodongo]

Hear, hear! You're exactly right. MS and Real both have a very vested interested in making sure BBC isn't allowed to do this.

If BBC IS allowed to do this, then all kinds of legislative repercussions might go down on this side of the pond. I'm so dismayed with Congress and the FCC right now that I wouldn't be surprised if the MS - BSA lobby came over here, told Congress (truthfully or otherwise) about how royalty-free distribution options reduce the ability for existing coprorations and CODECs to make money, thus it needs to be stopped.

I wouldn't be surprised if BBC still had to license somebody else's CODEC to broadcast to the US.

There's precedent for something like that, with what they're having to do with their Olympics coverage. It's freaking absurd.

Dirac homepage

[flyhmstr]

Dirac homepage and the Sourceforge pages

Re:Go BBC! - I worry for it though

[tezza]

I agree with the parent poster.

I'm originally from Australia, and we have advert breaks every 14.9997 minutes or less. Here in the UK there is sooo much less advertising. For every Eastenders there is a Panorama to make up for it.

This codec is another good step. The new Director has ordered a financial audit. How is this codec going to fare?? Hopefully well. It doesn't show in this link to the Independent web version, but the print edition says the:

total broadcasting expenditure is £2.99bn
revenue from licence: £2.8 bn
average staff salary: £37,275.62 wow!

Re:Quicktime

[Quobobo]

Really? First off, Quicktime is an application/api, not a video codec. Secondly, they're looking for an open source and royalty-free way to do this. Quicktime most definitely isn't open source, only runs (officially) on two platforms, and the best codecs included with it are definitely not royalty-free.

The Future of Television

[plasticmillion]

This is an old hobby horse of mine. I'm not a big fan of mandatary licensing fees, and the point made by parent (among others) is a good illustration of why.

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.

Re:The Future of Television

[REBloomfield]

I don't object to an anuual fee, just that it goes to everybody i watch, ie, like Sky, I pay for a package, i get that package. 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.

Re:The Future of Television

[Mant]

IIRC if you have a TV that is incapable of receiveing TV signals you don't have to pay anything. If anyone makes such a TV is another question.

Re:The Future of Television

[MikeDX]

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.

Re:The Future of Television

[REBloomfield]

Really? I honestly didn't know you could do that. Would save a lot of threatening letters going straight in the bin.....

Re:The Future of Television

[MikeDX]

Sure, as I said, I did this for just under 3 years when I was rarely even in the house at all. Money was tight and the extra £10 a month actually did come in useful. The licensing people are quite aware of people buying TVs just for consoles, and the person I spoke to was indeed human! :)

Re:The Future of Television

[eean]

I could see it being annoying just because its sort has a poll tax feel to it that annoys my socialist sensebilities. Income tax is much more fair. That said, I'm American and I certainly approve of the British providing me with free radio streams. :) But I would certainly be willing to pay for it. I dunno if we in the USA could pull something off like BBC though. I think it says enough that we have seperate out local media providers (NPR, PBS) from our foreign propaganda outlet (VOA).

Re:The Future of Television

[REBloomfield]

Ah, now the Poll Tax I do approve of. You've got a family of 6? You pay for a family of 6's needs. Single person in a house, you pay for yourself...

Re:The Future of Television

[networkBoy]

Question from a Yank:
Let me see if I understand all this:
you must pay L125 /year in a licencing fee under the auspice that you get the BBC (who's few shows I recieve via PBS in the states are awesome BTW). All in all that's fine I guess as I'd chalk it up to yet another TAX. Now, if you have a TV and you use it as a video monitor you can apply for an exemption from this fee. Still fine and dandy. What about multiple monitors/TVs? or is it a flat fee irrespective of the number of TVs in a single family residence?
Just curious how things work on the other side of the pond ;)
-nB

Re:The Future of Television

[REBloomfield]

1 license = 1 house. You can also use that license on a caravan etc, as well.

Re:The Future of Television

[MikeDX]

There was talk a few years back about charging per TV, but as it stands, you are charged per household. Each household pays £125 per year (less any disability allowance) for as many TVs/receivers in the house. TV licenses cover recievers and not just the television, so Video recorders, Televisions, satelite recievers, etc.

Re:The Future of Television

[Billy69]

It is a flat fee per house, although if you have a room with a lock on the door, it counts as a separate house. This way houses which are rented out as separate flats, like student accomodation have to buy multiple licences whilst normal families only need the one.

Re:The Future of Television

[vrai]

Lots of companies make such devices - they're monitors with SVHS/composite inputs. Perfectly capable of displaying the output of DVDs and consoles, but devoid of the tax incurring UHF receiver. Most mid to high-end LCD monitors have at least a composite input. Failing that you can buy VGA output boxes for all the major consoles at Lik Sang.

Re:The Future of Television

[goatan]

Ah, now the Poll Tax I do approve of. You've got a family of 6? You pay for a family of 6's needs. Single person in a house, you pay for yourself...

I could see it being annoying just because its sort has a poll tax feel to it that annoys my socialist sensibilities

um as the quote above shows the poll tax was a socialist tax you pay for what you need no more and certainly no less you can't get more socialist. I was most annoyed when my mum recently explained what it was (I was too young to understand at the time) those who opposed it should ashamed of themselves and there selfish un-social attitudes and they often did so whilst claiming to be socialists, I wish I could meet one so I can abandon my socialism for a day and to some un-social things in retunr.

socialism is about society not yourself.

P.S. Not a rant at you but those who oppessed to Poll tax also your American so a probably talking about a diffrent tax with same name.

Re:The Future of Television

[SillyNickName4me]

> This is an old hobby horse of mine. I'm not a big fan of mandatary licensing fees, and the point made by parent (among others) is a good illustration of why.

please explain how it did that...

> 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.

Sounds good all... except for that reality seems to suggest something different..
TV uses more and more advertising and less and less license fees.

If there is anythign that consumers hate, it is payign over and over for thigns they already payed for, and if they can get a 'flat fee' solution that is somewhat reasonable in price, they'll almost always take it over a per-view/per-byte/per-minute/per-whatever solution, you just have to look around to get that confirmed .

> 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.

Since evryone agrees (well, does everyone? I know many peopel do tho), why not just accept that in fact the current system with license fees does in fact work well?

Don't fix it if it ain't broken.

Re:The Future of Television

[MatSimpsk]

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

It's those 'wooly license fees' that *allow* the BBC to make such great shows. If they had to chase subscriptions and/or download fees, the BBC would just turn into ITV. In fact, you could make a good argument saying that ITV would get *even worse* if it didn't have the BBC raising standards and expectations.

The licence fee isn't free money for the Beeb. They take the cash on the condition that they provide quality programming *for the public good*. Do you see Sky One campaigning to save historic buildings? Does Channel 5 show programmes telling us how to reduce stress, or do their programmes induce it?

Re:The Future of Television

[The Dark P]

The main problem is that in Britain it was introduced to replace the council tax, which is based on the size of the house. So the poll tax ended up shifting the burden of taxation onto poorer families.

Under poll tax, a Rich family with a large house but only four members would pay less tax than a poor family in a small house with lots of members, hence the opposition it faced.

Re:The Future of Television

[eean]

Wow. So millionaires should pay the same as those living from paycheck to paycheck?

Re:The Future of Television

[plasticmillion]

please explain how it did that...

The poster's point was that he benefits from the BBC although he doesn't own a TV or (therefore) pay a license fee. The opposite is also true: if you own a TV but never watch BBC, you still pay the fee. I agree that this isn't a terrible system, as such things go, but it would clearly be better from an economic standpoint to have a more direct link between cost and benefit.

Sounds good all... except for that reality seems to suggest something different.. TV uses more and more advertising and less and less license fees. If there is anythign that consumers hate, it is payign over and over for thigns they already payed for, and if they can get a 'flat fee' solution that is somewhat reasonable in price, they'll almost always take it over a per-view/per-byte/per-minute/per-whatever solution, you just have to look around to get that confirmed.

Isn't this a bit like some at the turn of the (20th) century saying that cars will never succeed, using the argument that horses and buggies are everywhere? At its heart, this is a technological issue. We don't currently have technology to deploy an efficient pay-per-whatever system, so all-you-can-eat solutions win out. But we're getting close in many ways to removing the friction from small pay-for-content transactions, at which point the clear economic advantages I mentioned start to kick in.

Since evryone agrees (well, does everyone? I know many peopel do tho), why not just accept that in fact the current system with license fees does in fact work well?

Don't fix it if it ain't broken.

I'm really surprised to see this kind of remark on Slashdot, as it smacks of Luddism. To wit:

Og: Hey Ung, let's stop foraging around in the savanna all day and start cultivating and eating our own crops.
Ung: But Og, hunting and gathering has served us well for a long time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Re:The Future of Television

[LazySlacker]

I believe the problem for socialists is that the poll tax is a flat rate tax (like VAT) that ignores ability to pay:-
To each according to their needs, from each according to their ability- to pay -

Although this may be more communist that socialist - not an expert.

Also what makes you think the protestors protested because they didn't want to pay. They may have been thinking of others when calling unfair, as you say: socialism is about society not yourself

Re:The Future of Television

[kaiidth]

Sure, that's fine. But they ain't all human. I had a chap come in the one time, look at my vcr, fiddle with it, and claim to see something in the static. Consider: the aerial was broken and flapping in the wind. This was why I was not using the television, because I could not in fact receive TV. The VCR tunes itself on initial setup (most do), but had apparently such awesomely good reception that it couldn't decide whether to flash 4pm or 12:00.

He therefore claimed I needed a tv licence... I said not. He then changed his tune, seeing that I had a computer, pointed at it, said "Computers can receive TV signals, you owe us anyway". I pointed out the lack of a TV card and told him that (in fact) he has to catch me at a time when the TV equipment is actually set up to watch TV (not static, you know, TV, where you see little moving figures on a screen). Twitching increased. He said, "The law says everybody with a TV has to pay". I said not... he said, "it changed". I said, prove it... he hugged his clipboard o'papers and refused. In the end I paid to get the freak out of the house and canceled as soon as I could, but it was a hell of a waste of money.

Single women should not have to deal with six foot six unwanted nutters lying about the law in their living rooms; so I since developed a policy that I don't let them in unless a) they are female, b) I have company, or c) they bring police escort. This cut down on visits nicely, and noone sued me yet. All the TV I watch is on DVD/video. Unfortunately, this means I'm going to be the last one to see the new Doctor Who, so I'll just have to go to a mate's house and make it a social event...

OTOH, here in Germany, it's wholly illegal to own a TV at all unless you pay a licence (but they aren't allowed inside your house to check). As I own no TV, this is no problem, but they do phone up every now and then to check, often with the most amusing methods of extracting the truth. "We would like to ask you your opinions of [some apparently popular tv series]", etc. So I simply lisp at them "Was bedeutet 'Fernseher'?" and they go away, often quite fast.

The stupid thing is, I would quite like to be able to watch the BBC, and don't object to paying when and if I actually do. I just object to having to get into such cruddy situations merely because I don't watch the freaking thing. In the defence of TV licensing, it has to be said that they have often been reasonable - at Uni for example I was probably the only one in my kitchen group who didn't have one, and they accepted that after a phone call. I'd have shown them personally, but they kept on turning up during my quantum mechanics lectures and leaving sniffy notes.

Re:The Future of Television

[SillyNickName4me]

> The poster's point was that he benefits from the BBC although he doesn't own a TV or (therefore) pay a license fee. The opposite is also true: if you own a TV but never watch BBC, you still pay the fee. I agree that this isn't a terrible system, as such things go, but it would clearly be better from an economic standpoint to have a more direct link between cost and benefit.

Ok, clear enough.
However, it has to be economically viable to do it, but after that you should remove the economical argument if you want to focus on creating good content.

I believe the current BBC is excelent proof of that.

> Isn't this a bit like some at the turn of the (20th) century saying that cars will never succeed, using the argument that horses and buggies are everywhere? At its heart, this is a technological issue. We don't currently have technology to deploy an efficient pay-per-whatever system, so all-you-can-eat solutions win out. But we're getting close in many ways to removing the friction from small pay-for-content transactions, at which point the clear economic advantages I mentioned start to kick in.

No it isn't at all like that. First of all, while we don't have generally accepted micropayments right now, there are enough ways to get around the 'how do we pay' issue to make this work right now.
It is not a technological issue, it also has nothign to do with peopel clinging to old technology, it has all to do with user experience and how people want to spend their time and money.

Systems for 'pay per use' have been the norm for the telephone network and data communications for decades, and have been replaced by 'as many as you can eat' solutions in very recent times only (yeah yeah, I know about fixed fee local calls in the USA, but for the rest of the world, it has always been pay per minute or second) The huge increase in connectivity only started when peopel could get it for a flat fee, knowign what they'd have to spend on it exactly instead of being confronted with rather unpleasant surprises, not to mention issues with beign bileld for service that you never used and related issues.

The 'friction' here is people not knowing what their bill will be at the end of the month, and having to consider the price of what they watch instead of being able to sit back and enjoy.

Re:The Future of Television

[plasticmillion]

Yes, but I'm not suggesting that *all* TV move to a pay-per-view model. I'm just proposing that TV producers sell their archives on a pay-per-view basis. In other words, you can sit back, relax and watch the Beeb as much as you want without stressing about your monthly TV bill. And, you don't have to pay a license fee.

Instead, if you want to back to the archive and watch a old show, something that you can't do now for any price, you pay a small fee for the download. It is my firmly held conviction that this would generate loads of revenue, although I admittedly have no evidence for this whatsoever besides my own gut feeling, mainly based on the fact that I know I'd spend a lot of money on this service, were it available.

I don't why this would be a barrier to creating good content. In fact, this system should be a much more powerful motivator for content creators to focus on quality. People may be willing to sit their backsides on the couch and watch whatever crap happens to be on (viz.: the latest Nielsen ratings), but they are likely to exercise much more discretion if they have to reach into their wallet.

Re:The Future of Television

[matrix0f8h]

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.

What if you have an LCD TV?

Re:The Future of Television

[SillyNickName4me]

> Instead, if you want to back to the archive and watch a old show, something that you can't do now for any price, you pay a small fee for the download. It is my firmly held conviction that this would generate loads of revenue, although I admittedly have no evidence for this whatsoever besides my own gut feeling, mainly based on the fact that I know I'd spend a lot of money on this service, were it available.

Well, I don't live in the UK, but in a country with a similar system of fees for public television. My first issue with this is that I already payed for it to begin with. (I wouldn't mind payign a small compensation for bandwidth and such tho)

> I don't why this would be a barrier to creating good content. In fact, this system should be a much more powerful motivator for content creators to focus on quality. People may be willing to sit their backsides on the couch and watch whatever crap happens to be on (viz.: the latest Nielsen ratings), but they are likely to exercise much more discretion if they have to reach into their wallet.

It might work, logically, you are making a lot of sense. Looking at what goes around in the nearby videoshop however convinces me people don't mind spending their money on crap either.

Re:The Future of Television

[SillyNickName4me]

On another note, pay per view does work in specific cases, and is one of the things employed happily by the porn industry to make the internet proffitable for them for example. My comments regarding pay per view are more aimed at using it for content in general as the movie and music industry seem to want. Maybe the BBC archive is actually another example of somethignt hat could work on a pay per view basis, tho I'd say that in that case UK residents should get a free ticket to all content since they payed for it already.. I ,might myself be willing to pay some of their content, especially when it is published using some OSS codec so I can actually play it on my favorite hardware and software ;)

Re:The Future of Television

[shish]

The means of display is irrelevant - it's whether there's a connection between their transmitter and your reciever that's important (no idea how they check though...)

Re:The Future of Television

[ActiveSX]

You still have a tuner that works in the same way.

Re:The Future of Television

[shish]

It is a flat fee per house, although if you have a room with a lock on the door, it counts as a separate house.

What if you want to watch TV on the toilet o_O?

Re:The Future of Television

[matrix0f8h]

I was under the impression that they checked for the CRT. How are they detecting a tuner?

Re:The Future of Television

[Handpaper]

As far as I recall, what is detected is the Intermediate Frequency used as part of the demodulation process. I could be wrong.

Re:The Future of Television

[soliptic]

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/index_frameset.html

That should fill you in :)

IIRC, the license is basically for a property, you can several several sets for one fee. Obviously if its a block of flats perhaps each flat becomes the "property" rather than the builing... but one person doesnt pay more than once for having two TVs, I'm fairly sure.

Open standard

[mm0mm]

This is a great news as we really need open standard codec for broadcast streaming. BBC is already influential in the broadcast business. Once their new codec is acknowledged by SMPTE, it's matter of time that the new codec will be used widely by media conglomerates in the US. It may take some time to catch up, and/or there may be attacks by proprietary codec providers, but open standards will eventually prevail (...hopefully).

As a non-Windows OS user, compatibility is extremely important for me. I'm sick of media contents that don't play but ask me to "update your browser/media player/codecs." Someone may think "proprietary technology" that locks in consumers is synonym to "business opportunity." Apparently BBC has a different opinion and doesn't want to swallow the pill.

Dirac?

[NiceGuyUK]

I think the BBC is using the name Dirac in the wrong document - shouldn't it be the name of a villain in their new series of Doctor Who?

Re:Dirac?

[NiceGuyUK]

Erm, was expecting that to be modded funny, not informative. Was joking, but hey, would be cool in a prophetic kinda way if the Doctor Who script writers *do* end up using the name :-)

Well, not the whole industry...

[Anonymous Coward]

QuickTime Streaming Server is open source, so you can run your own server on whichever platform you want.

And Apple doesn't charge any per-stream or per encoded hour crap either.

Re:Well, not the whole industry...

[dave420]

And it's not as good as Dirac will be. What's your point? :)

Do OSS projects like taking orders?

[swb]

My guess is not. I have a hard time seeing any organization, even one as presumably benevolent as the BBC, giving money to an OSS project without expecting a certain set of deliverables.

This implies that the OT developers would be "taking orders" from the BBC, and I'd guess that wouldn't work out well (cf "herding cats"), either from an accountability perspective or from a poltical perspective. I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that involvement in Ogg projects is at least partially motivated by all the political reasons many people use Ogg instead of MP3. Yes, I'm fully aware that a lot of people proffer golden-eared quality reasons as well -- but given the lack of broad-based compatibile players, political motivation would have to be at least as compelling a motivation.

Anyway, the BBC probably has a whole set of goals (and perhaps ownership rationales distinct from OSS) that made the Ogg starting point unworkable, in addition to the likelihood that the developers would suddenly welcome their new overlords.

Re:Do OSS projects like taking orders?

[Sloppy]

even one as presumably benevolent as the BBC, giving money to an OSS project without expecting a certain set of deliverables. .. This implies that the OT developers would be "taking orders" from the BBC, and I'd guess that wouldn't work out well (cf "herding cats")

The Xiph guys have done contracts in the past, with well-defined deliverables. Though now their non-profit status puts a cap on the fraction of their revenue (I think it's 50%) that can come from contracts.

Re:Do OSS projects like taking orders?

[Eccles]

My guess is not. I have a hard time seeing any organization, even one as presumably benevolent as the BBC, giving money to an OSS project without expecting a certain set of deliverables.

I can see, however, some subset of OGG contributors being willing to contract for Auntie Beeb, especially if that contracting allows them a certain amount of use of their own judgement in what needs to be worked on.

Re:Do OSS projects like taking orders?

[The Dark P]

I have been wondering, could the reason for the BBC's support for OSS be due to the terms of their charter review?

Considering how often other media providers try to attack the BBC for their forays outside conventional broadcasting, the release of the codec could be insurance to keep the development going if they are prohibited from continuing.

Re:Do OSS projects like taking orders?

[swb]

[...]especially if that contracting allows them a certain amount of use of their own judgement in what needs to be worked on.

If I was paying for contract workers, their expertise would be desirable, but at the end of the day I expect them to implement/fix/improve what *I* want, not what they think it needs. I'd expect that their own judgement would get them close to finished product, but I wouldn't allow their judgement to dictate control of the project.

Re:Quicktime

[SlamMan]

*cough cough* DTSS*cough*

I'll admit the best codec for streaming isn't open source o free, but BBCs complaints( re: the article) are about a per stream or per hour fee. The best codec is just a flat out purchase, and a cheap one as far as anything AV goes at that. If they don't like that, then write a new, better codec. Which is what they are doing, but that has nothing to do with all the comments about real or windows media.

Per Hour?

[Pros_n_Cons]

The sums at stake are potentially huge because the software industry insists on payment per viewer, per hour of encoded content

If It's only by the hour does this mean the guys who never learned control get free porn?
COOL! finally someone who understands us!

Someone call Steve

[Udo Schmitz]

This would be the right time for Apple to open source their Quicktime stuff. Not only Darwin Streaming Server, but all the rest too.

Serious problem for conferences

[thrill12]

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...

MPEG4....

[jludwig]

For the sake of computer users everywhere, why don't all the world governments/BBC/etc.. get together, buy the patents for MPEG-4 and make them public domain and create an open standards committee? I don't care how much it costs... I mean, lets standardize and be done with it; each day that passes the MPEG-? technologies are becoming more and more entrenched and its not like anyone is going to go back and reencode everything in a patent-free format...

Just like building physical roads, can't some sort of emminent domain type of argument be made for electronic infostructure?

Re:MPEG4....

[Sloppy]

For the sake of computer users everywhere, why don't .. BBC .. buy the patents for MPEG-4 and make them public domain and create an open standards committee? Now that's an interesting idea, and that's probably what the Right Thing should be. But the amusing thing is that developing a better codec is probably cheaper than buying the MPEG patents.

..which suggests a failure in the patent system. If a patent costs more than development, then this government-granted monopoly must be doing more than just returning R&D investment.

Just like building physical roads, can't some sort of emminent domain type of argument be made for electronic infostructure?

The situation isn't nearly urgent enough that peoples' rights need to be trampled. Developing an MPEG alternative is quite viable, even if it's a little sad and frustrating.

"Dirac"?

[mikeee]

Sure, the compression is really good, but the problem is that it makes everybody look like they have really bad hair...

(Only physics geeks will get this. Why am I bothering?)

Re:"Dirac"?

[Omni-Cognate]

You've lost me.

Dirac notation - huge triangular sideburns?

Dirac delta function - infinitely high mohican?

Erm...

Re:"Dirac"?

[tepples]

Could you explain how a wavelet codec would produce annoying artifacts on subjects' hair? Or if not, could you explain the joke? Google didn't help.

Re:"Dirac"?

[mikeee]

Perhaps this will clarify:

Physicist Paul Dirac

Re:Quicktime

[Okonomiyaki]

It really sounds like some Apple people have come to this forum to talk up QuickTime just because Apple makes it even though it's clearly got certain issues that make it less than ideal for what the BBC wants to do. No offense to Apple or QuickTime but this project is a really really good thing. Someone with more technical expertise than I needs to explain the difference here between a codec (like Sorenson or MPEG4), an architecture (like Quicktime), and an application (like the QuickTime player). What they are doing has everything to do with the comments about Windows Media and Real because a royalty free codec is a direct threat to the Windows Media and Real codecs and when broadcasters choose it over them (and they will), MS and Real will lose a major source of revenue.

I Love the TV License.

[oliverthered]

I just hate having to pay Fucking advertising tax every time I buy a can of Coke.

Re:I Love the TV License.

[turgid]

I just hate having to pay Fucking advertising tax every time I buy a can of Coke.

No one forces you to buy a can of Coke. On the other hand, you are forced to pay a TV license fee if you operate a TV. While I agree that the BBC produces some of the best quality television content in the world, it also produces a heck of a lot of dross (e.g. East Enders, The Weakest Link, Bargain Hunt, Songs of Praise) which comes out of that license fee.

The TV license is an unfair system, and it is enforced heavy-handedly.

The problem with the BBC is that is tries to be all things to all people.

This open codec that they're working on is one shining example of the good that the BBC does, however.

There must be a fairer way of funding the BBC. Perhaps if they kept a license fee for the news, current affairs, science and education, but charged subscriptions or pay-per-view for the "entertainment" content?

Re:I Love the TV License.

[joss]

I object far more to being forced to break for ads every 12 minutes when I'm watching something I enjoy than I object to the license fee.

There may be a fairer way of funding bbc, license fee is effectively a poll tax. Not sure what would be a better alternative though, pay per view definitely isnt.

Re:I Love the TV License.

[oliverthered]

Ok, I don't buy coke, what do I buy?

Do I grow all my own food, on my non-existant land, with seeds I found lieing around?

Every time I shop in a Major Store I'm paying for T.V., satalite serveices and newpapers, but I don't own a T.V. and don't pay a t.v. license, that's my choice.

Re:I Love the TV License.

[oliverthered]

Well.... Now I use the BBC web site, but don't have a T.V. so I don't pay a license.

Then there's the world service and all those Americans who view the web site.

Since the Government[the tax payer] already pays for OAP's, why don't we turn the BBC into some kind of national braodcasting company and pay for it out of taxes.

Re:I Love the TV License.

[joss]

Because if funding came directly from government it would give government too much control. If there could be some way of doing this without that problem, I would be entirely in favour.

Re:I Love the TV License.

[turgid]

Since the Government[the tax payer] already pays for OAP's, why don't we turn the BBC into some kind of national braodcasting company and pay for it out of taxes.

At last! Someone else who thinks like this. :-) This is the obvious and fairest thing to do. Mention it to most people and they call you a loony though... :-(

Re:I Love the TV License.

[oliverthered]

Well the BBCs' budget is on a very tight margin, the Government alreadty control the license tax.

Re:Quicktime

[SlamMan]

Any new codecs are a good thing, as long as (from the viewpoint fo someone who impliments solutions, not writes codecs), that its supported across platforms, and idealy included in the default install of the player app.

Re:codec?

[Billy69]

Nope, it is definately COmpressor/DECompressor. See!

Dual meanings of "BT" in a UK article

[tepples]

Most people are interested in moving this video from a remote source (ahem BT)

British Telecom?

How is that supposed "patent free"?

[flowerp]

Last time I heard, IBM was holding key patents to arithmetic coding -- an entropy coding method that Dirac makes use of according to the BBC project page.

This patents is the main reason why JPEG files are seldom found "in the wild" using the optional arithmetic coding method (which would shave off some 10 or 20% of the file size). Royalty payments would be required for encoders and decoders. Duh!

Re:How is that supposed "patent free"?

[julesh]

Arithmetic coding is, I believe, an entire family of methods. IBM will only have a patent on one of them. I believe there are other people with patents on others. The concept of encoding in this general way itself is quite old, so cannot be patented (I've found one site that references a paper dated 1979 -- I believe that the last possible patent expiration for methods described in that paper would have occurred in 2003 (?)).

It's patent-free

[tepples]

so how does it compete with current codecs at all?

DivX and XviD: heavily patented. Theora and Dirac: not patented. From the article:

Borer believes Dirac could turn out to be more efficient than standards based on commercial patents, even though it has to use technology more than 20 years old to avoid breaking patents.

Re:Quicktime

[Okonomiyaki]

Well, one of the main points of this codec is that will be useable on all platforms. Windows, Mac OS, and Linux are mentioned in the article but as it's going to be OSS and royalty free, there's no reason for it not to have implementations on other platforms as well. I periodically hear that Amiga is making a comeback...

Don't expect WMP, Real, or even our beloved QuickTime to ship with support for it but do expect plugins to be readily available. Anyway, all of those players suck (although QuickTime sucks less) compared to MPlayer (and VLC is OK too) and I would expect it to come with support built in.

Ogg Vorbis streams

[rikkus-x]

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

Re:Ogg Vorbis streams

[dave420]

Because, maybe, only 1% of their listeners even know what Ogg Vorbis is, let alone actually have software to play it, let alone wanting to use that software. You're suggesting putting a lot of effort and processing into creating a stream 5 people are going to listen to. I'd prefer them to not waste MY money on some obscure codec. They support other codecs readily available on every platform, so what's your point? Being elitist? :)

Re:Ogg Vorbis streams

[DanBrusca]

However, the BBC are in an excellent position to drive change. If they adopted Ogg Vorbis, the public awareness of the format would shoot through the roof overnight.

It wouldn't be the first time they used their power to promote new formats either. Much of the success of Freeview (digital terrestrial television, for the uninitiated) was driven by the BBC.

Re:Ogg Vorbis streams

[TiggsPanther]

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?

It's probably to do with your average non-technical person won't have heard of Ogg Vorbis.
Joe Average has heard of Real. It's the format that "all the sites use". Joe Average hasn't heard of Ogg, except if they overhear some geek-type asking "but does it play OGG" about that new MP3 player in Dixons. (Or if they read every detail on the packaging for the I-River.

Now if they get their Dirac codec up to scratch then they can say "Content available in the BBC Dirac format" or sommat, and everyone knows it's to do with the BBC itself. BBC is instantly recogniseable in a way that Ogg currently isn't.

I'd also imagine it costs more to have two streams running for the same content - especially live content. It might be licensing, I dunno. It might just be the hardware and stuff. But I'm guessing that when they did have Ogg streams that the costs of running two streams probably weren't worth the numbers of people using Ogg. Which is a shame.
Again, it comes down to the brand-awareness. If they either can't afford or don't wish to run two streams then it makes most sense to use the one with the most brand-awareness. So they run one, then develop their own. They get the convenience-advantage of openness and the business-advantage of an in-house codec immediately having BBC's brand recognition.

Tiggs

Re:Ogg Vorbis streams

[rikkus-x]

It's probably to do with your average non-technical person won't have heard of Ogg Vorbis. Joe Average has heard of Real. It's the format that "all the sites use".

AFAIK, RealPlayer doesn't come with Windows, so the user has to go and download it, trying desperately to avoid paying for the non-free version.

If the user has already downloaded it, they can cope with downloading and installing a player, so I'm sure they'd be happy to download and install something like Winamp, with its less annoying installation procedure.

All the BBC need to do is provide a link to Winamp, or some other player that can deal with Ogg Vorbis.

Again, it comes down to the brand-awareness. If they either can't afford or don't wish to run two streams then it makes most sense to use the one with the most brand-awareness.

I actually think they should stream Ogg Vorbis only and drop the RealAudio streams. Wouldn't that be cheaper in the long run? They can probably use the same hardware they used for encoding the RealAudio streams.

Rik

Re:Ogg Vorbis streams

[TiggsPanther]

AFAIK, RealPlayer doesn't come with Windows, so the user has to go and download it, trying desperately to avoid paying for the non-free version.

You're not wrong. But RealMedia is, unfortunately, a known quantity. Even people who don't like it at least know what it does and that it does what it's supposed to (albeit, historically, along with one or two things it wasn't supposed to), whereas many people simply won't have heard of Ogg. And I think this is what sways the decision. That and the fact that it's an all-in-one product. The codec and the software are linked, whereas there is no single official player that runs Ogg - and I do get the feeling that BBC Marketing/management/whoever might not be quite so keen on relying on Winamp or another MP3 player as it's main method of streaming.

I actually think they should stream Ogg Vorbis only and drop the RealAudio streams. Wouldn't that be cheaper in the long run? They can probably use the same hardware they used for encoding the RealAudio streams.

I agree with you. I'm just not convinced that whoever is in charge of the decision-making at BBC would see it the same way any time soon. Plus there's the whole mutual-advertising thing. Real does list the BBC as being one of it's news sources in it's "Real Guide" section - or whatever it's called. So people browsing the site after installing it to get other content might see BBC's name there.

I think it simply hinges that people know "Real". People don't know "Ogg". And Real and BBC seem to have a deal which is mutually beneficial. I don't think the BBC (apart from R&D/Technical) would really benefit from a partnership with Xiph.
I don't like it, and I do agree that using Ogg would probably be better on several levels. Unfortunately for whatever reasons Real seems to do better on whatever criteria the decision-makers use.

mod reply up and parent down

[grey1]

oh for a mod point or 3 now, hoofie (and the others above) have got it right, the parent's obviously wrong (or trolling)

Paxman did indeed want a straight answer and that's why he kept asking the same question, nothing to do with a screen freezing

Explanation of name

[tepples]

The Dirac delta function corresponds roughly to a spike in a flat signal. Run a low-pass filter on it and you get the various scaling functions used in wavelet image coding.

You mean Ogg Tarkin

[benwaggoner]

The wavelet codec was Ogg Tarkin. Ogg Theora is a more traditional codec, based on On2's open sourced VP3 codec from a few years back.

Ogg Theora is lurching towards an actual release, and is supported in a few tools like VLC, while Ogg Tarkin never really got very far along in implementation. Theora was meant to be the quick interim release while Tarkin was developed, although the schedule has slipped quite a bit since.

QuickTime Streaming Client?

[tepples]

QuickTime Streaming Server is open source, so you can run your own server on whichever platform you want.

Server != codecs. Codecs cost $1000 for the hardware.

And even if there were a streaming server with codecs that could run on commodity hardware, what about QuickTime Streaming Client? Does Apple distribute both a player and codecs for platforms other than its own proprietary Mac OS platform and Microsoft's proprietary Windows platform?

Re:QuickTime Streaming Client?

[Wesley Felter]

I don't think you understand that post you linked to. Live Channel is indeed $1000, but it is software, not hardware. And Live Channel is a switcher/effects system, not a codec. And you only need QT Broadcaster or Live Channel or (free) MPEG4IP if you want to do live streaming.

If you want to do on-demand streaming, all you need is software to create MP4 files, of which there is plenty out there.

VLC and (I think) Mplayer can play MPEG-4 streams from QuickTime/Darwin Streaming Server.

Re:Quicktime

[gl4ss]

that it isn't 'free' as in libre nor as in beer?

they own the content already, if they get a per-hour-per-viewer-per-whatever-ever free codec to distribute it then the only thing they need to pay is for bandwith.

all the commercial vendors would love/want/require a somehow per-hour billed license with them(because hey, it would be like the jackpot - huge continious income without doing anything).

Don't count your chickens yet

[benwaggoner]

Well, even if this was released, it's a real stretch saying that it's "only a matter of time" before it'll be widely used by US media companies. A codec is really only a small part of a digital media architecture. Some of the competitive factors that go into these choices include:

Compression efficiency
Cost of implementing decode in consumer electronics (read, what's the cheapest chip that can decode it)
Support for existing transport mechanisms (like MPEG-2 transport streams)
Existence of industrial grade encoders (like massive statically multiplexed encoder arrays)
License fee

The license fees do matter a little, but that's really a secondary issue. A more efficient but more expensive codec can actually be cheaper to implement, because the content provider can use less bandwidth per channel, enabling them to sell more channels over fixed bandwidth.

Today, the battle for the next generation "TV" codec is between Microsoft's VC-9 and MPEG-4 H.264. And that battle is already well underway. The BBC codec isn't far enough along to compete for the current generation of standardization efforts for technologies like HD DVD and digital cinema.

And all because...

[Alby]

... of the unique way the BBC is funded: by you, the license payer.

Long live The Beeb.

Look around

[Wesley Felter]

Darwin Streaming Server is free and has existed for years. There is also free software to encode MP4 files.

BBC Interactive Media Player (iMP)

[tom taylor]

Currently the BBC are trialing iMP (interactive media player), which allows users to download TV content from the last 8 days. It uses a peer to peer basis for downloading (like Bittorrent), and is currently using Windows Media 9 with its DRM to restrict the content. As I gather, it is a standalone application.

Cross platform compatibility is a fairly hot subject at the Beeb at the moment, and one of the developers hinted that WM9 is just a stand in for any other codec. Presumably when Dirac matures, we'll see Dirac being used.

It's currently in trials with up to 1000 users.

This is probably the best public article about it.

Exotic?

[Jameth]

"Wavelets [exotic waveforms used to map changes]"

Wavelets are exotic? Where are they from?

Re:open codecs?

[Wesley Felter]

XVID implements MPEG-4, which is streamable if you know what you're doing.

For the lazy...

[Malc]

Working link without the /. mangling: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/events03/uk_pol/ cons/leadership/nb_newsnightiv.ram.

Re:For the lazy...

[soliptic]

Do bother to view this. It's quite rightly become legendary :D

12 European Community countries are Allies in Iraq

[XavierItzmann]

Britain is the last staunch ally we have

This is an insult to the following Coalition countries that have soldiers or officers in-country in Iraq (as of March 2004):

Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Poland, Thailand, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine , Romania, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Albania, Georgia, Moldova, Macedonia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Canada
http://www.geocities.com/pwhce/willing.html

The population of Coalition countries is approximately 1.23 billion people.
Coalition countries have a combined GDP of approximately $22 trillion.
Every major race, religion, ethnicity in the world is represented.
The Coalition includes nations from every continent on the globe.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20 030321-4.html

Re:Quicktime

[julesh]

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.

Re:Not only the codec

[ckaminski]

A properly built codec will plug into existing content creation systems. Building Adobe Premiere for this codec would be a waste of time. Other people have done it better already.

Re:open codecs?

[julesh]

No. Both are MPEG4 implementations, and MPEG4 is a patent-encumbered format.

another incorrect use of "content"

[brre]

> per hour of recorded content

You mean per hour of recorded video, of course.

How many minutes of anything we could call "content" is captured in that hour, of course, varies.

Content does not mean bits. If it did, an empty disk would have exactly the same amount of content as a full one.

Re:Quicktime

[Okonomiyaki]

Well, just for the record, I am an Apple guy all the way. But I am so because they are consistently the best choice when it comes to the OS. I like QuickTime as an architecture but the built in codecs are not so hot. I prefer my media in open, unrestricted formats that I can use where and when I want. There are some pretty good ones out there but I'm definitely not going to complain if someone wants to develop another one. Besides, as has been pointed out by several others, this is a next generation codec. Saying we should be happy with what we have now rather than get excited over what's coming next is moronic and very odd coming from a Mac fanatic as it is completely opposite to what most of us feel Apple stands for.

BBC Technology Sale

[awol]

I wonder how this project is affected by the recently announced sale of "BBC Technology" the BBC technology arm to Siemens. It is projects like this that seem to me to make the sale an extraodinary decision. Unless they are completely unrelated? Any insiders want to AC?

Re:BBC Technology Sale

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC R&D are not included in the sale. It remains part of BBC proper.

However the day to day running of the server farm and a lot control over that aspect is being outsourced so it remains to be seen how the products of R&D get used in the new structure.

Re:Quicktime

[Wesley Felter]

For reference, here's a link to the APSL.

"Applicable Patent Rights" mean: ... (i) claims of patents that are now or hereafter acquired, owned by or assigned to You and (ii) that cover subject matter in Your Modifications, taken alone or in combination with Original Code.

So we're only talking about the user's patents which cover DSS, not all of the user's patents.

You hereby grant to any person or entity receiving or distributing Covered Code under this License a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license, under Your Applicable Patent Rights ... to use, reproduce, display, perform, modify, sublicense, distribute and Externally Deploy Your Modifications of the same scope and extent as Apple's licenses

So you only grant back your patents for people to use with your code, not for any purpose. And if you make no modifications, you don't have to grant any patent license to anyone.

The problem with pay per view

[John Allsup]

The big problem, from a marke point of view, with pay per view, is that too many people will simply look at the cost and decide to do without it. Market forces will force things to be more and more fine grained as to how they charge: now its pay per house with TV plus pay per premium sky channel in the UK plus pay per premium pay pre view event. Eventually people will demand pay per view events and dump everything else. This will cause a collapse in everything but football and movies (and news if legislation still forces satellite carries to carry it). This is surely bad in the long run.

Re:The problem with pay per view

[arwel]

This will cause a collapse in everything but football and movies

Err, I think you mean "...everything but the very highest level football and movies". Have you forgotten the ITV Sport Channel which was going to pay the Football League teams £300+ million, while they conveniently forgot that outside the towns concerned no-one cares about FL teams, only the Premiership? Some of the ITV SC's matches had an audience that was too small to measure (less than 1000). That's a quick route to bankruptcy.

socialism

[eean]

As the 'under the threshold' replies have noted, you can't get less socialist then a poll tax. In socialism (both of the USSR idealist kind and the Swedish variety) the idea is the government should be a tool to correct social inequities. Obviously making a millionare pay the same tax as a burger-flipper isn't socialist. When I came to Europe last summer I was surprised by how high VAT is, since I had associated Europe with being more progressive.

Like in Finland your speeding tickets are determined in part by your income. Thats the socialist way of doing things. And it really only makes more sense the more you think about it.

P.S. I wasn't saying the BBC tax was a poll tax, just very similar to one since its a flat fee. And I took government class, so I know about the British poll tax in the 80s. Give us Americans some credit. :)

Re:Talk at FSMSI seminar 2004

[fr2ty]

There is a talk about Dirac and related BBC projects available at the webpage of the "First European seminar on Free Software for Multimedia Streaming over the Internet" that took place at IRCAM June 23/24, 2004.

The talk is available as Ogg Vorbis audio, you can obtain the presentation slides in pdf format.

Re:BBC terrorises single mothers for cash

[The MESMERIC]

Dont remind me I still haven't paid my TV license :(
Last year had an official down here - he let me off the fine provided I wrote a cheque there and then.
110 pounds is too much

Only in Britain

[bbuR_bbuB]

How to pay and other information The colour TV licence costs just over £10 per month - about 33p per day for each household. It is free if you are over 75, half-price if you are registered blind.