Slashdot Mirror
BBC Begins Open-Source Streaming Challenge
bus_stopper copies and pastes: "The BBC is quietly preparing a challenge to Microsoft and other companies jostling to reap revenues from video streams. It is developing code-decode (codec) software called Dirac in an open-source project aimed at providing a royalty-free way to distribute video. The sums at stake are potentially huge because the software industry insists on payment per viewer, per hour of encoded content. This contrasts with TV technology, for which viewers and broadcasters alike make a one-off royalties payment when they buy their equipment." We've mentioned this project before but this story goes into a bit more depth about the goals and motivations of the developers.
It just proves that you get a hell of a lot for your 125 GBP license fee!
John
It seems to me that the best way to support Free codecs would be to throw support at an existing project such as Ogg Theora. Does anyone know why they're not throwing support behind it?
It can be used for passing video round home networks, rights-managed peer-to-peer file sharing, or playing media in handheld devices, as well as for web streaming.
And this is why it will be fought against on the political front. How much you want to bet that the feds will want to require some sort of keying/user tracing mechanism in order for this "free" technology to be made publically available? Big media will argue that in order for the government to protect copyright, they shouldn't allow technology that can subert other's copyrights.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
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.
This contrasts with TV technology, for which viewers and broadcasters alike make a one-off royalties payment when they buy their equipment.
Again, there are other countries in the world where things don't happen that way. In most of the EC in fact...
For your information Michael, the Beeb is in the UK where your statement doesn't apply.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Sure, it has its problems, but I'd trust the BBC over any politician, especially ones who make threatening noises about its charter every time it does its job by being independent and embarrassing the government of the day...
You must think in Russian.
I have paid for ten TV licenses in my life, and I have to admit that I am glad the the organisation that gets some of this money is developing something like this...
...although I have to admit, the BBC would have probably have been better off using my money to become the "offical" sponsors for an existing open source project such as Theora, rather than starting from scratch.
The link is the story is dead, I found the home page here, and the SourceForge site here.
Thanks,
Andrew McCall
http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/network/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/events03/uk_pol/ cons/leadership/nb_newsnightiv.ram
And this is why it will be fought against on the political front. How much you want to bet that the feds will want to require some sort of keying/user tracing mechanism in order for this "free" technology to be made publically available?
Let the feds scream like stuck pigs.
Now that the Bush administration has completely gutted our diplomatic clout to such a degree we can't even rally people against emerging nuclear threats (remember the boy who cried wolf?), no one but no one is willing to blindly go along with the United States.
Britain is the last staunch ally we have, and at this point we need them more than they need us. If Hollywood's lackeys in Washington try to push London around on this one I suspect they will be in for a very nasty surprise.
Cheney/Bush: "Ban this subversive technology or we'll have to impose tarrifs on many British goods."
UK Prime Minister: "It would be a shame if the US felt it necessary to impose trade tarrifs on the UK. That would depress our economy enough that we could no longer afford the fiscal expenditure to maintain our presence in your latest cockup, that is to say, Iraq. It might well call Afghanistan into question as well."
Cheney/Bush: ??? Who knows if they would be stupid enough to do so anyway, and lose both wars before the year is out, or if they would cave and crawl back into their backrooms for some more Haliburtan deals. Either way the US will have lost even more political and diplomatic clout (which at one time had been our greater asset, far outweighing our military strength), and the BBC's free codec will continue to be developed and deployed, unabated.
And, lest Kerry think he could pull a similiar stunt (remember, as destructive as Bush/Cheney have been on every other front, they are equaled by the Democrats on this particular topic: selling the interests of the people out to Hollywood), he would face exactly the same reaction, and results.
So, I think the BBC is reasonably safe from the depredations of Washington, whether Hollywood and Redmond like it or not.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
and its not open in some countries in the "free to use" sense. You collide with the various mpeg related patents
no KW required
BBC Dirac
The Dirac Project
Dirac is a general-purpose video codec aimed at resolutions from QCIF (180x144) to HDTV (1920x1080) progressive or interlaced. It uses wavelets, motion compensation and arithmetic coding and aims to be competitive with other state of the art codecs.
Theora is a conventional (block, motion, color transform, throw away bits, then ordinary compression) 2nd generation video codec, it is alive and well, and it reached bitstream freeze just a couple of months ago. Presumably beta and then final releases of the software & associated documentation will follow in good time.
Tarkin is the Ogg wavelet codec. You're correct that work on Tarkin has more or less stalled, but wavelet codecs are a legal quagmire today, in part because so many people have conflicting patents in this area and are just waiting for the chance to litigate. Are any of the images on your website JPEG2000 instead of regular JFIF? Thought not.
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.
o ns/arch ive_2004/BBC_Online_Review.htm
From an investigation in August 2003:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/global/publicati
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.
None of the above. Darwin SS is free (source and usage). To encode sometihng to it, you can use Quicktime Broadcaster, which is free (but not source), and only runs on a mac. You can of course encode with other solutions. The one of best ones on the market is Live Channel by Channel Storm, which runs about a grand as a one time price.
Mod point free since 2001
Dirac homepage and the Sourceforge pages
-- The Flying Hamster
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?
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.