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Canadian Public Radio Streaming Ogg Vorbis
d00dman writes "CBC Radio, Canada's major national public broadcaster is now streaming in ogg/vorbis. Recently CBC had switched from realmedia streams to windows media streams for their radio broadcasts. After receiving a plethora of complaints, suggesting ogg/vorbis as an alternative, CBC has begun a test ogg stream of the toronto stations. They boast in their ogg FAQ that they're encoding with oddcast and streaming with icecast."
hopefully the cbc will completely change over to Ogg format. Its difficult for older computers (like the one my parents have) to play media cleanly through Windowsmediaplayer as its a resorce hog, and if they want to do anyhting else while listening it gets choppy.
Happy about this?
From CBC's Ogg FAQ:
We're currently testing the streaming of Ogg Vorbis, an open, free audio codec. Please contact CBC Audience Relations if you have suggestions or comments.
People in Canada always harp on the CBC because it receives public funding, but it really is the best news organization in the country and to top it off they actually innovate. They had a decent website back in 1998 (the earliest Wayback is from '99). They stream CBC radio and all of their TV news broadcasts for free, in multiple codecs. And if you want local news that isn't about a dog or a whale they might be your only option. Bravo CBC. They can take it from my cold, dead hands.
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Despite the parent article stating there were a plethora of complaints when the CBC switch from Real Media streams to windows media, they do, in fact, provide information on their site for unix users to access these streams.
For the ogg streams, they only provide access to the stations in Toronto, rather than the local stations.
Whichever format, though, I'm happy that I can listen to the CBC on the operating system of my choice. However, I think it is appropriate that a public service broadcaster use a format that is unencumbered and hence accessible to all.