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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."
That a publicly funded organization is actually trying to cut costs. Too bad it doesn't happen more often.
Now, if that makes sense to anyone, could you please explain it to me? I think I've confused myself.
Sounds very forward-thinking. I will definitely be listening to this stream when I move there soon.
What a bunch of standards-following wimps Canadians are. Join Kyoto protocol. Join international world court. Use the same ballot across the nation. (Count that ballot in hours.) Same-sex marriage. Soon-to-be-legal marijuana. Free health care. Soon to be free daycare. What a crew. Oh, and some Ogg Vorbis thingee now, too.
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.
As a CBC Radio listener for the better part of 40 years I can tell you this is just another innovative step in the history of a great public institution. CBC is also known for its great honest and open minded coverage of news. This has been very apparent in the last couple of decades as comercial private media has been gobbled up by massive multinational corporations and given a sanitized, unified, and politically correct editorial viewpoint (according to the disposition of the owners and not always the accuracy of the facts). But possibly best of all the CBC works to inform, educate, motivate its listeners with open and honest coverage of world events... presented from multiple points of view.
If anyone would like to hear what the rest of the world is thinking and doing, catch the news and editorials on CBC... By the way, BBC radio does this too.