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BBC Open Source launched
Elphin writes "The BBC today launched their BBC Open Source website, providing a home for projects such as their video codec dirac , TV-Anytime Java API and Kamaelia network testbed."
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Looks like they have also released the BBC 'programming language'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/projects/apache/
Seems like extensions to mod_include to add more logic.
Good Stuff
- the Apache Modules are "related to the way pages are built on bbc.co.uk",
- Dirac is video codec,
- TV-Anywhere is "an open standard for metadata describing TV and radio programmes",
- Media Dispatch is for transferring huge MPEGs,
- MXF File Test Engine can perform scripted tests on MXF files (a type of media file), and
- Video Shot Change Detector is exactly what it says on the tin.
(The rest of the stuff is simple large-corparation-network-type tools.) The BBC are exactly the sort of people to do this. Anyway, as a publicly-funded broadcaster, they should be developing (and open-sourcing) most of this sort of thing, for broadcasting over the net and suchlike.Just some stupid software? Damn! I was hoping to find some episodes of the new Doctor Who for download... ;-)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".
I agree with this point of view. "Bombers" is an accurate way to describe them. They may also be "terrorists", but this does carry an emotional implication as well. It's a little quirky, but I can see the point of simply reporting events rather than making judgements. It's something the media in general seriously lacks.
Well the didn't actually make it but they made it happen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro
I have fond memories of my Model B
If only they would publicize more of the open-source projects they've been doing in order to spur more development from people who would actually benifit from them.
Take for example the Betsie perl script (which the BBC use extensively on their websites, it's an open-source cgi script which can be used to translate pages on-the-fly into a text-only mode. This has been very helpful for me and for a suprisingly large number of other web developers trying to tackle the issue of accessablity.
If they keep on going in this direction with opening up more projects and providing more APIs for developers to use, then I can really see in maybe as short as 2 years down the line it could be actually be worthwile to pay for that damn TV license.
Its performance these days doesn't seem very encouraging, though it's early in development. It has some hefty competition, though - such as the Snow codec, which also uses wavelets for its compression algorithms.
Overall, the promise of wavelet codecs is high, but their quality to compression ratio vs. traditional MPEG-4 solutions (like XviD and H.264), and the convenience of encodes (Dirac lacks very many useful encoding tools outside of command line) at present leaves much to be desired.
You can perform a simple test using VLC (http://www.videolan.org/ ... it already has support for both Theora and Dirac transcoding.
I don't have a fast enough processor to actively test.
harryk
think before you write, it'll save me moderator points.
Ahhhhh! Where did the link go. Try this...a vies_And_Anuradha_Suraparaju_-_Dirac.ogg
http://stream.fluendo.com/archive/6uadec/Thomas_D
I've got to get me some of this magical technology to wirelessly detect computers and monitor internet connections.
Detector vans are a myth and always have been. They have this thing called a list, which they use to work out who's paid their license and who hasn't.
Also from Channel 4 was Spaced, which if you'd probably like if you enjoyed "Shawn of the Dead".
It seems a little wierd to call it a page dedicated to their opensource projects. All the DIRC one serves as is link to their sourceforge project. Not too exciting.
Home page: http://dirac.sourceforge.net/Project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dirac
They haven't had a release in nearly two months, though their CVS has activity in it as little as four days old. I wonder when it'll be usable. Sure hope it's soon.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
According to the Dirac FAQ they can't do streaming yet, but they've already got better compression "performance" than Theora (not clear whether that means better compression speed or size).