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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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Good Lord, there's enough stuff here to create a complete, high quality TIVO system with full network/P2P support! If this is any indication, BBC is taking the concept of Internet broadcasting *very* seriously.
A question for those who are in the know: How is Dirac's performance these days? i.e. Does anyone have any good comparisons to MPEG4 compression ratios, encoding times, etc.?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I applaud the degree to which the BBC is embracing the open-source model. I just wish that some American groups would do the same.
A couple questions, though. What inspired the British Broadcasting Corporation to suddenly leap into the software programming foray? Are they hoping to build some sort of new service out of all of this, or is it just going to end up as a bunch of disconnected apps?
I am scientifically inaccurate.
How well does BBC's Dirac codec relate to Theora?
The BBC is funded by a tax that's mandated on all TV sets in the country and the collection and monitoring process is more than a little nasty--harassement and patrolling vans that can catalog not only that you or I are watching TV, but what we are watching.
The Internet threatens this model. If you can stream video from somewhere else or play DVDs on your computer, what need do you have for a TV set and this infernal tax?
Bureaucracies have as Goal #1 self-preservation. There are indications that BBC wants to stream video/audio, so it can use that as an excuse to tax all computers, or a least all Internet-capable computers. That would let them add to their gravy train of coerced payments. And it would also mean that they deploy the technology to pick up signals radiated by computers and to track Internet connections. They might use that technology to just collect payments, but a country less democratic could buy that same technology for other purposes.
As the old adage goes, be careful about what you want. You may just get it along with something you don't want.
--Mike Perry, Seattle
Why doesn't the Beeb do a late night program with open source makers and shakers on the Beeb payroll telling us about themselves and getting people like Alan Cox to talk to us .
This will encourage contributers.
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
I'm sure if you were sitting at home in Berlin between 1939 and 1945 you wouldn't have regarded the bombs raining down on your house as legitimate.
It's all about perspective. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter after all.
The problem is that simply using the word "bombers" carries an air of legitimacy about it--as if the attacks were no different from, for instance, allied WWII bombers.
It doesn't carry an air of legitimacy, merely of neutrality. It's up to us - me, you, other viewers - to apply our values to the circumstances.
Ideally the BBC should report the known facts. They report that the explosions occured. They report that people died. They report that such-and-such a group has claimed repsonsibility. They say that Government ministers have made a statement. And so on.
We listen. Maybe we listen to other sources too. Having heard the reports, WE draw conclusions.
Listening to the reports on this subject I don't think it's hard to make judgments about the people involved, but that isn't a reason for the news reporters to do it for us.
The BBC often falls short of those standards, they often do inject their own values into their reporting (values I mainly agree with), but that doen't mean that objective reporting that gives the viewer the information he or she needs to form their own judgments is a bad thing.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2