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."

Comments

Wow

[AKAImBatman]

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.?

Three cheers!

[millennial]

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?

Dirac/Theora?

[codergeek42]

How well does BBC's Dirac codec relate to Theora?

Re:The same BBC...

[Hope Thelps]

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.

Re:BBC's Motives

[TheRaven64]

I live in the UK, and therefore pay a TV license. The last thing I watched on television was Doctor Who, and that ended ages ago. On the other hand, I am subscribed to the BBC national and regional RSS feeds. This in itself is worth the license fee. I get relatively impartial news on both a regional and national level, and I am more than happy to pay for it. The license fee works out at around 30p a day, which is hardly a lot - especially since I split it with my housemates, meaning it works out at less than the price of a daily paper.

I would very much like to see some of the license fee go to this kind of thing. Streaming media is likely to be an even more important part of the communications infrastructure in the coming century than television was in the last one. This is something far too important to be privately owned.