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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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BBC should have called it Dalek!
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'm glad to see them doing this. Not only are they smart to support OSS, but I have a feeling they are going to get a leg up on their competion by getting excellent help and feedback from the OSS community. It seems like a win-win.
Voice your opinion!
...at least they didn't introduce a new proprietary license.
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.
link
... it looks like the Open Source bandwagon is gonna need new springs.
I, for one, welcome our new British Bureaucratic Cable friends.
wait didn't brandy chastaine (sp?) allready do that? bare her innards to the world?
Hey, the Mongols ruled the world twice.
What a bunch of crap. I'm in the UK and they refer to the bombers as terrorists all the time.
It seems that conservatives just LOVE dissing the BBC.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
They're pissed off at having to pay ripoff prices to the people (such as Microsoft and Real) whose audio codecs they use, and they're sure as hell not keen to start paying licensing fees for video codecs as well.
Additionally, they think they can get better performance out of Dirac than is being got out of current codecs, which will save them bandwidth.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Now I can watch Mr. Bean ANYTIME I want!!!
I love random hex numbers! Just like this one, 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
...but this has been done already. BBC is trying to cash in on the market already created by CBS in early June. Sorry, chaps.
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
I look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/projects/apache/
and I'm thinking, wow, you could really implement some stupid stuff with that.
Some of the more asinine web templating tools available today would look like Knuth's TAoCP in comparison to the potential train wrecks.
Which is not to say that such little gadgets don't have their time and place; my point is that somebody will always take them out of context.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
The Beeb just continue to impress me with initiatives like this - good on them!
We rule world again soon, insensitive clod!
here, in italy, i have to pay for our very low quality public television (more berlusconi's than public), and nothing like this is happening. They just offer a few WMV/Real videos on their website, wow. :)
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
I'm very greatful for their very generous contribution, but...
What is that aweful color on their site!
My eyes!
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.
How well does BBC's Dirac codec relate to Theora?
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.
So has Microsoft retracted their stand on Open Source being a a cancer? They can't possibly stick to that story, specially after so many organizations are seeing the benefits of Open Source. Will MS really and their fanboys ever learn?
[alk]
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
BBC has been pushing more and more toward internet-based content.
Like their recent move to eliminate their "cult TV" website?
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Decentralized at times. From During wh1ch I states that there cycle; take a
I know this will probably fall under "whining", but I wish there was more hand-holding in the Dirac documentation. Not that there isn't plenty, but I think they could fulfill a somewhat "educational" role there, too, in the sense of bringing people "up to speed", as it were, on the techniques involved.
They do offer some pointers, but still, stuff like wavelets is not your everyday applied math, is it? (Maybe it is, in DSP, I wouldn't know).
What do you think? Have you looked at the documentation? What's your estimate in terms of courses you have to take in order to contribute on Dirac? After Calculus and Linear Algebra, what else?
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
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
That said, this site has explainations and code: http://www.bearcave.com/misl/misl_tech/wavelets/
Vuja De: That sinking feeling that this is going to happen again. Often occurs in meetings with Product Managers.
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
It's terrorism because its goal is to create terror pure and simple. The terrorist themselves make that very point. The means they use is irrelevant, which is why they're are not 'bombers.' Their targets aren't chosen because they have any military or economic value. They're chosen to maximize the number of ordinary, harmless citizens who get killed, creating a much larger number who are terrified into passivity or, like the BBC, into cooperating with their agenda. And in the long term, in the case of Islamists, they hope to 'convert' the UK to their rather coercive variety of Islam. Someday, they hope, you'll hear nothing but them on the BBC. And they may be right.
One of the great cultural divides in Western democracies is between those who still retain a measure of courage or at least respect for those who are brave and those who're simply trying to muddle through life as affluently and comfortably as possible, avoiding all danger and discomfort. Emotional words like terrorist make them uncomfortable, because they suggest the need for decisive actions like helping Iraq become democratic. Risk terrifies them.
A couple of summers ago, I came on someone tossing knives against a tree just a few feet from an extremely busy path in a Seattle park. Knowing someone had to make the weirdo stop, I asked a healthy man in his thirties to just stand by while I talked to the guy and perhaps get help if things got nasty. He fled in terror without saying a word. Since everyone else seemed to be a mother with small kids, I approached the weirdo alone with the suggestion he toss his knives someplace where he wasn't going to get someone hurt. When he refused and began to get angry, I backed off and told him I was calling the police. He started ranting nonsense and coming at me. Since he was bigger than I am and had at least three knives, it wasn't very pleasant. Fortunately, a Very Big Guy intercepted him and cooled him down. Later that guy told me he'd thought himself of talking to the knife thrower and decided to get involved only when I did. In dangerous situations, someone always has to act first.
The guy who ran away is 'Blue America.' They listen to NPR or the BBC and think Pres. Bush, of all people, is a threat. They deplore words like terrorist, and are, quite frankly, cowards. The guy who helped me is part of "Red America." They listen to Fox News and talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh. They call a terrorist a terrorist.
One reason I love Tolkien is that he calls things by their real names. He doesn't not mince words about the terror the Black Riders bring or the horror that would be life under Sauron. His heros fight, they don't "nuiance."
--Mike Perry, Seattle, Untangling Tolkien
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.
BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC Five, BBC Six, BBC Seven, BBC Heaven!
BBC, please!
(Listen to austin power soundstrack)
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
I completely forgot about VLC! *slaps himself* Bad codergeek! No cookie!
:-)
Thanks, harryk.
open source, my arse, when they scrap the license fee then it will be open source.
happy
If you want to contribute to Dirac as a programmer but don't want to spend several months studying maths, there's plenty of work to be done outside the field of optimising the codec - interfacing it to every video-related open-source project under the sun for example. There're already Dirac patches for transcode, ffmpeg and mplayer, but that's just the tip of the iceberg...
This refers to the fact that 40% of homes have digital TV capability. However a much smaller proportion of televisions are capable of receiving digital, as most homes have more than one TV. So even if 100% of homes have digital TV, there will still be a public outcry when they switch off analogue transmissions.
I personally don't have either......
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Oh please, please - can we start some kind of campaign to call all fanatical extremists "Snuggle-umpkins"!!???
That is just genius!
If any organisation knew that its members were commonly known as "Snuggle-umpkin-ites", they would have a dreadful time recruiting.
I pay £10.99 per month for TV I don't watch.
At least some of this is going to help create an open source codec which may catch on.
Go Dirac!
First their free Beethoven symphonies and now this. :)
What is humor if not pain tempered by time?
George Orwell, who I believe worked for the BBC during WWII, predicted a Ministry of Propaganda that in 1984 would do just this--alter past news stories to fit propaganda purposes. He seems to have gotten only the date wrong.
During WWII the tuning signal for the BBC was the bold 'hammer blow" opening cords to Beethoven's Fifth Symptomy. Perhaps they need a new tuning signal. I suggest the clucking of a fussy hen. "Cluck Cluck, Cluck." Anyone who hears that will know beyond a doubt that they're reached the BBC.
--Mike Perry, Seattle, Editor, Eugenics and Other Evils
While Mike's support of the BBC's support of open source is to be applauded, we need to look with a bit of suspicion at his motivation.
Mike Perry promotes a zealous right wing ideology that sees nothing wrong with nasty collection and monitoring process so long as they are run by pri
vate, unaccountable corporations based in India, rather than domestic accountable and democratic public institutions.
But social programs threatens his model. If you provide low cost services to everyone by taking advantage of the cost savings of large scale implemen
tation, what need do you have for expensive and powerful private companies that are answerable to noone?
Corporations have as Goal #1 self-preservation. There are indications that Mike Perry wants to prevent individuals from streaming video/audio, so
his corporate backers can implement their own private and totally closed interface to multimedia computer systems. If you want any media (sound, vide
o, etc), you go through Mike Perry or one of his Corporate friends. Period. That would let him and his special interest buddies add to their gravy tr
ain of monopoly markets and closed protocols. And it would also mean that he could deploy technology to pick up signals radiated by computers and to
track Internet connections. He and his backers might use technology to just collect payments, but a Corporation or special interest group with more m
oney 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.
--Pike Merry, Redmond