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BBC Releases P2P TV Client Test
evildeed writes "The BBC's Internet Media Player trial started today, and a few thousand lucky UK citizens now have a copy. The good news? Legal P2P downloads of quality shows. The bad news? Requires IE and Windows Media Player, and it's probably going to be UK-only. Oh well. One of the lucky few has uploaded screenshots and a brief review." The service was first announced back in may.
I don't see how it can be considered P2P. You download the media off of the BBC's servers, not from your friends and neighbors.
In addition, the media files themselves are DRM-encumbered, so it wouldn't even make sense to have them on a P2P network when the files would 1) stop working after 7 days and 2) may not work on other machines.
Is this really P2P? If they are opening up the archives, why would they want to put DRM on the files?
It doesn't make sense.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Take a look at this page which details how to download the files:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/tour/tour7.shtml
Maybe the files themselves are hosted on a P2P network and the BBC saves on bandwidth costs by offloading the files onto that network. But it doesn't seem very "P2Pish".
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Till the DRM gets cracked, it's bound to happen at some point, since apple's AAC DRM and the WMA v2 DRM (WMV as well?) have both had decryptors written.
I can certianly sympathize with you. I often wondered why we paid for the creation of the content but didn't have more rights to it. If you paid for anything else to be created you would naturally assume that you would own it at the end. Surely anyone who pays the licence fee should be able to give a copy of a show to anyone else who pays the fee (tax).
It doesn't bother me much any more though. I got rid of the TV 5 or 6 years ago and so have saved around £600 in license fees. I can't say I have missed it either. I have a decent sized DVD collection for those times when I really want to kick back and watch something. There have always been a few shows though that I have wanted to watch such as some of the nature pieces. They normally eventually come out on DVD but that's not quite the same. Hopefully this will mean I will be able to pick up such shows for a tiny price.
The thing that worries me, however, is that we will end up with an Internet tax in much the same way as they have in Germany. Be prepared to fight for you right to not pay the BBC.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Three cheers for the BBC using my license fee to support an entrenched monopoly, does anybody know where that is covered in their charter? How does the British public actually benefit from Windows Media and DRM, or more simply, when did public service broadcasting become public dis-service broadcasting?
The problem with this service outside UK is that in a lot countris exists a tight TV policy. At first some TVs were banned to protect TV frequencies, but now there are a lot of political/economic causes to not change the laws.
I don't kwnow how exactly this laws work in the US, but in my country TV channels have a lot of political influence.
So we are not going to see BBC outside UK any time soon.
My city: Barcelona.
It's nice to see that the BBC are going ahead with a pioneering distribution method, but I'm not sure this it the right way.
I can't see how distributing huge DRM-infected files, using bandwidth from the BBC's own servers, that then destroys itself in 7 days is efficient use of resources. Add to that the obvious cost of the delivery technology from Microsoft and we're looking at a potential waste of money.
Of all media organisations, the BBC are in the best place to lead the way with the use of open source technology and "risk" the use of unencrypted files.
Heck, it's easy enough for them to charge those outside of the UK for it too, by offering a proportional "license fee" to them. That would have the added benefit of helping ex-pats too.
Actually I'm a strong supporter of the BBC but this move is highly offensive, adoption of Windows Media and DRM is not in the public interest. I will run only open source applications and refuse to view DRM content on principal. They sould have used VLC and put some more funding into Dirac and theora, something that is in the public interest.
Actually no, it shows that programme makers still haven't moved into the 21st century.
Yes, copyright is held by the ex-BBC employees who (purely coincidentally) get all the contracts. The point I made above holds, the business model needs to change to reflect distribution in the 21st century.
I assume they mean UK proxy users, since you can't really check whether the person is or isn't in the UK.
Excellent. The BBC is making moves to let me, a Licence Fee Payer, get at the content I've been forced to pay for in a way that is more useful to me. Well done.
But can you imagine the arguments that are going on inside the BBC at the moment?
The licence fee is pretty reasonable at the moment (well I think it is) and a large part of that is due to additional funds that are created when the BBC sells DVDs of archive and popular shows. The nice thing about DVD sales is that licence fee payers benefit, because the BBC gets a cut, but also the underpaid BBC talent gets a chance to make some money. The other source fo revenue is global syndication. I simply don't see how this won't cut into DVD sales.
I hope the BBC has the foresight to see that this really shouldn't be a problem. People are used to paying a subscription for TV, let non-uk citizens pay their $17.50 a month and let the money roll in. Sure there will be illegal copies of the shows rolling around bittorrent sites, but thats happening already.
What the BBC really need to do is get into bed with Apple on this. Just open up the archives, explain that it needs to be sold as a subscription ($15 a month has a nice ring to it), all you can eat service and let Apple do the rest.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
"Actually no, it shows that programme makers still haven't moved into the 21st century."
*Shrug*. Well, if you'd like to volunteer to handle the negotiations with the many thousands of rights-holders that the BBC has to deal with, your help would no-doubt be welcome. And I suspect that, if you did, we'd see a BBC iMP in time for the next century - not this one.
"Yes, copyright is held by the ex-BBC employees who (purely coincidentally) get all the contracts."
Yes, isn't it terrible the way that the BBC acts as a training ground for the majority of the TV talent in the UK. And how dare those people who got laid off when the government forced the BBC to outsource much of its programme production actually start up their own businesses to compete for the business. Shameful of them. You'd have thought they'd have just all become IT consultants instead.
"That means that when I dump my TV, I stop paying the license fee."
Strangely enough, that's what you're perfectly entitled to do.
I don't quite get why you don't understand that, without DRM, this service would not happen. While that means *you* miss out - which is your choice - it also means that the majority of people don't miss out on a service that provides real value to UK TV viewers.
"Except they don't compete with anyone, it is amazing that the BBC's long standing culture of nepotism and corruption has managed to produce so many worthwhile programmes."
Ahh, so basically you're one of those people who hate the BBC and will look for any old stick to bash it with? Fine - that puts your previous comments in a little more context. Have you ever thought you might have got the argument the wrong way round - that the fact that the BBC produces so many worthwhile programmes (much more than "free market" ITV) is actually evidence that it's not nepotistic or corrupt? Or would that be using logic instead of your own bias?
And if you think that programme makers aren't in a competitive market, you know nothing about media.
Once a broadcaster starts depending on advertising for revenues, the overriding concern becomes viewer figures, rather than quality of output
Would you say this has happened with PBS? My feeling is that it hasn't, but I'm not completely sure about it.
Ironically, having an overriding concern of viewer figures probably makes more sense if the program is supported by taxes than if it's supported by advertising. If everyone has to pay, then you should try to benefit the most people.
I'd also question your use of "quality". Quality according to whom? Wouldn't the best quality programming also have the most viewers? Or do you think "quality" is an empirical truth to be determined by you?
There's another issue to, and that's with the distribution mechanism. It's not like you can't distribute both a highly viewed, "low quality" show and a less highly viewered, "high quality" show. Yes, you're not going to do this is if the revenues generated by the less popular show don't exceed the costs to create the show, but if that's the case you probably shouldn't be producing that show, no matter how "high quality" you deem it to be.
Don't just grouse on Slashdot about the BBC using license fee payer's money to promote a closed solution instead of developing the Internet equivalent of the open and free for all PAL tv broadcast system. Tell them why making it Windows Media Player only is a bad thing on their complaints site:
e p1.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/make_complaint_st
Make it reasonable and intelligent.
Point out that:
1. Their DRM'd system has considerably less utility than a video recorder at a much greater cost (many UK ISPs have bandwidth quotas). Point out that the utility of the BBC's iMP is so inferior compared to what the pirates offer, it will not help reduce piracy at all - it'll just be a giant waste of license payer's fees to support a crippled service.
2. The EU has convicted Microsoft of monopolistic practises specifically over Media Player - the BBC should NOT be promoting this with license fee payers money.
3. The BBC have developed their own codec. They should be creating an open solution based on this that ALL broadcasters can use - a genuine public service, rather than help consolidating a foreign monopoly.
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Don't look at the BBC as a business. Look at it politically. Think cultural imperialism. The BBC is the outside world's most important window on British culture. Suppose now that they put their programming on the internet for free to the whole world. Bandwidth costs to the BBC, nil: hell, the ISPs of the world would pay the BBC fees for high-speed access to that resource.
That could do for British culture overseas what Hollywood did for America. Of course, if the BBC tried anything of the sort then Murdoch would have a fit and probably order Blair to put a stop to it...
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The BBC is one of the few things Britain can really be proud of, and a lot of that's because it doesn't have advertising.