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BBC To Create 'Catch-Up TV Player'
grouchal writes "The BBC Trust (a semi independent regulator) has just approved the BBC's efforts to launch iPlayer (no new info on this link yet). This means that UK residents can watch broadcast BBC programs out of sync with the broadcast schedule by up to 30 days for free. The iPlayer will launch for the PC but is expected on Media Center, Xbox 360 devices in the near future. The approval also included some constraints." This would really have made my life a lot simpler when my tivo died a couple of weeks ago.
I should also add that the BBC will also support OS X.
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As a sibling has said, what the hell do you know?
Here in Denmark we have our public TV online already, and that plays on all operating systems, although linux is still playing in a lower resolution than under windows. All it requires is installing mplayer and getting the mplayer MS codecs (they are legal in EU).
Firstly, I think it very unlikely that the current iPlayer mechanisms would/could be be ported to Linux. They're heavily dependent on Windows DRM, which in turn is heavily dependent on the Windows architecture (complete with Windows' methods for detecting debugger operations to prevent DRM bypass). Thus, while the APIs could be replicated on Linux/OS X, the protections would be trivial to bypass. Leaving aside whether MS would permit a porting effort.
OS X probably has a better shot - since you could implement the APIs without much extra paranoia, but use the inbuilt TPM on Intel Macs to ensure the OS and running environment was in a known good state. Since you can't count on a Linux box having a TPM, you can't make reverse engineering of the DRM system more difficult.
For what its worth, the tech guys at the BBC are fully aware of Linux, and it is in their plan to support it via iPlayer. The best way of accomplishing this isn't through technical means, but political. It's important for people to understand why the BBC is using DRM. They don't want to - it just increases running costs and introduces new points of failure into an already complex system. But the programme makers (who are often not the BBC) together with the contracted personnel who produce the programs insisted that any attempt to broadcast content in the clear would count as unlimited repeat broadcast. Which is fine, but it would cost the BBC a fortune to pay out as per contractual requirements. Hence the DRM enforced limitations, which are a sort of contractual enforcement by proxy. A pretty crappy one, but one which the lawyers would accept.
It's a simple problem to state, but hard to fix at a technical level - because there's no real technical problem. Existing contracts for TV works are written in language which predates the Internet and the on-demand style of viewing. Thus, it's always expressed in terms of initial showings, repeat fees, differential media exploitation rates, etc. Recent contracts which the BBC is creating are far more encompassing of alternative distribution technologies. So the final solution is to get far more sane exploitation rights written into contracts, which accurately reflect TV watching habits of the 21st century, and to stop wishing that the Internet and its on-demand modes of use would just go away.
Of course, the ultimate stupidity of all of this is that the programmes are being broadcast in digital form completely unencrypted right now! DVB-T/C/S transmissions spit this stuff out in full resolution (whereas iPlayer doesn't) which a $200 PC card can receive and store the content on a persistent device. It's almost like the the lawyers put their fingers in their ears and sang "Lalala! Can't hear you!" when this gets mentioned.
End result: Build a MythTV box with a Freeview card. You can suck down as many channels as you like and keep it for ever. Transcode to H.264 and a 500GB hard disk will keep 6 months of programming easily.
--Ng