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BBC Threatened Over iPlayer Format
greengrass sends us to coverage in The Register of the Open Source Consortium's threatened anti-trust challenge against the BBC over its use of Windows Media format in its on-demand service, iPlayer. From the article: "The OSC will raise a formal complaint with UK broadcast and telecoms watchdog Ofcom next week, and has vowed to take its accusations to the European Competition Commission if domestic regulators do not act. The OSC compared the situation to the European Commission's prosecution of Microsoft over its bundling of Windows Media Player with Windows."
It seems that the Beeb is concerned about DRM -- it's easy to validate this argument as a content provider if it is not a free service.
What choices are out there if the main concern is vendor lock-in? What "open" DRM alternatives exist?
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Any reason why they can't support multiple formats? How about Flash? Not that Flash is the best solution, long-term, but it does work natively across more platforms than either quicktime or windows media and it is installed on most web browsers.
What would be stupid is to continue supporting the microsoft monopoly and helping them expand it onto the Internet. This is about the long-term quality of computing, something microsoft is a very real threat to.
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Now on the flip side, these are private enterprises and can do pretty much whatever the hell they want in terms of formats, which usually means finding a way to reach the largest audience possible while still protecting the content. But it seems to me that as conventional TV dies, from DVR's and competition from cable/sat channels, they are trying to expand viewer ship and trying to find what works online. I'm not sure anyone's got it quite figured out yet, but are trying.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Have you complained about Radio 1's enhanced podcasts, only viewable on iPods?
If not, why not?
It is after all, a proprietary format, wholly owned and controlled by one company, which is why Creative and MS Mp3 players can't play the content.
The BBC is a multimedia company, experimenting and playing with many formats to see what works, and what is popular. That technological interest from a TV company should be celebrated not whined about.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. --Albert Einstein
The thing is a prime example of bad bad technology. I'm fortunate enough to be a trial user. Only, I've never actually used it. I can't. I've tried and tried but it just doesn't work.
.exe. Firing up the .exe I had to reregister. Multiple times. And got no further. Some days later, an apology email from the BBC explaining that they'd sent the wrong login details.
It started badly - it refuses to accept registrations via firefox (no technology issue - just a browser check which barfs). Once I switched to IE, it let me go further - registration followed by the download of a
So I tried again, and after much mucking about, finally got in. The UI is very very bad - but I navigated to my favourite programme, which claimed it had episodes available - but once clicked stated none. So I went for my second favourite programme - same again. And so on.
So - two weeks after first receiving an invitation to give up; after switching browsers, downloading software, installing it, changing my media settings, registering multiple times, and clicking through a clunky interface multiple times, all to no avail, I gave up.
If the bbc were working in an open way - maybe, just maybe, they'd have access to a wider range of talents - or perhaps competing suppliers and technology platforms - and have delivered a usable product. As it is, we're all subject to two monopolies, who'll slowly and cumbersomely work towards a semi-acceptable solution at great cost. And in doing so, the BBC will help Microsoft maintain its hegemony - remember - it wouldn't let us use Firefox just to register and download the software.... defend that.
However much I'd love the beeb to be using a opensource version of the iPlayer, they have bigger fish to fry right now than this. The BBC Trust process has meant that the iPlayer is incredibly late, considering its been in planning for several years. More legal trouble could mean the Player never leaves beta at all - leaving the BBC even more irrelevant. In addition, each move the Beeb makes is analysed and scrutinised by a jealous commercial opposition who see new markets which the BBC has picked up and feel threatened by a well-funded, well liked public broadcasting upping the benchmark. It never used to be a problem but it has already seen the death of BBC Jam - the online schools service, leaving their education department in limbo - and has meant that iPlayer is not the product that was originally intended. The ability to download a series has been ripped out, for example.
Now the open source movement wants to harass them as well? This needs to stop. In time the BBC will realise that the Kontiki platform is poor, sucks away bandwidth without asking and renders all their material unportable. They can do that on their own terms with consultation from their users - they do not need more legal trouble which will take up time and leave the BBC even more vulnerable. The public corporation is not the for-profit corporation's bitch.
In the iPlayer case, the DRM system is implemented, I think, to prevent non-UK citizens (hence not funding the BBC). The content itself would be, I believe, free. I don't mind the DRM in this case. It should be, however, in an open format (just require the BBC player to play it and make it OS-free).
Take a look at the market for downloadable TV shows. There are two reasons for doing it:
- Time shifting.
- Location shifting.
The former is trivially done with VCRs, DVRs, etc. Now let's look at the second reason. How many people are going to want to location-shift their TV viewing from the big TV in their living room to their computer screen? A few maybe, mainly geeks and students (or student geeks). Now, how many are going to want to location shift to a mobile device?My mobile phone, and any relatively recent phone, can play video. It has a 1GB memory card, which at the resolution of the screen is more than enough for a number of TV shows. I also own a Nokia 770, and an iPod (my iPod is pre-video, but the point stands). Any of these devices can play DRM-free MPEG-4 video. The 770, or a modern iPod would be a great device for putting TV shows on to watch on the bus or train (for example).
The decision to go with Microsoft's DRM is that Microsoft have the largest chunk of the desktop market, but they have very little presence in the mobile arena. There are a few MS Smartphones, and maybe a few Zunes (I don't think they're released here yet, but someone might have imported one). Now, imagine how this landscape would change if the only mobile devices that could play BBC TV for the next two years were those with a Microsoft OS. Where do you think Nokia/Sony Ericsson/etc phones would be if the Microsoft ones could play BBC TV shows but theirs couldn't? What about the iPod? There isn't much legal video content around (the iTunes store in the UK has very little). Releasing BBC shows in a Zune-friendly format would very rapidly mean that there was a lot of (taxpayer-funded) content for the Zune that wouldn't work with the iPod (or any other players).
Microsoft is already being prosecuted by the EU for attempting to use its desktop monopoly to gain a media format monopoly. It beggars belief that tax-payers' money from an EU member state would be spent re-enforcing this monopoly.
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I'd recommend reading this for a good overview of how Windows Media and QuickTime grew out of the muck.
Bluray and HD-DVD will decode VC-1 if the material is encoded with VC-1. Most disks use H.264 because it's a better codec anyway and Hollywood is very skeptical about allowing Microsoft technologies to encapsulate "their" media, so it's lightly used. Most corporations have learned that any agreement with Microsoft is treacherous territory. Given the chance, they'll devour you from the inside and spit out your bones. If you examine Microsoft's history of practically any technology which is inherently interoperable, their constant effort is to distill everything work only on Windows. That's a huge problem which is working against them big time.
Microsoft found itself in a very uncomfortable situation with VC-1. They expected everyone to beat a path to their toll gate when High Definition DVDs were being developed. That didn't happen and they were the only ones who were surprised. What actually occurred was they weren't even invited to the party, so Microsoft found itself in the position of throwing the codec at standards committees, begging for ratification and it still took several years. Microsoft wanted exclusive control over the codec and that was unacceptable to those who understood the way Microsoft would eventually hold the content owners hostage. Microsoft had to provide the source code and define the royalty structure up front - something they've never had to do. This was the first time anything from Microsoft was properly standardized.
Another detractor against using Microsoft technologies was the long history of failed efforts and broken promises from Microsoft in the media business. Look at how often Microsoft has renamed existing technologies over the years because they have always culminated in some sort of train wreck. That kind of technical stability isn't something manufacturers were looking for long term. Manufacturers also had no faith in Microsoft's ability to deliver a secure product. During that time frame, the well known inverse of "Security" was "Microsoft".
The VC-1 codec is separate from Windows Media Player, literally removed from the Microsoft wrapper and offered seperately. Windows Media Player, with the possible exception of corporations which have signed exclusive deals with Microsoft, is shriveling up rapidly in favor of the MPEG4 container and H.264 codec (pronounced "QuickTime"). Many major video portals and hardware manufacturers have started shipping Flash (H.263) or MPEG4 with more on the way. Right now, Windows Media is working along side these technologies where a few years ago it was nearly alone in the field. Eventually, Windows Media may well fall away completely. The most popular format for paid media uses the interoperable and extensible MPEG4/H.264, not Windows Media (the iTunes Store).
The Windows Media Player wrapper is the shell which embodies mechanisms to track your movements, blow advertising at you, restrict your ability to view things as well as a few useful functions. Relatively, QuickTime is the crown jewel of media with far more flexibility than Windows Media could even pretend to have.
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