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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."
Is this really your idea of freedom?
5 just 5 good fag
Copuld be Quicktime. Ugh.
How about just "not demanding" it? You are free to "do without" the content... but that's not a concept that today's society understands...
If no one wants it, it will go away. Otherwise, it also looks like a bunch of whinging.
I always thought the BBC player using MS formats was a short-term measure.
Wasn't it called Dirac or something?
liqbase
Maybe the BBC will use the OGG format, which will help to make OGG more mainstream and cause more devices to support it!
OSC = whinny liberal bitches. The same turd buglers who want to ban smoking in private bars and restaurants because smoke makes them cough. 90% plus of consumers use Windows and are therefore likely to have Windows Media Player installed which means using Windows Media is a no brainier. Tools.
If I run a website I'll put content out any damn way I please. This is a load of crap, regardless of who they are and what format they are objecting to.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Come ON you homosexual deviants in Cupertino. QUIT FUCKING AROUND and update your fucking software ever so often. You faggots are worse than Debian...
The OS landscape changing as it is now (not necessarily as fast as we'd like it), this move is valid. Personally I don't like to use Microsoft products, no exception to Windows Media Player on Mac (a bit of a bitch to find and install the proper CODECs).
I like to at least have a choice of media formats available...
Blogged about the BBC's choice of DRM a while back, Could the BBC lose respect over DRM?
ilovegeorgebush
Nothing else to do than poing fingers at a media player?
They're a major source of world news, and someone wants to start a fire because of pure hate for Microsoft?
It's not like they didn't take the time to measure out their options, they're a media broadcasting company for Christ sakes. They've been around a few decades before media player even existed, and I'm pretty sure they're wise enough to decide on their own player even if they needed to purchase it with pocket change.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
The citizens have every right to demand whatever they'd like from their government. You sound like an idiotic knee-jerk apologist for big business who just assumed that the BBC was a private company.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
They should just switch to Real Player, then everyone will be equally (un)happy.
step 1: in soviet russia, step 1 you step 2: over 9000 steps step 2: ??? step 3: Profit
Oddly named bittrollent asks:
Is this really your idea of freedom?
I'm not sure what the question means, but a government agency publishing things in a format that's owned by one company is pushing that company's fortune at the expense of all others. Why should governments cede control of their media and who watches it to a private company, especially a foreign one? People who pay their taxes deserve to be able to watch the results without having to pay the M$ tax.
If there's a problem with software patents involved here, the problem should be taken care of directly. Software patents lead to nonsense like this and should be abolished. There's no justifying the social cost of business method patents, which is what software patents ultimately are.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
They're going to bring a Mac client as well, which means that *everyone* will be able to watch TV. That's how they report the story.
The same way if they will use ANY format, wav, mp3, ogg, fuckit, mp4 or whatever, there is the same posibility to be sued. No format is perfect and there will always people unhappy about the used format. So stop playing games "my daddy is stonger than yours" and stop crying a river and be a man once in your life and let everybody choose the freaking format they want, be it open, close, yellow , sour or whatever they want. Freedom is NOT about what you think is better for everybody. Freedon is about accepting that people are free to do what they want even if it's not the best for the majority. So shut the f**** off. What? You pay taxes and don't want that format? So do I and I don't care in this case. Repeat after me: you are not the only one...
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
BBC: "In order to maximize public value, the BBC must balance extending access to content with the need to maintain the interests of [private] rights holder"
I have asked PBS the same following question:
How do I donate to support public media only. (Not supporting the rent paid for media data that is held in private, and strictly prohibited from public viewing without access fees during the 95 year monopoly)
The point of PBS is becoming unknown to me, with commercials for ADM, Walmart and Microsoft, and broadcasting privately owned works from companies such as Sony.
Anyone know what the public replacement of PBS and BBC is?
Assuming they need to control the content - 'cos otherwise DVD sales etc are dead, hence lost revenue, hence more expensive TV licensing in the UK, ie more tax - what SHOULD they use?
:)
m4v? Um, no.... not open enough
Ogg? No DRM
MPEG? No DRM
WMV? Tried that
Real? PleaseForTheLoveOfGodNoMoreRealSpyware
divx? no DRM?
Not much left, really....
So, OSS fan boi's, enough of the "dont use WMV" - what SHOULD they use? And things without come form of control dont count
Governments, funded by the PUBLIC should put their stuff in PUBLIC format.
and when software patents get in the way, the PUBLIC should demand that law serve the PUBLIC interest. Software patents are bogus and they are the only reason there's a format problem in the first place.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
So here I am thinking that as I am forced to pay towards subsidising Microsoft!!
While using Linux I'll have to download nice mpeg4/xvid copies of broadcast BBC programs via bit torrent. Or even get a digital tuner and start providing my own. This will give me copies of the programs that will not 'time out' on me, are available in full resolution and encoded using DRM free software.
Those among my countrymen who genuinely still respect and understand the principle of the BBC will join me in this. Those that don't will continue to cough up their hard earned for no reason other than the fact that they now have more bovine tendencies in them than any real Brit could tolerate.
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.
UK and ex-pats only though.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/iplayer/
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
for once .. let corporations do what they want.. instead of bitchin n moanin at everything they do...
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 "Enhanced Podcast" appears to be an MPEG-4 container with an AAC "track" and a still image "track."
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
Why not? BBC is actively trying to limit its listening audience it seems. Using a closed format is one more way they can deny people access to their programming:
http://www.savebbc.org/
BBC has pretty much stopped much of its shortwave transmissions.
What of all those who don't even have computers or times when you might actually need the BBC, such as when the power is out, making an internet stream useless?
BBC should stick to shortwave. For news and information, especially in hostile/remote/disconnected areas (where such information is actually NEEDED.)
The BBC supposedly use a RealMedia format for their live streaming radio services too - that doesn't stop me from using VLC to listen to it: So, the question is, are the problems with proprietry formats the publisher's fault for choosing a proprietry codec, or the codec developers fault for not allowing it to be clean-room reverse engineered?
Their our biatch, ;^) nah, we love em.
Regards, Phil
Someone posting AC with good reason speculates:
if there had never been patents perhaps there would have been minimal economic motivation to create the technology that requires the format.
You might as well say there's no motivation to solve math problems. The economic motivation to create moving picture formats is as blindingly obvious as the billions of dollars people spend on TV and movies every year. The "technology" to provide those things digitally is the hardware, software simply tells it how to act and is more like math or business methods than anything else. There's more than one effort to create patent free movie formats, but it's not easy because many obvious methods have been stolen. If it were not for patents, other methods to watch the patented formats would already be available. In fact, they are available in places that don't have insane patent laws. Software patents are parasitic and the BBC's dilemma exposes that fact nicely.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Another poster has already pointed out that WMV is the worst of all available formats, so I'll leave that alone.
what free, open source video format allows you the same DRM protection that is built in to WMP? I really hope you can answer this question, because you can bet that in the production of their content the BBC has entered in to some agreements that will require some form of DRM for redistribution online.
Yet another poster has pointed out that the DRM protection built into the system is perfect, they can't watch anything at all. I really hope the person who recommended this broken technology is ready to apologize and work to fix things because you can bet that working content was part of their agreements.
Finally, we both know that digital restrictions are snake oil, especially for something that's broadcast. If the "official" broken format video is not liberated and redistributed, many other coppies of the same content taken from the air by DVRs will quickly circumvent the problems created by WMV. These solutions will be inconvenient to the taxpaying user, but they will at least work. The BBC would be better off declaring DRM a sham and nullifying all previous commitments. Governments can do that kind of thing, because they are the ultimate keepers of copyright and the public interest to begin with. When the law violates public interests, as it so obviously does here, the law is out of whack and needs to be fixed.
The best solution is to just release the content so it can be enjoyed and shared by the people who paid for it and own it. They could, if they wanted to, release a free software player. They have been working on that for a while and might as well throw patent concerns back across the Atlantic because they don't serve the BBC or their audience.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't understand the logic here. A company has the right to use any service or media codec they want. So why do FOSSies whine so much when a company chooses Windows Media Player or WMV?
The company weighed their choices, and chose MS's solution. So what I don't understand is why companies are allowed to choose Real, they are allowed to choose Quicktime, they are allowed to choose anything else... but why aren't they allowed to choose a Microsoft format or player?
Does anyone know why the BBC didn't end up using Dirac for this project? It's the first I've heard of the iPlayer, but I would have thought their Dirac work would have been perfect for this.
BBC 1 showed an impressive media player demonstration at MIX 07. This is obviously the direction that BBC is taking. By using Silverlight they get the advantage of DRM protected content on all platforms with impressive performance and capabilities. Using Windows Media Player now ensures that content won't need to be transcoded when a Silverlight solution is available.
Windows Media is fine for fucking around in the den on the weekend, if you like that kind of thing. It is not suitable for professional video applications. Whoever suggested BBC use this should be fired and encouraged to switch careers entirely, go run Excel somewhere.
The language of TV's -- TV's not PC's -- is H.264/AAC, if you are making video and you don't speak it, you're not saying anything. You are showing snow on your TV station. This is the replacement for both DVD and VHF.
Blu-Ray, HD DVD, iPod+iTunes, iPhone, PSP, AppleTV, and many other devices can only play H.264, it is in their hardware, they don't have a big general purpose CPU upon which you can run multiple software codecs. Google is transcoding YouTube from H.263 to H.264 for this reason and because that is the standard in professional video.
There are more TV's and phones than PC's and that will always be the case. AppleTV is a next-generation DVD player same as Blu-Ray or HD DVD except the optical drive has been replaced by a Wi-Fi "n" connection and iPhone is the same thing in your pocket, there is no going back now.
By the way, the server software for MPEG-4 streaming is free, open source, very mature, and runs on any Unix or Windows server. MPEG-4 is the standardization of QuickTime so the tools are mature. There is no content tax, there is no streaming tax, the only thing anybody pays for is the encoder and it is dirt cheap. If you're paying Microsoft so that you can not use H.264 then it boggles the mind. Especially when you consider there are more iTunes users than Windows Media Player.
This stuff was standardized in like 2002, BBC should have heard about it by now, there is this thing called the Internet. It's grim to see organizations embarrassing themselves like this, BBC should know what's going on in TV.
MPEG-1 remains the ONLY video standard natively compatible with all of the media players.
Which tells you a lot about how much big software companies care about supporting MPEG standards, while in broadcast they are the only standards that matter.
Those that are broadcast and that you can record with a VCR or PVR?
Those that we, the UK taxpayers, paid to produce?
I do not want the BBC to "protect their assets", as far as I am concerned any company producing work for the BBC should be told in no uncertain terms that programmes will be distributed widely and freely. I am sure many production companies would jump to the opportunity.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.