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."

Comments

Re:Other ways of handling it...

[SkunkPussy]

The problem is that I pay for the content via my TV licence, and I don't really like the idea of paying for a delivery method that is inaccessible to me.

(ahem posted from IE6 in windows - at work, honest!)

Glad to see this.

[anubi]

Governments, funded by the PUBLIC should put their stuff in PUBLIC format.

Re:What BS

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

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.

I see, and do you happen to be an elected government that pays for running that Website by collecting tax dollars from the people (at gunpoint if need be)? I didn't think so.

Re:The beeb is a GOVERNMENT AGENCY

[jacksonj04]

Nope, the BBC is *not* a government agency (At least not officially). It's supported by a complex system of licence fees and laws from the government, but it is not in itself a government/public agency.

No, and that's what the complaint if for.

[twitter]

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.

Re:No, and that's what the complaint if for.

[TheRaven64]

I wrote a letter to my MP about this, which was forwarded to the relevant cabinet office, and I also complained directly to the BBC. I will not be renewing my TV license the next time around either (I don't watch much TV, but until this decision, I felt it was worth paying for the other BBC services that don't legally require payment, but from which I derive value). Why do I object?

Take a look at the market for downloadable TV shows. There are two reasons for doing it:

1. Time shifting.
2. 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.

Needs to go further.

[twitter]

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.

Re:Other ways of handling it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Encryption usually works on cryptographically sound principles, like not including the key with the ciphertext. Obsfucation is the only reason DRM is at all effective, and that disappears with open source.

It's closed, and it's broken

[gjuk]

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.

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 .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.

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.

Re:Other ways of handling it...

[makomk]

Freeview is broadcast using DVB-T, an international standard. You can get receivers from a number of different companies from about £30 up (or hard disk based recorders for a bit more), it's built into many high-end TVs, and there are several different available receivers to watch and record it on a PC. Sure, you can't watch it on a normal TV without extra hardware, but it's cheap, probably due to having actual competition.

The iPlayer, on the other hand, requires you to watch the programs on one piece of software running on one operating system produced and sold (and not cheaply) by a single company. Sure, it's currently, the most common operating system, but the two things are not comparable.

I'm not sure what the "enhanced podcasts" are. I think they're .m4a files of the stuff already available as MP3 but with added chapter markings and images. I don't see any technical reason why other players couldn't convert them to a format they support, though I'm not sure how many actually have the correct features...

Re:So what SHOULD they use?

[asuffield]

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

The BBC already broadcasts their programming, in MPEG-2 at more or less DVD quality, unencrypted, over the public airwaves, all over the UK - in the form of digital terrestrial television. This is their primary reason for existence. There is no sight or sign of DRM anywhere near it. It is utterly trivial to record this with a computer and DVB capture card, hardware which is cheaply and widely available. Most popular BBC programmes are already recorded in this fashion and posted on thepiratebay.org within 12 hours.

This is the same content that they are now releasing onto the internet. It is quite obvious that if they didn't need DRM to broadcast it over radio in the first place, they don't need DRM to broadcast exactly the same stuff again over IP. It is further obvious that the simplest thing for them to do would be to use exactly the same codec that they are already using. There is no apparent reason why they should suddenly propose a far more limited and ineffective system just because the carrier system is IP rather than radio.

It is pretty obvious that Microsoft is involved in this one somewhere, and that's almost certainly illegal.

No amount of DRM on the IP version is going to have any effect at all on the material available on TPB, because all the content is already on the net and will continue to be posted there from the digital terrestrial broadcasts (no proposals are currently being made to post any of the BBC's considerable archive of material on the net, only some of the things which are currently being broadcast). The quality is better in the terrestrial broadcasts than in the iplayer system anyway, so iplayer is never going to be used as a source for TPB when the far better DVB version is readily available. The entire proposal is retarded: they are seriously suggesting a service which is lower quality, less convenient, and already less popular than TPB, with DRM crippling thrown in just to make it entirely unwanted. It's a complete waste of time and money, because everybody with an interest will just keep using TPB instead.

Indeed, what BS

[Foerstner]

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."