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BBC Trust to Meet With OSC Over iPlayer
Virgil Tibbs writes "With the Launch of the BBC's iPlayer imminent, the BBC trust has agreed to hear the Open Source Consortium's concerns regarding the BBC iPlayer's tie in with Microsoft's software.
The move by the BBC to use Windows Media DRM & their apparent lack of commitment towards other platforms has caused outrage in many circles and prompted several online petitions."
Does anyone recall any online petition that actually caused change?
``The BBC said they are going to look at other platforms later. They are just making downloads available to the vast majority of the people who paid for it first, this is normal. ''
Normal in that it is common practice, perhaps, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem with it. The problem is that they are (currently, and that's why there _currently_ is a problem) making downloads available only in a proprietary format. This incurs all the problems with proprietary formats, including, but not limited to locking out would-be users, no guarantee of future access to data, and preventing the great capitalist mechanism of competition from doing its work.
Their decision to use Microsoft's proprietary formats puzzles me, because the BBC has often been in the news for actually using open formats, and they used to actually work on an open format and player, themselves. Why did they decide to go for a proprietary format in this case?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Forty-eight minute hours? I doubt it. Episodes of Star Trek and the like run for 45 minutes on the BBC, while half-hour US/commerical programs used to run for 25 minutes, or they'd sometimes fit two in a 45 minute slot.
As a random program I could think of that was about an hour long I looked up Spooks. Season 4 is 600 minutes long. It contained 10 episodes. Give or take a little for them running full trailers and rounding the numbers on Amazon then you're talking approximately 60 minute episodes. Wikipedia lists it as 59 minutes.
Yes the BBC 'advertises' programs, but it's a "coming soon" or "something to watch tonight" for about a minute, possibly two at the most. You're likely to see more of those when their schedule needs padding a little because they're slipping forwards (e.g. it's 5:57pm and so they've got three minutes to fill before the 6pm program should start) but otherwise it's nowhere near as bad as commercial channel advertising.
the problem is once you use Windows DRM you can only ever use windows to decode it. MSFT doesn't allow any form of their DRM to be decrypted on non-MSFT platforms. MSFT has disconntinued windows media player for the mac and the "replacement" flip for wmv is legally barred form decoding windows DRM files.
Once you go MSFT you can never leave.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Did anyone else see this and wonder why Orson Scott Card would meet with the BBC about the iplayer?
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
Don't tell anyone, but we already do. Check, for instance, how many non-British people are posting on Doctor Who discussion forums the day after the UK broadcast.
The issue has nothing to do with FOSS. It's because the BBC is supposed to making their broadcasts available to everyone (a side effect of being a government monopoly). As such, tying the DRM to a single platform is discriminatory. OSS has nothing to do with it.
Anybody can manufacture a device to pick up terrestrial broadcasts. But only Microsoft can make the software required to view internet broadcasts? That's an issue that deserves to be corrected.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON