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BBC's iPlayer To Be Crossplatform
craig1709 writes "10 Downing Street has responded to the petition to open up iPlayer access for those on other operating systems. While the wording is confusing, near as I can tell, they say they will make the iPlayer available to users of those operating systems. 'The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings.'"
Of course it'll be multiplatform. Why, you can run it on XP *and* Vista!
[John Cleese mode=on]
6 months: "Not done yet? Carry on."
12 months: "Still not cross platform? Jolly good."
18 months: "What, no Linux so far? You chaps are putting on a fine show."
And so on
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
If you read the article and related items you will fin that this is NOT NEWS. The prime minster has simply said that it is already being taken care of by the BBC TRUST and that the UK government need take NO ACTION. "They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings." They being the BBC TRUST not the government. AND it a REVIEW not a "in 6 months we will have a cross platform player", its a promise to look to see if anything has been done - no word on any actions that can be taken to force the production of any such player in the likely event of it's non-existence. In short : Convicted Fellon (Microsoft) 1 : License Payers 0 Disclaimer I'm from the UK and this really hacks me off.
The BBC (Microsoft) player wraps everything in Microsoft DRM - VLC CANNOT PLAY IT.
Here's how it works:
...
Month 1
Week 1: Debate which OS/Distro to develop on.
Week 2: Submit recommendations/analysis to superiors.
Week 3: Wait
Week 4: Submission was going to be revised. Resubmit. Hope that it is okay this time.
Month 2
Week 1: Accepted. Determine the priority of the modules to port.
Week 2: Make new test scenarios with regards to the target environment.
Week 3: Buy development pc/server, install the target OS/distro. set it up.
Week 4: Manager decides to do team building at the beach.
Month 3
Week 1: Start to port the code to the new environment.
Week 2: same as Week 1
Week 3: Employees all got common cold.
Week 4: Coding Finished.
Month 4
Week 1: Run Tests and modify code as necessary.
Week 2: Continue testing and make initial builds.
Week 3: Install initail build on test server and demo it.
Week 4: Continue the iterations until an acceptable build was made.
Month 5
Week 1: Had the QA run the build on their tests.
Week 2: QA tests the build and determines if the video would no longer play after a few weeks.
Week 3: QA waiting for the two week expiration of video. CEO resigns.
Week 4: QA test completed, bugs logged, dev goes into cramming.
Month 6
Week 1: QA runs tests as necessary.
Week 2: Management determines product is good even with active bugs.
Week 3: Marketing announces the launch date of the product.
Week 4: Dev copies the exe from his bin...
Month 7
The BBC does not own ALL of the rights for it's programming. A lot of it is produced FOR the BBC by outside parties.
As a UK citizen I acknowledge that the BBC is restricted as to what it CAN provide by those who in turn supply it.
What I do not accept is the "Use Microsoft watch BBC" "Use linux/mac and you are shit out of luck".
Essentially HANDING microsoft a FREE selling point - "You can't watch the BBC on anything else", AND PAYING THEM OUT OF OUR LICENSEE FEE.
Convicted Felon (Microsoft) : 1
License Payers : 0
You think it's wrong to support the current version of the most popular operating system first?
I think it's wrong to use a propriatory format. If they used an open format for the system, producing a "iplayer" application for each OS wouldn't be important.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I think it's wrong to use a format that is integrated into the "most popular operating system" and can't easily (and possibly not legally) be used on anything else.
Perhaps, but the BBC content is free. The DRM exists just to expire the content. Not tat it works, I just crack it with fairuse4wm.
You don't think it's important that everyday people can actually listen/watch the material? How strange.
I do think it's important... how would using an open format prevent everyday people from using the material? Seems to me it would enable _more_ everyday people to use the material by allowing them to use whatever player they are already familiar with rather than having to learn a propriatory one.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
As some other posters have pointed out, this entire debate is framed incorrectly - they're asking the wrong questions.
NEWSFLASH to the BBC from the world
The BBC shouldn't be trying to make the Internet into broadcast television, but turning from broadcast television and using the Internet to distribute, via the channels already available - (XBox, unbox, iTMS, YouTube etc). The future for the BBC is not in broadcasting, but in content production. Unfortunately the BBC Trust has no fucking idea about the internet, and the BBC is not enlightening them. Why not? The BBC doesn't even depend on advertising, this should be a perfect situation for them to lead the way. Instead they're leading everyone in precisely the wrong direction, egged on by the Trust.
People would gladly pay for these shows in the right format. If you don't have the licensing rights to sell online, get them; you seem to manage to for DVDs.
However, this comes into conflict with another requirement here, which is that the BBC's other commitments mean it can't just stick Ogg files of all its programmes on a web site for anyone to download.
I have yet to see any reasonable explanation as to why content delivered over IP needs to be DRM'd whilst the same content delivered over PAL, DVB-T, DVB-C and DVB-S can be delivered unencrypted (and the BBC have actively pushed for this).
it dramatically reduces the market for BBC shows abroad.
This is completely bogus - the BBC can filter by IP address to restrict the downloads to UK residents which would lead to a similar state of affairs as their free to air broadcasts.
Firstly, you already pay the licence fee for the existing facilities. It's not going up significantly to support the new offerings, so you're not losing out.
The money doesn't magically appear from somewhere - this is being funded by licence fee money and that means either the licence will need to be increased or the funds are being diverted away from existing facilities.
I should also point out that the licence fee _has_ increased significantly over the past decade, in part to pay for new services such as the digital channels, increased web content, etc.
Secondly, even if you do, it's not intentional. The BBC distributes vast amounts of content in many media, and almost no-one benefits from all of it. Where do you draw the line on how far they must go to be making a reasonable attempt to allow access to those entitled to it?
No, you're right, I don't access all the BBC's content. However, I *could* if I wanted, without being required to buy specific software to do so. The BBC does not artificially prevent certain groups of people from accessing their other content.
it's not your licence fee that is paying for the content. Licence fees represent a surprisingly small part of the BBC's income.
In that case the BBC won't mind if we abolish the licence fee.
(Note: I'm actually pro-licence fee, but if you're going to claim my licence fee doesn't pay for anything then there seems to be no reason for me to pay it)
If you significantly undermine that revenue stream, we won't need to have this conversation in five years
Noone is suggesting the BBC undermine their revenue stream. All I am suggesting is that they provide the content _to the british public_ in an open format over IP. This really is no different to what they are already doing, which is providing the content in an open format over PAL, DVB, DAB, FM and AM.
copyright exists for a reason
Noone is discussing copyright here. The discussion is regarding DRM. If you have DRM you don't need copyright and if you have copyright you don't need DRM.
some other proportionate incentive to support the system instead of screwing it.
How about the content producers not trying to screw over the consumers all the time. At the moment, illegally copied material is _higher quality_ than the legitimately paid for material, because you don't have to deal with DRM, region controls, unskippable content accusing you of being a criminal, etc. Is it any wonder people infringe the copyright?
But the main problem with copyright infringement on-line isn't the hardcore geeks who can circumvent DRM in their sleep, it's the casual copiers.
I think that assertion is just plain wrong. The geeks crack the DRM and post the un-DRM'd versions on bittorrent trackers. You don't need to be a geek to use a torrent client. If you make the average user jump through hoops, you won't do anything to stop the geeks posting the content in unDRM'd format, but you will push the masses to getting the illegal un-DRM'd version instead of the official one.
http://blog.nexusuk.org