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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!
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.
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