Slashdot Mirror
BBC Quietly Announces Linux/Mac iPlayer
Keir Thomas writes "When the BBC released its new iPlayer watch-on-demand service, there were many complaints about the fact it was Windows-only — the equivalent of current BBC broadcasts only being watchable on, say, a Sony television. The good news is that the BBC has announced a Flash-based player for Linux and Mac due by the end of the year. (The announcement is buried half way down the page.) The bad news is that it will probably only offer streaming, and not the ability to download programs, like the Windows client has. Quote: 'It comes down to cost per person and reach at the end of the day.'"
wtf is this all about? They already offer rtsp feeds of various programs, downloadable with mplayer -dumpstream.
its NOT "iPlayer for linux" - its flash based player for ANY OS that support flash.
on one hand its not Linux client on the other hand its nice to see cross platform support. I know flash has its detractors but it is ubiquitous and it does work. On the plus side its not Silverlight.
Congratulations to the BBC/Government for listening and well done on at least allowing us to use their portal to view content.
If they did would it fair to close down the market and say "Sorry, you can buy Sony if you want to use the service that you've already paid for"? Don't forget that the BBC is publicly funded, and supporting a commercial monopoly is not in its charter.
The bandwidth question has cropped up again. Given that they are not talking about access to their entire catalogue, but a small (1 week?) window of it - why don't the ISPs put a proxy on their networks so that it is only downloaded once, and the majority of the bandwidth is internal?
Slashdot: where don knuth is an idiot because he cant grasp the awesome power of php
You mean I can watch iPlayer content without that obnoxious bit of bandwidth stealing almost-malware Kontiki crap? Can I do this on Windows as well? Where do I sign up?
Basically, once you install iPlayer it runs a filesharing service - kservice.exe - even after you've exited the program fully (by default it starts on system boot as well). A solution to this can be found here but I am really disapointed in the BBC for installing this crap on peoples machines.
This sig all sigs devours
I don't quite believe the BBC is serious. If the Linux / Mac player has fewer features than the Windows player, then maybe BBC will let people with only Mac / Linux computers at home to pay a lower license fee? Unless the versions are equal in terms of quality I will consider refusing to pay the fee in full. A bit of civil disobedience might be in order.
(note to non-UK readers: every household with a TV has to pay BBC a compulsory license fee of about GBP 120 per year)
The BBC has been required to make a Linux/Mac version of the IPlayer that allows for downloads.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I'm happy the BBC is attempting to get it shows out to as many users as possible..it shows vision and a willingness to embrace the new media & technologies, unlike the some media dinosaurs - but I do have to question (Okay, slightly offtopic), why does it have to be called the
iPlayer
Surely with all the tax money they collect (and yes the license fee is a tax), they could have come up with a more original name for thier online digital video player.
There's no such thing as "sending a stream". Physically impossible.
The only difference between a "download" and a "stream" is whether the person who receives the data choses to save it or not. As far as the sender goes, either the transmit the data or they don't send the data. There is no physical difference between sending a "stream" and sending a download. If the person watching the video tells his computer to save the data, then it is a download. Period end of story. They just have to have their software instructed to save the data.
The idea that you can ever "send a stream"... that something can be "streaming only", it is a total fiction, physically impossible. Yet brain damaged idiots persist in ignoring or fighting the laws of physics. When you get in a battle with the laws of physics, you will always lose and the laws of physics will always win.
Streaming only. Idiots. It'll take about 1.3 minutes after it goes online before people start saving the "stream".
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
This isn't good news. This is the BBC attempting to skirt around its responsibilities to the British public because someone somewhere in the higher ranks has aligned the corporation with Microsoft. Someone at the top has made a lot of money out of this. This along with the BBC losing its objectivity, dumbing down its programming, pandering to the lowest common denominator like commercial TV and ripping off viewers with its phone ins. Something at the BBC has gone rotten.
Hopefully the BBC's watchdog will slap them down in the upcoming 6 monthly review. If iPlayer is not going to be *properly* cross-platform then the BBC shouldn't be doing it. Especially when they want to offload 2000 employees because of a supposed lack of money.
As the Open Rights Group reported yesterday
BBC U-turn: Full iPlayer service may never be available to Mac and Linux Users
Yesterday, the BBC announced that a cross-platform "streamed" version of its on-demand service the iPlayer would be available by the end of the year. According to this report from BBC News Online:
If the idea sounds vaguely familiar, that's because back in March, when the BBC Trust put the iPlayer out for consultation, the Open Rights Group gently suggested that streaming was a far better short term solution to on-demand services than DRM-restricted market-distorting technologies that would serve to widen the digital divide. We observed that:
You can read our full submission to the BBC Trust here. But enough of the I-told-you-so-s. Is yesterday's move good news for licence fee payers who do not use Windows? Well, not really. Although they will now be given online access to content their licence fee has helped pay for, there are still fundamental inequities between users on different platforms, and this still leaves the BBC deforming the market in favour of Microsoft DRM and Windows. People on Macs, Linux, PDAs and other handheld devices are still losing out on all the features that make the downloadable iPlayer different from, say, the kind of streaming that the BBC has done for years with the RadioPlayer.
And that's not all. Ashley Highfield, director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC has now indicated that the full, downloadable iPlayer may never be made available to those who do not use the latest versions of Windows. When the iPlayer launched in June, Highfield was quoted as saying:
But yesterday, he admitted:
The BBC could avoid all this mess if it eschewed DRM and instead employed standard formats. The Open Rights Group believes that the BBC cannot be truly public service in the 21st century until it gives the British public access to the programmes that they have paid for without DRM or restriction. This is not a technology problem, but cuts to the heart of what the BBC is for and how it makes and commissions programming. ORG challenges the BBC and the BBC Trust to re-examine the BBC's commissioning and rights frameworks with th
That's it! I can't take it any more! Every second Slashdot story tries to make something seem more evil and mysterious by saying it's been done "quietly." Now you can be quiet even when you make an announcement?
I should buy some cement.
Now they're pretty much a corporate whore, just like most every other mainstream media outlet. If I wanted to waste my time with crap like that, I'd just watch teevee.
The Tea Party is just the GOP with a bag over its head.
Oh, wait a minute. Maybe the goal is maximum cost per person and minimum reach.
Paid Q&A/Research
So basically the Director General just got a youtube account and thought .. hot-dang-diggity I could just upload all our content here and it'll be just as good (!) as having local files.
I'm assuming that they aren't going to attempt to stream full quality?
Does the MS Windows iPlayer, the one they let the BBC use at the moment, have any torrent-ing ability to reduce the infrastructure demands of a few hundred thousand people downloading a giga-byte file from the BBC servers?
It's a perfect application for torrents I'd have thought given the time-limited availability and the mass appeal.
Good news, nice to see the trust appreciates the issues.
complaints about the fact it was Windows-only the equivalent of current BBC broadcasts only being watchable on, say, a Sony television. Yeah, if 99% of televisions were Sony. Not denigrating the move, but it's a lousy metaphor.
>then sit through 10 minutes of ads for 5 minutes of program
The BBC don't have ads... that's their biggest plus point IMHO, especially given that ITV et al have said they are going to increase the amount of advertising per hour to something similar to US TV and we all know how shite that is.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
If you want unencumbered BBC programming, It's readily available for download via Bit Torrent or the news groups. Most of the popular shows are available. Watch it on any platform you like including your DVD player. This is a non-issue.
Why the hell do web sites not just provide downloads in standard formats.
Embedded, streaming video in any format is evil. I want to view video in the player of my choice that I trust to be secure (for me), and to view it in that player at the size of my choice not the size you chose to embed it in the web page.
Flash video sucks for exactly those reasons. Yea.. I know it can be downloaded too, but why have to bother with it? Just encode it in MPEG4 and offer it for download. Users will be much happier in the long run.
Oh yea.. forgot, no one cares about the users.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
Incidentally, there are a number of open media streaming and download platforms supported by both Windows & Linux so the BBC should, from the outset, have looked at this from a totally platform neutral and Open perspective.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
A potentially good article was spoiled by a crap metaphor.
The info is in the 3rd paragraph, not buried half way down the article.
The BBC is also looking to being able to have users download content onto mobile devices over wifi, which is what the main jist of the article is about.
For those of you outside the UK, you can still obtain the content if you redirect your initial registration & download initialisations through a UK based proxy. Then you can download the content from the USA (like I do when I'm working at the US office and not at home in the UK)
And, if they own it, cant they therefore just release it as downloadable MPEG video files? (that you can only download if you have a license)
Last I checked, the BBC own Dr Who, Red Dwarf, Antiques Roadshow, a whole pile of sitcoms and dramas produced by the BBC over the years, a large archive of BBC produced news content not to mention all the BBC radio content.
The original iPlayer was Windows-only because of the DRM component, which depends for its "security" on the user not having access to the Source Code (which would show how to decrypt the data and put it to other uses beyond what the program was designed to do). Whereas Linux depends for its operation on the user having access to the Source Code (since programs must be compiled for the specific environment in which they will be executed).
So why not move the DRM into hardware? Have a device which plugs into the PCI bus. You feed it a stream of Windows DRM-encumbered data, and it spits back decrypted data. The interfaces to the outside world can be fully documented; "place data on the low-order bits of D-bus and assert IORQ*" or "an interrupt will be generated when data is ready to read from the output buffer" sort of stuff, which would allow anyone to implement a driver for any machine architecture and OS. The only mystery then is what is going on inside the silicon.
This should work with any processor (assuming enough I/O bandwidth), take some of the load off the CPU and be much more secure since the computer's main processor is not being expected to run unaudited code.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I watch British TV, not in Britain though. I refuse point blank to have any Sony products in the house. So do quite a few people I know. Too many pieces of intelligent electronics that may get infected if attached you see. So if forced to watch TV on a Sony brand product I think I'd probably just stop watching TV altogether.
threadeds blog
As anologies go this is seriously inaccurate, "the equivalent of current BBC broadcasts only being watchable on, say, a Sony television". More correctly it should read along the lines of "the equivalent of current BBC broadcasts NOT being watchable on, say, a Hanns-G televisions. Not wishing to cover old ground but Windows users are by far the majority of those likely to attempt to access this content.
The BBC used to do most stuff in house and own the rights etc. Since the government have been forcing them to work to a budget, plus with the need to move in to web, digital, HiDef and other media, they have slowly moved to getting most content from third parties to cut costs although it often says 'BBC' at the bottom. Said third parties licence it to BBC but may restrict it in various ways so just because it says BBC, doesn't mean it's available for everyone in every way.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
"It comes down to cost per person"
Actually it comes down to cost per license payer - that's a big difference.
You do realise that there are no adverts on the BBC, right?
The BBC seems a bit out of touch if they think that Flash isn't downloadable.
In any case, it is hard to understand why they don't simply make the stuff available as MPEG4. But, hey, maybe their audience will do it for them.
I wasn't saying whether it was right or wrong, just pushing my finger through the big gaping hole in the analogy. But, hypothetically, if NTSC (US style) TV sets were a small percentage of the market (5-10%) and PAL (European style) sets were the other 90%, I don't think it would be unreasonable for BBC to devote more resources to the PAL viewers. I say that as I write this on a Mac.
I think the issue was that many of the BBC programs have international partners and investors, not just total BBC ownership, and these partners distribute the programming in their own countries. Apparently the partners were concerned about the profitability of the programs in their own country if they were too freely available in the UK, and thus are insisting the BBC use DRM.
"only being able to watch on a SONY" isn't exactly right...
The more accurate analogy is that of transportation. You can have a wagon, a train or a car. Your car can be made by Dell, HP, etc. A wagon can ride on rodes but slowly. A train can't really run on roads -- it needs special tracks (enabling software). Legacy browsers are wagons. Windows PC's are cars no matter who makes them (and their is a wide variety of manufacturers very much like cars). Trains are the Macs and Uni and Lini of the world.
No it doesn't. It comes down to you wanted DRM and went with Microsoft.
Why they chose this option instead of going with podcasts on iTunes is beyond me.
Whatever the merits of the of the eventual player released for Linux (and Mac) this announcement hasn't been done quietly. Looking at news.bbc.co.uk the story is one of the big three stories in the technology section of the site - how much bigger do you want the annoucement to be?
Like it or not this story is only of interest to a small number of people compared to the whole population. As such I think it is asking a bit much for it to get front page space on one of the most visited news sites on the web. A little perspective is needed here I think.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
"the equivalent of current BBC broadcasts only being watchable on, say, a Sony television"
Not really. While I'm in full support of Linux. all of us Linux users have to think about this from a cost-per-customer business model. The reality is, there are a lot of people who don't own Sony televisions. In contrast the last statistics I heard, 96.09% of desktop systems worldwide run Windows of some flavor. With Apple only having 2.47% and Linux with 0.36%. Now, while the numbers may be off slightly even being able to reach 90% of your customer base through Windows is better market penetration than most companies ever hope to achieve. While I think it's great they will release a Flash version as well, statements like the Sony one above are poor reporting and simple fanboy hype.
Flame On.
While I strongly agree that the BBC ought to support the needs of Linux/Mac users, I have to point out that your being a license payer doesn't mean they have to.
At the moment, the license is only tied to the TV (and possibly still to the radio?). So long as they aren't denying you access to televisual services, they have no duty to you in terms of other media so long as it meets the approval of their governing body. Your money might be going on those services, but you're not directly buying them, no contract exists stipulating the BBC must provide them.
In the past, people have argued that they should pay less since they don't watch certain programmes or listen to certain shows and each time this argument fails on the principle that the BBC are offering a service and can support minority interests which otherwise would have no outlet using money collected from the majority. This is arguably a similar situation, where the BBC is trying to push technological boundaries and make it's service more widely accessible. Obviously in this case the governing body have decided that it is wrong to not support Linux/Mac users, but had that decision not been made the BBC would have had no duty to do so.
I pay > £120 for my TV licence - and live in a major city. If I lived in the middle of nowhere I would receive the same TV shows for the same price. Yet the "cost per person" of delivering TV to remote ares is far higher.
For that reason the "cost per person" argument doesn't wash. As a public service broadcaster with a good history of technological innovation the BBC *should* be providing the same services to people who don't want/can't afford to use windows.
echo $SIGNATURE
You must not forget all the money the BBC makes on flogging DVD boxsets off all it shows. When is the last did you watched a decent BBC show that didn't try and flog an accopaning book, t-shirt, DVD Boxset, and Coffee Mug?
Can't very well get rid of that little cash cow now can they?
It's not in the interests of the BBC to specifically target people who have no television. Indeed, it probably goes against their remit to do so (I remember the furore some time ago about the BBC providing online services outside the license-paying countries).
While it makes sense for commercial entities to take the lead in this area (since this is undoubtedly the way the world is moving and the early movers stand to make the most financial gains), the same does not apply to the BBC. As the Beeb is not ad-sponsored, it doesn't need to be so proactive in protecting its market position. It has a guaranteed revenue source to generate new programmes with less of a reliance on those programmes generating increased audiences, so it can afford somewhat to be a late-comer to this new distribution channel.
Here you go, thought you might like this too whilst you're at it.
This is a good balance which should make everyone happy, even though (sadly) the group complaining is impossible to please.
Also, it's not like "only a show for Sony televisions", it's actually the opposite. Of desktop users accessing the internet, about 2.5% use OS X, and about 1.5% use Lunix: these stats aren't entirely accurate, so I erred on the side of being generous. So that's a total of 4% of all computer users on the planet.
Does it really make good business sense to spend much money on thta 4%? Especially since NOTHING you can do for that 4% will be appreciated or good enough? No, of course it doesn't.
The Windows Media codec is the best on the market, and Microsoft's applications make it easy on the organization implimenting their solution. So why should the BBC be hampered in their efforts, just to serve the 4% of the market which has an irrational grudge against an operating system, of all things? It's an OS, it's not a lifestyle... despite what Apple and IBM's marketting campaigns, and Stallman/Slashdot's FUD campaign, might have you believing.
Besides, there are plenty of other examples of public services that have perfectly good reasons to lock their own subscribers into expensive proprietary solutions, such as... um...
iPlayer offers other programs.
But at a price. I went to try it out the other day, having inadvertently deleted a program from my PVR before watching it. As always, I scanned the small print before installing new software, and this is what I found:
Assuming that I understand the agreement correctly and that it is legal, by installing the current version of iPlayer you agree to:
In other words, you agree to them doing anything they want on your machine and your network, specifically including using it as a distribution hub for transmitting potentially illegal content to and from unknown users while being monitored, at your expense, without any responsibility on their side and with full liability for any illegal activity resting on you.
Now, the BBC is usually a pretty decent organisation. They don't get things right all the time, but on the whole, I think they do a good job, and I don't think they're the kind of organisation that would deliberately try to screw people. But tell me, what person in their right mind would agree to the terms for using the current iPlayer software, with today's legal and file-sharing cultures?
If the new version is streaming, Flash-based, and otherwise no-questions-asked, then as far as I'm concerned, it will be a huge improvement for Windows users as well... not least, because you won't be opening yourself up to a wrecked system, unlimited bandwidth charges, and an expensive lawsuit, just for clicking "OK". I might even be able to use it, which as a licence fee payer would be nice.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
>You must not forget all the money the BBC makes on flogging DVD boxsets off all it shows
They do make some money but a large chunk goes (usually) to whoever made the prog on their behalf. Also, despite selling lots of stuff abroad, the price they charge is minimal (no idea why) compared to what a US program would cost.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
"Linux" covers a multitude of sins... Which architectures exactly does the new Flash-based iPlayer support? (Given my own negative experiences with the amd64 Flash plug-in for Firefox, I suspect the answer is more or less just "x86".)
I'm fairly sure other TV networks are finding out that more and more people use their TV (provided there's one existing at all) as the display frontend for their content, stored on a linux box.
I'm fairly sure if you believe that, you need to be institutionalized.
yup, baird vs emi system (the bbc supported EMI, that's evil )
It's funny that they switched from one closed source unaccessible technology to another. Flash is just barely linux compliant- even Silverlight will likely beat it in interoperability. If they want to use Microsoft's technology solutions, they should use Silverlight, so Ubuntu users will at least have Moonlight.
Why not -- if you have the source code, and it is reasonably
portable (say POSIX) then you should have no problem compiling
it for your platform. The 8MB of memory might be a problem, I
doubt that that is enough: as a VMS user I would have thought
you would be clued up to that.
Of course, if you are a spineless Win-shill then you wouldn't be
expected to, you'd be too busy wiping Balmers's sperm from you lips.
That's allright. I'll fix it. ; )
OH YES YOU CAN, stop thinking that video is .avi you moron. It all depends on the video container. Some allow playing right from the start (mpg). In fact if you got a non-crap video player EVERY video can be played without it being complete, the only thing that doesn't work in forinstance avi is skipping forward.
I used to use this plenty of times back when I had a backbone for an internet connection, streaming avi from FTP, oh yeah, life was good back then.
Oh and if windows still refuses to open a file you are downloading, get a proper OS.
With bittorrents MPG's can even be viewed if have just one large enough segment.
Video can't be viewed before they are fully downloaded, geez, new much?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In my industry, we have a demographic sample representation of most households for which we maintain a list. We know what browser, OS, connection speed all of our panel is comprised of. Believe me, Mac use is barely a blip when you take a balanced sample. This has been true in the mac world for years, only popular PC games get ported, and usually some time later, Tivo supports the PC side of it's server software first (video came to Mac a long while later), SlingMedia developed their Mac player almost last (and it's still in Beta as far as I know)... What makes this so unusual?
www.wildpad.com
i wonder if miguel "microsoft" de icaza and his cronies [1] are faster than the gnash [2] ppl.
also, this is not cross-platform. java would be. any free software could be ported.
flash is proprietary evil and places everyone who wants to see BBC content at adobes will.
it's a bit like "IA64 ? sorry, but no.".
with free software, this wouldn't happen.
[1] http://www.mono-project.com/Moonlight
[2] http://www.gnashdev.org/
PAL TVs can support NTSC broadcasts, but not the other way around. So in that case, it'd be better to broadcast in NTSC so that everyone gets to watch. Better yet, you could broadcast in HD and only have to have one standard, but that wouldn't be feasible until everyone has a digital tuner or HDTV (not exactly sure on the details in watching HD on a standard definition TV, but you could at least broadcast digital channels).
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I have a Mac and can't watch most of the tons of publicly funded content on PBS.com, from kids programs to Frontline or science shows. Shame on PBS! I'm not donating any money to them until they correct that biased policy.
Not only does the iPlayer infect your Windows PC with the Verisign Kontiki P2P client, the EULA states that you are personally liable for all bandwidth costs. The iPlayer contains no throttle or control over what you upload, which leaves you a sitting guinea pig.
I swear you guys make things worse than they really are. And then you believe yourself.
"the equivalent of current BBC broadcasts only being watchable on, say, a Sony television"
What if the Sony television was $19.95 or even free?
The UK already received the programming via TV. Receiving it a SECOND time via web should have some expense. When you by a hardbound book to expect the store to give you a paperback book for free?
I am a Mac user and I even think the Mac - especially Linux - argument is pretty lame when their market share is so small. Its a waste of money to program for these platforms.
If anyone is to blame in this equation its Microsfot for not making their DRM available on these platforms.
PAL tvs can support NTSC signals, but they look like dogshit, kinda like they do on an NTSC set actually.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
and I know this is a radical idea.. but bear with me..
Make the thing cross platform from day one. No extra resources. One system for everyone, and the system only has to be created and debugged once instead of two or more times. Instead, the beta tested with the largest sector of the market. Still.. should be interesting to see how much traffic they get.
From all reports, the Microsoft based client is buggy, difficult to set up, and is a bandwidth hog. Some of this may change between now and when they launch it on the public, but don't bet on it. Interestingly.. In the UK, where fixed download limits are common, how many people are going to sign up and not realise that it is a peer to peer system, so while they are downloading, others are downloading from them.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
Look. I know it's bad form. But I submitted something yesterday that made this clear. And I don't normally, so as it is my first time ever... I'm sulking that my submission was rejected. Pah! it was much better than this shit. and my mum would agree with that (probably)
http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl?op=view&id=332447
Chris
(never posting again. Ever. Stupid slashdot, I'm going to read http://www.kuro5hin.org/ - for at least a day. and then come back. again.)
You will forget this sig before you next see it
There's nothing about PAL that makes it able to play NTSC, and nothing about NTSC that makes it more or less able to play PAL.
What you probably mean is that it's very, very common for PAL TVs to be dual-standard, while it's quite uncommon for NTSC TVs.
The set-top-box/tuner just needs to have a little more horsepower to decode the HD video (compared to standard-def) and it can easily output it at any resolution, in any standard, and to any connector type you could want. That is how ALL digital TV tuners in the US work.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
PAL and NTSC are locked into 1/2 the frequencies of their terrestrial power.
PAL is euro power of 50hz or 25 full frames / sec.
NTSC is power of 60hz, but with some slight timing issues this ended up as 29.97 full frames / sec.
Since NTSC countries record TV programs at 29.97 and EURO zone TV programs record programs for 25fps there is an inherent problem with requiring either one of the other group to finalize on a different standard. The end result is something that just doesn't look right. The 'better' compromise would be to force support for both standards going ahead in the future or drop both standards and use film's standard 24fps =)
Bye!
Not at first. They did run both systems alongside each other for long enough to make an informed choice. In the end I think it's the tanks of dangerous chemicals, fire risk and waste that won the day. Not a commercial deal.
-1 not first post
It was 'The Trust' that demanded the BBC use DRM in the first place, please don't praise them! :)
Mod Down this...
slashdot is not a place for reinforcing racist attitudes.
www.tdobson.net #### Dare to Dream #### blog.tdobson.net
Why should we Amiga users be left out in the cold? We, the both of us, pay taxes that go to the BBC too!
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Maybe making a Windows-specific version that would serve 95% of the public was cheaper than a cross-platform version to get that extra 3% (I don't say 5% because there are still those that use neither Windows nor Mac nor Linux). Ever think of that, Einstein?
BBC said that Windows provides functionality that the other platforms don't, and they wanted to make use of that functionality as it would lower costs and would enhance the experience for there 95% Windows user base.
Mac and Linux users do pay BBC taxes, but the Windows users pay a collective 20 times as much. On a cost per user basis based on the taxes that are collected, the Windows client costs much less than does the Mac/Linux client. What BBC should do is charge on a per user basis, the cost it takes to create a client for a specific platform. Each Mac user would end up paying 20 times as much as a Windows user, and each Linux user would pay 10 times as much as a Mac user, but that would only be fair. As it is, Windows users taxes are going to pay for Mac/Linux client to a much greater extent than the reverse.
"From all reports, the Microsoft based client is buggy, difficult to set up, and is a bandwidth hog."
Bullshit. *All* reports say that, or only the ones you are predisposed to believe?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
This is what happens when you get into bed with Microsoft.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Highfield (Director of Future Media and Tech at the BBC - responsible for the iPlayer plan) is receiving substantial kickbacks from MS. He lies to the public and the government; he has no respect for many of the BBC's primary values, or the BBC Trust, non-Windows users... I could rant on this subject for hours but I get too worked up about it.
See this:
"The only thing that might stifle innovation would be the process of approving new services because that can take a long time. With BBC Trust approval framework for new services, we won't always be able to be number one"
Clearly, to Highfield, BBC Trust is just an irritant; an obstacle to navigate. More choice quotes here
"...[Apple's] proprietary and closed framework for digital rights management gives us headaches [but] it is one of our top priorities to re-engineer our proposed BBC iPlayer service to work on Macs."
Er, it's Microsoft's proprietary and closed framework for DRM (upon which the iPlayer is based) that is giving them headaches. At least the iTunes Store is multi-platform!
By adopting MS DRM, Highfield made the wrong decision from the outset and now he's stuck because he's blown his budget on MS proprietary, single-platform technology and the BBC Trust are wondering where the promised Linux and Mac clients are. When the Christmas deadline comes and goes with no satisfactory solution, we should start a new petition to the BBC Trust to have Highfield removed from his position.
Or do what I did when I got a couple PAL DVDs here in the states. 89679 to avi, convert to whatever at will.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
I would argue that the licence fee was (counterintuitively) their biggest plus point. It gives them editorial independence which, while imperfect, is the reason they are able to be critical of those which would normally be able to influence them - chiefly companies and the government.
If all you have is a grenade, pretty soon every problem looks like a foxhole -- MightyYar
You mean in the "if there aren't ads every five minutes when will I find the time to pee" sense I guess? Well, you are supposed to watch the ads, dammit!
Does this mean the BBC can apply a little pressure on Adobe to release a 64-bit version of the flash player for Linux?
is it proprietary? yes, thats bad.
but, is it on most browsers in the world? yes, and the plug-in is free, and thats good.
thats what I mean by ubiquitous. you wave a magic wand to remove flash and many/most of the big name websites (youtube, facebook to name two) have problems. as of June 2007 Flash was on 99.3% of desktops (source: wiki) - if that is not ubiquitous then I will eat my metaphorical hat along with a sizable portion of humble pie.
I did not claim it was the best solution, or even a good one - but it is a solution that certainly has coverage and is ported across most platforms. that is why it is a big step forward from the BBC, and I applaud them for it.
when there is a similar GPL system installed on >95% of browsers world wide you can be sure I will be celebrating, but for the time being I make do with what I have.
No adverts? Have you watched the BBC recently. There's about a 10 min. break while they tell you about the latest celebrity dancing show. Offer you a magazine (other magazines are available!) or a website to look at. Tell you what's on the 15 (? yes it's hyperbole) other BBC channels you can't view. Show you an infotainment-ad for digi boxes. Then they'll show a teaser/trailer and won't even tell you when it's going to be on (yes they think they're a commercial station, morons). Then to cap it off they show some (great looking but completely superfluous) video artwork of hippos or something.
... get orf my lawn!
What I want to see is a list of programmes coming on next, this should be read out; sidebar with programmes on maybe 3 other channels and then perhaps a 30s teaser with details of exactly when it's going to be on the TV. Follow that with an announcement of the current program, series, episode. Then instead of all the hippos and flashy commercials they can spend the money on other public resources in the entertainment arena like libraries, sports centers, etc..
You'll be telling me next it's all just high quality thought provoking programming.
Some highly educated idiot at the Beeb thinks they have to compete as the lowest common denominator. So they now spend the license fee on over-paid presenters, ripping off other peoples reality TV ideas (like how to steal from your viewers in competitions!) and advertising for the National Lottery.
Lastly
Which is a SUBSET of Linux.
I wasn't aware Sony made 75% of all the TVs in the world.
I frankly don't see the problem here. Ethereal -> Packet capture -> Follow TCP stream -> Save raw -> Vi to edit out HTTP headers -> Horray!
flash is P2P?
So out of the 95% or whatever Windows is reputed to be right now..
Remove the business users who will not be able to install the iPlayer client,
then remove the considerably large number who are still on dialup, so will not be able to access the service,
and finally remove the percentage of users who can't be bothered either way.
Then do the same with the flash based player users, except you may have to re survey the business users, as some will be ok with using flash from work. And as most people already use flash, providing it isn't a customised player, they have also less effort involved should they wish to use the service on a casual basis.
And you have a considerably smaller market with an unknown ratio of Windows to everything else. It would be very interesting to see what the figures are after a few months of use. Especially the figures for flash versus the customised player. "From all reports, the Microsoft based client is buggy, difficult to set up, and is a bandwidth hog."
Bullshit. *All* reports say that, or only the ones you are predisposed to believe? All I have seen. I haven't gone out of my way looking for reports on the service, as I am not particularly interested in it, so most I have seen are little snippets in other forums, magazine articles and the like I have come across. But I have yet to see an article that says anything positive about it. If you can find me several reports (I tend to be sceptical about single articles) showing how easy the player is to set up, how economic it is with bandwidth due to the codec that the BBC and Microsoft have chosen to provide the media in, and how good the quality of the video is once it is downloaded, I will quite happily admit my ignorance and apologise.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
My mistake. I assumed that upload and download were counted by default.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
If you have something to say, say it, most people don't have time to play your mindfuck games....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Only two are Windows.
Most are Linux. Two are Macs.
And a friend of mine watches the BBC TV shows that show there online (she lives in Seattle, and watches shows they don't show on BBC America).
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It is nothing close to the 10 minutes you are mentioning.
Go on, watch in hand check it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Since Margaret Thatcher forced the BBC to comission work from private producers (a good thing) these producers demand all kind of controls (DRM, copyrights, etc) on the material created.
The people in the BBC simply do not have the spine to tell them and fsck themselves, they are affraid to say to a producing company to go and do work elsewhere if they don't assign all copyright to the BBC.
But maybe this happens because BBC insiders are buddies with people in the productions companies and thus would never dream of demanding such things.
And we the public? Very well, thanks.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.