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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.'"
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?
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One of the things I like about the BBC is they are constantly taking a pounding from people over their coverage. They address criticism very directly, and often. As a result, you can have some kind of faith that they're exercising due diligence and trying to get things right.
The BBC isn't perfect and their coverage has been becoming a bit flashy and sensationalist recently. However, I trust them more than any other news source. I might even go so far as to say I trust them full stop, which must be a rarity in the modern media. If that's the only thing the license fee pays for, it might almost be worth it.
Peter
What about people who don't own computers connected to the internet? Can they get their license fee lower?
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Flash is just as much a proprietary standard as Microsoft Windows (and more proprietary than Silverlight). Unless the BBC commits to using the subset of Flash that has been reimplemented by Gnash and other projects, I don't think it's a big step forward.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
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
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.
I'm both curious and lazy.
Make that table and fill it up for me. I can't find any articles that show any stand-out differences between coverage. I don't even know what we're supposed to be looking for. Basically you picked something that is hard to disprove your side, didn't you?
I also can't find any Greeks who are particularly pissed off at the BBC coverage.
The BBC is hardly a government lapdog; yes, they have strong opinions which sometimes are shared by those in power, but more likely than not, they differ just as strongly, and they can fuck things up for the government too - and sometimes, people even die because of it.
They've been that way for a long time.
During the 1980s miner's strike, they backed the government to the hilt. During the Battle of Orgreave, this extended to doctoring video footage shown on the 9 o'clock news to make it look like the miners had attacked the police, when in fact the opposite had happened. They later conceded a "mistake", but never apologised for having clearly doctored the story for political reasons.
Only a fool trusts news from an outlet wholly owned by a corporation or a state.
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.
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?
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