I bet your siblings don't watch downloaded media on a big, high-quality television set. YouTube and even broadband-bitrate streaming formats just look shockingly bad on a TV screen - the old interlaced sets of yore, whose method of display helped to mask the encoding artefacts to a degree, are increasingly relegated to bedrooms and lofts, with big, flatscreen LCD and plasma sets taking centre stage - and they don't hide _anything_ in the source image. Even when I hook up my laptop via DVI to my parents' modest 22" Samsung LCD (720p, HD Ready) in the kitchen, and sit a few feet away, things like BBC News streams look pretty ugly.
Freeview looks even worse, especially on HD-ready flatscreens - but that's another bugbear of mine. If the BBC _REALLY_ cared about quality, they'd encode to H264 (or my favourite at the moment, x264) - full-blown H.264/AVC as used for BBC HD would be overkill because you need a BEAST of a machine to even play big resolutions back without it falling into a complete heap, but whilst x264 would be great for any HD content (we can only hope!) x264 can also give comparable quality to any of the ASP codecs like xvid or divx and bring in slightly smaller filesizes. And, as there's things like the CCCP codec pack and freely available filters, the BBC could create a simple codec bundle - the BBC Playback Pack, which contained the filters, splitters and codecs necessary and maybe an automated update mechanism which would run whilst you were watching a BBC video to check for updates or additional codecs down the line. And, as a bonus, the more skilled PC users could keep their own codec installs if they already had them set up perfectly, and then just be able to view the high-quality content without having to have the BBC pack installed. It'd be a crying shame - and a missed opportunity - if the BBC don't think of doing something like this and encoding with an AVC codec, at least for any HD content that's planned to be offered eventually via the platform. </2p> > -----Original Message----- > From: James Cox [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: 19 April 2007 01:13 > To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk > Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Archive trial > > > On 18 Apr 2007, at 23:07, Tom Loosemore wrote: > > > > > > > > Shame. I love the idea of digging into blackadder and jeeves and > > > wooster and all the other comedy greats -- but getting them in a > > > format that is at least somewhat representative of their quality. > > > Sucks that I'd have to stream it.... certainly encoding > into divx or > > > mpg would show some understanding of the marketspace. > > > > I'm not sure what you mean when you suggest encoding as divx or mpg > > would show an understanding of the marketplace. It is unfortunately > > not quite so simple. > > > > This is a limited, fixed length trial that will hopefully lead to a > > Public Value Test. Surely then it makes sense to make use > of the BBC's > > existing Real/WM infrastructure to deliver the content? > > > > Hell, if we were going to show some understanding of the > marketplace > > we'd do it all in Flash (which I still hope we do, TBH) > > > > It's interesting; I've got a couple of younger siblings - one young > enough to still be called a teenager -- just. When asking him and my > friends how they're consuming media online, almost all accept > the dip > in quality -- a youtube effect? -- in exchange for the immediacy of > delivery. It's the designers and artists amongst my friends who sit > patiently waiting for their HD versions to download. :) > > What does that mean for the beeb? I think maybe a bit of both: > wouldn't it be nice to open up the archives globally to everyone > using flash in a youtube deal.... but reserving the higher quality > versions for uk natives.... > > - james > - > Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To > unsubscribe, please visit > http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. > Unofficial list archive: > http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
