Because of the nature of how the iPlayer CDN works though, it's going to have that disproportionately-big effect on bandwidth and network usage for the ISPs which has already been highlighted in stories on El Reg and ArsTechnica. ...Which leads me to ask: have any of the ISPs actually contacted the BBC and asked for cold, hard cash yet? I just had to laugh so much when I first read that the service providers were getting into a hissy fit about the potential uptake of iPlayer and all the extra bandwidth they'd need to find, but then I started to worry a little because you know what'll happen is that they'll just QoS prioritise anything BUT p2p iPlayer traffic, bunging it alongside bittorrent, and they'll cap our bandwidth usage to buggery (like they already do on VM). I know that when my connection gets capped on VM after using iPlayer on it, I'll be ringing Virgin and raising HELL about it! Maybe the BBC can finally effect some much-needed change in the ISPs' attitude towards bandwidth and service provisioning? Because most UK service providers have been stalling on that front for years, desperately trying to reallocate and apportion out an insufficient amount of available bandwidth whilst obtaining more and more customers... And they wonder why their churn rate is so high...
_____ From: Jason Cartwright [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 16 August 2007 11:05 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer Protest tommorow, Tuesday 14th, 10:30AM, White City > That will be the fact that less than 1% of the planet's population lives in the UK? YouTube has almost as much UK traffic as bbc.co.uk [1]. bbc.co.uk content is used/marketed/referred to overseas by BBC Worldwide and the World Service [2]. My point was that iPlayer's impact on media delivery system market shares is probably quite small when compared to the plethora on video sites out there (of which YouTube is the biggest). J [1] http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/2007/06/youtube_to_overtake_bbc_i n_uk_1.html [2] Example: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/news/, or go to the homepage and click ' International version'. On 16/8/07 10:34, "Brian Butterworth" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 16/08/07, Jason Cartwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Does iPlayer contain Silverlight? I've not seen anything to suggest it does. What the hell does all this matter anyhow, there is no lock in. The tech is just being used to deliver the content as per spec, which it seems to be doing. Nothing is stopping the BBC ditching MS products for iPlayer at any time with a simple (automatically installed?) patch, right? Seems the anti-DRM protests are misdirected. Why is the yellow jump-suit brigade talking to the people who actually have the power to change it? The rights holders. We've seen rights-cleared videos being released without DRM on bbc.co.uk <http://bbc.co.uk> <http://bbc.co.uk> for years. I don't see anyone hassling Apple - but plenty of people are hassling record labels, and they have gone on to do something about it. Good point. They should talk to http://www.pact.co.uk/ but I guess it's the old "everyone has to pay the licence fee" issue and all the touchy-freely stuff from the BBC management and BBC Trust (in the vein of "it's your BBC") which confuses people. There is clearly a problem now as the Trust supports the management, not the licence-fee payers! I guess people read things like this http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/09_september/28/ microsoft.shtml <http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/09_september/28 /microsoft.shtml> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/09_september/28 /microsoft.shtml> and put 10 and 10 together and get 101 (binary joke!). iPlayer installation numbers will be tiny compared to Flash installations - you know YouTube gets many, many more visitors that bbc.co.uk <http://bbc.co.uk> <http://bbc.co.uk> ? That will be the fact that less than 1% of the planet's population lives in the UK? J On 15/8/07 20:15, "Dave Crossland" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > On 14/08/07, Jason Cartwright <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> The irony is that it probably doesn't matter now. They could now download it >> using their Windows XP machine in DRMed Windows Media Format. >> >> All thanks to our new overlord Bill, and his maniacal scheme to take over >> the BBC from the inside. > > Adobe currently has web video locked down; Apple, Real, Java, Xiph, > and of course Microsoft are all in very niche use compared to Adobe > Flash. Adobe Apollo is a direct competitor to Microsoft Silverlight, > and with the inertia of Flash video and a large group of web designers > already familiar with Flash, plus cheaper a licensing model than > Microsoft, it looks like its in with a chance. The typical Microsoft > response to fair competition is to compete unfairly. > > iPlayer, and a number of other high profile 2007 BBC projects, are > based on Silverlight technology. Highfield's reponse on the Backstage > blog points at the other proprietary technologies the BBC foists on > the public, but these are based on previous technology decisions; the > new stuff is all Silverlight based. > > 100,000 iPlayer sign-ups in a week, Martin? That's 100,000 more > Silverlight installations. Given Microsoft's other major play to > deploy Silverlight is Vista, and we all know how well that's working > out for them this year, its outrageous to me that the BBC has paid > Microsoft _anything_ for forcing license fee payers to install this > key piece of strategic technology for them. Then UK is, afterall, one > of the most broadband-saturated and media-consuming audiences, leading > the way for other nations - Is the BBC likely to open up a > non-zero-price iPlayer to international viewers at somepoint? So this > is a big win for Microsoft's bid to control the next stage of web > development with Silverlight. > > The BBC is committed to shipping a cross-platform iPlayer, and its a > shame that this becomes the sole focus of the reporting on this issue. > An iPlayer for 3 or 4 platforms is 3 or 4 times as worse as an XP-only > iPlayer, because it is imposing DRM on even more people, and implying > that DRM is acceptable. > > When it does ship a cross-platform iPlayer, I expect it will be based > on Novell's Mono Moonlight for GNU/Linux, probably doing the media > codec stuff with the GStreamer framework given that Fluendo, its > sponsor, sells Windows Media Codecs already - > https://shop.fluendo.com/product_info.php?products_id=45 <https://shop.fluendo.com/product_info.php?products_id=45> - and the Mac > OS X one might be Mono or Microsoft based. > > That's going to really help the widespread adoption of Silverlight as > the Rich Internet Application platform of choice. > > In 2007, Google has maintained the dominant position for monetising > search and advertising - of the text web. Their purchase of YouTube > suggested they were serious about monetising the emerging video web, > but the DRM aspects of Silverlight video delivery mean that their > ability to provide search and advertising for web video is going to be > undermined. > > So the BBC hasn't just helped Microsoft pull a Adobe-killer, it's also > helping Microsoft pull a Google-killer. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk <http://backstage.bbc.co.uk> <http://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/[email protected]/
