> But the BS about the biggest market first is... well, true. You must > serve your biggest audience first, but that's not at the exclusion of > others.
The point is that the biggest market, PCs running Windows, is captive to a monopolist which chooses not to support open standards such as MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and MPEG-4 AAC, not to mention Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis. Microsoft makes that choice for an excellent reason, the interest of its shareholders; it wants to favor its proprietary Windows Media 9 format. Microsoft would be thrilled to licence WM9 codecs to every platform there is for $$$, in particular mobile telephony and IPTV, meanwhile preventing implementation in free libre software. If iPlayer had been Flash from the getgo, the biggest single technical target platform AND the second and third biggest would have been served right away, far more quickly, for cheaper, with less drama. But for that matter, Dirac would have been even better than Flash. Codecs could be provided for any platform and would be only a minor nuisance to install compared to the Kontiki client for example. DRM is a separate subject from video encoding. I have managed large-scale deployments and I am aware that hindsight is always better, but I can't agree with the point of view that a publicly funded broadcaster (or a government!) should be held hostage to a commercial company's interests. Microsoft could very well support H.264/AAC, Theora/Vorbis, Dirac, etc. if that was a condition for UK licence fee payers to view online content. There is precedent: the BBC managed to convince Real to make a BBC-specific player, after all. I am convinced that DRM has been the primary criteria for iPlayer technological choices. Although BBC management, software developers, and ordinary users can all agree that DRM is a futile exercise that has got to go, the problem of compensating creators fairly has to be solved. In the absence of a solution, the BBC management because of the PACT pact are condemned to bailing out the boat with thimbles. Sean. - 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/[email protected]/
