Bit of a geeky query this one, so sorry in advance if it all gets a bit
technical.
I've noticed since the Local Radio changes to iplayer a couple of weeks ago
that the mediaselector XML that I (and several other sites) use to get links
to Real Audio content that is available on iplayer has changed slightly.
Specifically, if you take an example such as
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/b005h0n9 there are now
multiple <media> sections for Real Audio. It looks as though different .ram
files are now being served up to UK and non-UK audiences (presumably so UK
audiences get the benefit of higher bitrates from Coyopa ?). However the
problem is that it's not clear which <media> tag is suitable for which
audience. Consequently, since my code at the moment just takes the first
<media> node it can find where the encoding is set to real, I'm finding that
I'm serving up UK only links to all users, which is causing problems for my
overseas users.
I can obviously parse each <media> node and look for words such as 'uk' or
'intl', but then I'm at the mercy of those links containing that word in
them. The best solution would be some way to tell which links are suitable
for UK and/or non-UK audiences, but I'll settle for some consistent way of
always being able to identify the non-UK link, as that should work for all
audiences. Any ideas?
I presume also that as MP3 and Flash start to roll out for radio they'll end
up being added to the mediaselector?
Andrew Dancy
Reincubate - accelerating growth of start-up & entrepreneurial businesses
http://www.reincubate.com <http://www.reincubate.com/>
