RE: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Christopher Woods]

Calm down dear, it's only a mailing list.

What's wrong with discussing the (faint) possibility that it may happen
(though most likely won't) in the future? 

> -Original Message-
> From: Stephen Deasey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: 01 August 2007 23:28
> To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting
> 
> On 8/1/07, Christopher Woods <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > With regards to worldwide takeup, I too thought the iPlayer was a 
> > UK-only thing, but I've heard rumblings about it becoming a 
> paid-for 
> > service outside our borders in the future (I know of no ETA 
> though). 
> > Don't know as to the authenticity of that, maybe a BBC bod 
> could give me the partyline on that?
> >
> 
> What are you, some kind of conspiracy nut?
> 
> Just because it makes no sense to wrap programmes in junk-DRM 
> when higher quality, unencrypted, unrestricted versions are 
> beamed directly to convenient digital recording devices in 
> houses throughout Britain, don't get confused and think it's 
> just a scheme for bbcamerica.com to expand their VOD market 
> using the web.
> 
> Because it's not!
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Dave Crossland]

On 01/08/07, vijay chopra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 01/08/07, Dave Crossland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > On 01/08/07, vijay chopra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > > I'm not advocating eye patches and peg legs here, but personally I don't
> see
> > > a moral difference between getting something that's available on demand
> free
> > > from iPlayer via other means. That could be a PVR, or it could be
> getting it
> > > from a torrent.
> >
> > The moral difference is in the restrictions. A file from the iTunes
> > Music Store that you can only play with Apple's proprietary software
> > is unethical, even if the copy you obtain was via bittorrent.
> >
> > Similarly, there are many PVRs that are restricted so you can't, for
> > example, copy the files to your laptop to watch them on the train.
>
> DRM may be annoying, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it "unethical";

Its not ethical to restrict people from doing things that they are
used to doing with equivalent technologies, that are legal to do, and
things that they should be able to do in a free society. Its not
merely annoying; its wrong.

> secondly who buys a PVR that DRMs your recording?!

My friends tell me that their Sky+ boxes are highly restrictive.

> On that note, what type
> of Pirate (Arrgh, me hearties) downloads DRMed Music?

People are often falling foul of FairPlay DRM because they want to
have more/different devices than Apple deem necessary. That's a
regrettable side effect though; the people that the restrictions
attack are the novice users doing friend-to-friend copying, and one of
the friends in that case is 'downloading.'

> If your anti-DRM targets are bittorrent and PVRs you're aiming in the
> wrong direction.

Savvy users will have no problem getting unrestricted files; no one is
debating that (any more) - but its important to defend novice users,
who are the victims here.

-- 
Regards,
Dave
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Stephen Deasey]

On 8/1/07, Christopher Woods <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> With regards to worldwide takeup, I too thought the iPlayer was a UK-only
> thing, but I've heard rumblings about it becoming a paid-for service outside
> our borders in the future (I know of no ETA though). Don't know as to the
> authenticity of that, maybe a BBC bod could give me the partyline on that?
>

What are you, some kind of conspiracy nut?

Just because it makes no sense to wrap programmes in junk-DRM when
higher quality, unencrypted, unrestricted versions are beamed directly
to convenient digital recording devices in houses throughout Britain,
don't get confused and think it's just a scheme for bbcamerica.com to
expand their VOD market using the web.

Because it's not!
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RE: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Christopher Woods]

Blimey, my last reply did stir it up (which is great, exactly what I wanted
to see, got some really good answers out of people.) I just *knew* that the
ratio of Linux users on this list would be higher than average though :D

(incidentally, which flavours of Linux do people favour on here? When I play
with Linux I'm a Ubuntu person, but I don't even have it installed on my
laptop at the moment because I wiped my drives clean a while back when I was
reorganising my system, and didn't bother to put Linux back on. I still have
the Ubuntu sticker on the lid though because it's so deliciously ironic ;)

Back on point again, 

The BBC's been forced to bow to commercial pressures more than once in the
past; anyone remember the Jam debacle? That was the Trust telling them to
stop doing what they were doing because it was inflicting losses on other
commercial entities doing a similar thing. Frankly, I disagreed with their
decision, if the BBC's doing it then it's obviously for a better reason
other than to just push other companies out of business, it's for the
education of our future generations... But hey, commercial pressures.

I overlooked Java and other methods of abstraction because, well... The
statistics weren't mine (hope I made that obvious) and they didn't talk
about abstraction methods, only OSes. I wouldn't *want* to develop for Java
though, it's such a kettle of fish and the JRE itself is such a massive
piece of bloatware with some awful endemic security flaws. I've gotten a
nasty virus through a Java vuln once before which was a BITCH to get rid of
- and it was all because Java didn't clean itself off the machine before
upgrading (so you had multiple versions, and one of the builds was the
vulnerable one). It literally took me days to figure out how to get rid of
that virus.

I'm of the opinion that having to load an entire runtime environment (along
with its associated memory and CPU footprint) BEFORE you can even run the
actual program is A Bad Thing, it slows even my machine down a bit
(admittedly it's not the snappiest beast in the world but it's no slouch) so
imagine what it'll do to slower PCs. That's really the only reason I moved
from Azureus to uTorrent...

With regards to worldwide takeup, I too thought the iPlayer was a UK-only
thing, but I've heard rumblings about it becoming a paid-for service outside
our borders in the future (I know of no ETA though). Don't know as to the
authenticity of that, maybe a BBC bod could give me the partyline on that?

> -Original Message-
> From: Andy [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> Sent: 01 August 2007 18:50
> To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting
> 
> On 01/08/07, Christopher Woods <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > maybe the BBC were just realists when it came to the 
> practicalities of 
> > development cost versus ROI from creating versions for
> > (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who 
> here on the 
> > list uses Linux as their primary OS.
> 
> me as well (as if you couldn't have guessed).
> 
> Why in your statistics did you neglect things like Java and Python?
> They may not be OSes themselves but they provide an 
> abstraction to the OS in much the same way as OSes themselves 
> provide an abstraction to the hardware.
> 
> For instance you would say develop for "Java", not "Java on 
> WinXP" as Java provides portable hooks into the parts of the 
> OS you need (which technically you can bypass and go direct 
> to the OS but that's going out of your way to make a non 
> platform neutral implementation). Only thing Java, Python and 
> other such systems is they don't seem to get around the 
> platform dependence of the OS. Luckily there is a whole lot 
> of people who may write the installer for you (provided you 
> open source the code), how helpful of them!
> 
> Or you can develop for a standardised OS, (e.g. POSIX). Code 
> for POSIX then just recompile with the correct cross compiler 
> and it will run on any POSIX conforming OS for which you can 
> find a cross compiler (or you could install the OS and do a 
> native compile).
> 
> Now the POSIX argument is much closer to that of PAL. POSIX 
> is actually a standard, many OS manufacturers implement it, 
> and any OS manufacturer can implement it if they choose! So 
> BBC choose to develop for a standard, POSIX there.
> 
> 
> > Percentages speak a lot to people signing off on cheques to fund 
> > development lifecycles...
> 
> The BBC was set up up so that we had a broadcaster who was 
> not tied to such commercial pressures, evidently the BBC is 
> disregarding the reason it was created!
> 
> And as I have pointed out several times, where do you get the 
> idea that it costs more to develop for extra OSes? You 
> develop cross platform from day one. You don't have to spend 
> 3 times the money for 3 OSes.
> 
> Most code in C works on all platforms, why would it have to 
> be written again and thus cost more?
> 
> 
> And if you want ma

[backstage] iPlayer on Intel Mac

[James Bridle]

[New thread]

I'm getting the same on my Mac Pro, booted in XP SP2 - 'Sorry, 
something's wrong' even though all boxes are ticked.


Will have a look at the browser's ident. If anyone wants to send me the 
exe, I'd be very grateful. I have a login and all, so I don't think 
there's anything wrong with that...



Christopher Woods wrote:
What's your browser's user-ident? Maybe one of the Mac-supplied 
drivers in their driver package is altering the user-agent somehow and 
the bbc site isn't authorising access on that basis. Only a guess...
 
Is your XP install updated to SP2?
 
If all else fails, I'm sure someone could send you 
BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe (which updates to the latest version 
periodically anyway)...



*From:* David Wood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
*Sent:* 28 July 2007 09:30
*To:* backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
*Subject:* Re: [backstage] iPlayer Today?


On 7/27/07, *James Bridle* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:


Looking forward to seeing what it looks like in XP on my Intel
Mac...


 
Doesn't appear to work on my MacBook, both booting into an almost

freshly installed XP SP2 and through XP via Parallels on Mac OS,
through Internet Explorer, or through Firefox with IE Tab. When I
come to download, the site is giving me the rather odd message of:

"Sorry - to use the BBC iPlayer you need the following
- Windows XP
- Internet Explorer
- Windows Media Player"

...where all the requirements are ticked. (Using with non-IE
Tabbed Firefox or directly from Mac OS turns the relevant ticks
into crosses, which is what you'd expect.) According to the
instructions, this is when the kontiki app should kick in and
install...

I can vaguely see why it might not work through Parallels, but I'm
not sure why booting directly into XP doesn't. Hrmmm.

Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Andy]

On 01/08/07, Christopher Woods <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> maybe the BBC were just realists when it came to the
> practicalities of development cost versus ROI from creating versions for
> (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the list
> uses Linux as their primary OS.

me as well (as if you couldn't have guessed).

Why in your statistics did you neglect things like Java and Python?
They may not be OSes themselves but they provide an abstraction to the
OS in much the same way as OSes themselves provide an abstraction to
the hardware.

For instance you would say develop for "Java", not "Java on WinXP" as
Java provides portable hooks into the parts of the OS you need (which
technically you can bypass and go direct to the OS but that's going
out of your way to make a non platform neutral implementation). Only
thing Java, Python and other such systems is they don't seem to get
around the platform dependence of the OS. Luckily there is a whole lot
of people who may write the installer for you (provided you open
source the code), how helpful of them!

Or you can develop for a standardised OS, (e.g. POSIX). Code for POSIX
then just recompile with the correct cross compiler and it will run on
any POSIX conforming OS for which you can find a cross compiler (or
you could install the OS and do a native compile).

Now the POSIX argument is much closer to that of PAL. POSIX is
actually a standard, many OS manufacturers implement it, and any OS
manufacturer can implement it if they choose! So BBC choose to develop
for a standard, POSIX there.


> Percentages speak a lot to people signing off on cheques to fund development
> lifecycles...

The BBC was set up up so that we had a broadcaster who was not tied to
such commercial pressures, evidently the BBC is disregarding the
reason it was created!

And as I have pointed out several times, where do you get the idea
that it costs more to develop for extra OSes? You develop cross
platform from day one. You don't have to spend 3 times the money for 3
OSes.

Most code in C works on all platforms, why would it have to be written
again and thus cost more?


And if you want maximum Return On Investment then here's an even
cheaper method to get cross-platform vendor neutral and all the other
goodness.

Define a specification (you would normally do this anyway, otherwise
you need to have server and client teams working too closely), make
sure everything is defined and then publish it fully.

Write the Server side of the application, (You would have had to do this anyway)

Now BBC, you stop, your job is done.

Community people can take over and build clients, people get a choice
of clients, if there is demand on a specific platform it gets built
otherwise it doesn't (nice way to work out how much demand there
really is for different platforms ;))

And you get the advantage of seeing all the innovative idea people
come up with. Would this appeal to the people on this list? You could
then actually "Mash Up" BBC content, putting it in software that works
the way you want it to and making your own better software if the
current offerings are not good enough.

Currently the BBC won't let anyone even touch the way iPlayer works,
oddly they consider it "theirs", ignoring the fact that the UK License
Payer payed for it, not just BBC employees who get the right to do
what they want with it (regardless of what your regulators, or the law
tells you to do).


Oh and anyone got the UK statistics on Firefox usage? Is that a small
enough to be discriminated against? Precisely how small does a group
need to be before it becomes morally justified to discriminate against
it?

Anyway consider the above idea, maybe for iPlayer, or if not some
other project, it would be an interesting experiment would it not?
Let's get back to an innovative BBC we used to have, remember the days
when the BBC where proud to do things others didn't. (Sorry
reminiscing about Walking With Dinosaurs, truly ground breaking when
that came out, pity the BBC won't do new innovative things any more,
preferring to copy other channels, iPlayer is not innovative in the
least, it's like 40D, only later and still in Beta).

Andy

PS:
Didn't find the article I _know_ I saw but this is close enough:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070717-europeans-embrace-firefox-in-record-numbers.html

18.7% Firefox usage in the UK (and that's not counting the other browsers).

First hit on Google I got for "uk web browser statistics" (note: may
not be first for you, google personalises searches) provides some more
stats: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
Appears somewhere in the region of 40% of people aren't using IE. It's
OK to discriminate against 40% of people? No one else thinks that's
wrong?



-- 
Computers are like air conditioners.  Both stop working, if you open windows.
-- Adam Heath
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Steve Jolly]

David Greaves wrote:

Christopher Woods wrote:
I mean, come on, hands up who here on the list

uses Linux as their primary OS.


Me.


Linux is the only operating system installed on any of my computers.  (I 
have a W2K VM that use on the rare occasions I need something to run in 
Windows natively.)


S
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[vijay chopra]

On 01/08/07, Dave Crossland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On 01/08/07, vijay chopra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > I'm not advocating eye patches and peg legs here, but personally I don't
> see
> > a moral difference between getting something that's available on demand
> free
> > from iPlayer via other means. That could be a PVR, or it could be
> getting it
> > from a torrent.
>
> The moral difference is in the restrictions. A file from the iTunes
> Music Store that you can only play with Apple's proprietary software
> is unethical, even if the copy you obtain was via bittorrent.
>
> Similarly, there are many PVRs that are restricted so you can't, for
> example, copy the files to your laptop to watch them on the train.


DRM may be annoying, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it "unethical";
secondly who buys a PVR that DRMs your recording?! On that note, what type
of Pirate (Arrgh, me hearties) downloads DRMed Music? If your anti-DRM
taargets[sic] are bittorrent and PVRs you're aiming in the wrong direction.

Vijay.

Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Dave Crossland]

On 01/08/07, vijay chopra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I'm not advocating eye patches and peg legs here, but personally I don't see
> a moral difference between getting something that's available on demand free
> from iPlayer via other means. That could be a PVR, or it could be getting it
> from a torrent.

The moral difference is in the restrictions. A file from the iTunes
Music Store that you can only play with Apple's proprietary software
is unethical, even if the copy you obtain was via bittorrent.

Similarly, there are many PVRs that are restricted so you can't, for
example, copy the files to your laptop to watch them on the train.

-- 
Regards,
Dave
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Stephen Deasey]

On 8/1/07, Simon Cobb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the
> > list uses Linux as their primary OS.
>
> And me. And as such I just accept that if I want to watch any channel's
> output on-demand, there's a box in my living room that will capture it
> for me with the minimum of configuration.
>
> It's an old-fangled piece of tech called a video recorder.


I hope you're destroying those recordings after 30 days!
(or 7 days after first viewing, which ever comes sooner)


Actually, bad news:

It has come to my attention that Argos are proliferating (on sale, no
less!) a "DVD Recorder" device for the infringing-inducing,
low-low-price of just 79.99:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5334427/Trail/C%24cip%3D156565.Sound%2Band%2Bvision%3EC%24cip%3D156604.DVD%2Band%2Bvideo%3EC%24cip%3D156607.DVD%2Brecorders.htm

Here's how it works (now pay attention, because this is tricky):

* Infringer buys one DVD Recorder (79.99) and one 5-pack DVD-R discs
(street price: 5.99)

* Discs are placed in the pirating receptacle, shiny side down. With a
felt-tip pen the perp may flaunt their infringement on the other side.

* The "Record" (from the Latin "recordus", meaning "theft") button is pressed.

That's it! That's all!

It's just a short step from there to inserting the DVD into a standard
computer (Windows, Mac or Linux -- it's completely cross platform) and
uploading the whole lot to YouTube! Or giving it to a friend. Or
storing it on a shelf, indefinitely.


> But that's just me


Oh Simon, if only that were true. The scourge of home recording has
been with us for a generation now.  The sooner the BBC can put this
genie back in the bottle, the better.
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Dave Crossland]

On 01/08/07, Paul Johnston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> There are times when I
> think that the Linux community expects everything for nothing, and if it's
> not forthcoming that a company is either "stupid" or "short sighted" or
> similar.

No, the software freedom movement doesn't expect anything for nothing;
it has worked relentlessly for over 20 years to write all the kinds of
software that people like to use, and has come across several
impediments such as unpublished hardware specifications and
unpublished file formats that are now illegal to reverse engineer in
the USA and elsewhere.

The most commonly quoted area of free software lacking today is 3D
graphics card drivers - but if the hardware vendors simply published
how their hardware worked, they would exist, and the vendors
themselves don't need to write any free software.

Similarly, the BBC doesn't need to write any media player software -
www.getmiro.com is one example of what is out there already -  it just
needs to publish data in non-proprietary formats.

> As far as I can see, the Linux community (since that is who I
> think is mainly driving the frustration at iPlayer) needs to realise that
> sometimes, it will not win an argument where large-scale commercial concerns
> will mean linux versions are unlikely to be released for free

"For free" is not the issue. Freedom is the issue. With the software
freedom community, when you read the word "free" it usually refers to
freedom, not price.

> and to top it
> off, let's face it, the linux community could quite possibly be the biggest
> load of hackers on the net, and therefore a commercial minefield.

In this context, and historically, "hackers" means people who love to
program, not people who "crack" security systems :-)

> I can see
> the lawyers saying something like "if we release this on linux too, we're
> running a much greater risk of being hacked and losing millions of pounds".

The risk that DRM will be cracked is very high - near certain -
regardless of the operating system.

> With MS, at least if someone hacks it, the BBC can tell MS to take some
> action, thus providing some protection for their content. The fact that a
> linux version won't be released at all because of the choice by the BBC to
> tie itself to an MS product is I think a bigger mistake.

The BBC is committed to releasing versions of iPlayer for other
systems - but cross platform availability of DRM is not the issue.

The restrictions are the issue.

>  ...waiting for the flames.

lol - I've always found this list to be a model of etiquette :-)

-- 
Regards,
Dave
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[vijay chopra]

On 01/08/07, Paul Johnston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> The choice of the BBC not to use these is almost certainly because of the
> ability to hack them.  Imagine if they released a system based on something
> open and it got hacked within 3 days?
>

There's already a "hacked" version of iPlayer, it's called Bittorrent. It's
platform neutral too.

I'm not advocating eye patches and peg legs here, but personally I don't see
a moral difference between getting something that's available on demand free
from iPlayer via other means. That could be a PVR, or it could be getting it
from a torrent.

Re: [backstage] Making the underground accessible to all

[Dave Crossland]

On 31/07/07, Michael Sparks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tuesday 31 July 2007 19:50, Dave Crossland wrote:
> > There are efforts to make unauthorised sharing of television as easy
> > as possible though, such as http://www.rulecam.net/ted/ and this makes
> > a mockery of highly restricted systems that abuse the public's rights,
>
> You're saying that "unauthorised sharing" is a right?

No no, sorry if I was unclear.

Suppose I have epilepsy. With restricted media, I cannot have software
that removes flashing scenes from videos that make video safe to watch
for me. With unrestricted media, I can.

Where can I get unrestricted media? If I am a computer novice, or not
well connected in the underground, I can't get any.

Why are the restrictions in place? To prevent unauthorised file
sharing by the less savvy.

Therefore, to remove the restrictions, increasing unauthorised file
sharing by the less savvy is one strategy - that complements others,
such as lobbying the government as you suggest.

Civil disobedience can be effective; women and racial minorities are
the poster children for effecting change in this way.

> iPlayer does something that "TED" doesn't do: it specifically
> enables people to get at content perfectly legally, without breaking the law

For an unacceptably narrow sense of "get at," - so narrow it would be
better if it didn't exist. Restricting people by requiring proprietary
software is wrong and the BBC should not do it.

-- 
Regards,
Dave
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RE: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Gordon Joly]

At 04:26 +0100 1/8/07, Christopher Woods wrote:

The quality was abysmal though, and RealVideo? Urgh.

The simile employed in the DbD article is a little inaccurate, the more I
think about it; the BBC's choice of MS-based systems for its iPlayer
platform is more like their choice to broadcast in PAL - more or less an
international industry standard, even with its flaws (and subsequent
improvements and patches)... Because even PAL, as a standard, as it exists
today, has been quite significantly modified in its operation and
composition when compared against how it existed when it was first used.

So,

[...]


Choose PAL: choose life!

Gordo

--
"Think Feynman"/
http://pobox.com/~gordo/
[EMAIL PROTECTED]///
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Paul Johnston]

And me!

It's a fatally flawed argument to suggest that because the majority of 
computers now are Windows based, then the BBC can make a good case for 
using a Microsoft system for distribution.  With the Vista bugs being a 
case in point, the BBC isn't tying itself to a standard, it's tying 
itself to a product.  The PAL argument is just wrong.


And as a licence fee payer, I would have thought that the BBC would have 
considered the options.  There are systems out there that allow content 
to be distributed in the way they would want that are open.  The choice 
of the BBC not to use these is almost certainly because of the ability 
to hack them.  Imagine if they released a system based on something open 
and it got hacked within 3 days?  Then the BBC is playing catch up, and 
essentially all their content is free to everyone, and a large 
percentage of people will start to use the free/unfettered/illegal 
version pretty much immediately.


The commercial considerations for the BBC's content come into this quite 
strongly, and so using an open standard is quite plainly a risky 
strategy and probably a bad idea.  What would have been sensible, and 
probably much more commercially viable (in terms of licencing across the 
world), is for the BBC to have created a version of their own software, 
created a licencing model so that anyone that wished could build a 
*commercial* client for the software, and then released that.  It 
wouldn't have taken long for someone to release either a free or nearly 
free version of a player for linux.  There are many examples of cut down 
players with "pro features" removed that this model could have been 
eminently suitable for this purpose.


My gripe about iPlayer is the forcing of the use of a software product, 
and not necessarily that it's an MS based piece of kit or that it's a 
complex platform that needs certain software to run it.  There are times 
when I think that the Linux community expects everything for nothing, 
and if it's not forthcoming that a company is either "stupid" or "short 
sighted" or similar.  As far as I can see, the Linux community (since 
that is who I think is mainly driving the frustration at iPlayer) needs 
to realise that sometimes, it will not win an argument where large-scale 
commercial concerns will mean linux versions are unlikely to be released 
for free, and to top it off, let's face it, the linux community could 
quite possibly be the biggest load of hackers on the net, and therefore 
a commercial minefield.  I can see the lawyers saying something like "if 
we release this on linux too, we're running a much greater risk of being 
hacked and losing millions of pounds".  With MS, at least if someone 
hacks it, the BBC can tell MS to take some action, thus providing some 
protection for their content. The fact that a linux version won't be 
released at all because of the choice by the BBC to tie itself to an MS 
product is I think a bigger mistake.


Not sure where all that came from, so I'm going to stop...

...waiting for the flames.

Paul

Richard McMillan wrote:

Me too!

On 01/08/07, *robl* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:



> Not that I'm condoning the choice, personally I'll always prefer
an agnostic
> system, but, well, maybe the BBC were just realists when it came
to the
> practicalities of development cost versus ROI from creating
versions for
> (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on
the list
> uses Linux as their primary OS.

Me
-

Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Matthew Walster]

On 1 Aug 2007, at 12:40, David Greaves wrote:
Christopher Woods wrote:

| I mean, come on, hands up who here on the list
| uses Linux as their primary OS.

I use Linux and OSX (also unsupported as of now).

I have a Vista box which is connected in an office, where I wouldn't  
want to use it, but I can't even use that!


Taking into account that there are many DVRs out there running Linux  
(including home-built MythTV boxes) or OSX (such as the AppleTV), it  
seems silly to rely on the Microsoft DRM system when it is not a  
*standard* that can be freely implemented by all.


I would *love* the BBC to take a stand and trust it's customers with  
the content without DRM at all, but I believe there are circumstances  
that do not allow that, which are not to do with the content but a  
possible threat of complaint from other broadcasters with their own  
DRM systems.


If someone wants to copy BBC content that is DRM encumbered, they're  
going to do it - in the same way you can remove the DRM on iTunes, on  
WMA, and so on. DRM prevents casual copying - it does not prevent  
pirates (those who sell on duplicates) who are the people spoiling  
the industry.


Just my two penneth,

Matthew Walster
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RE: [backstage] Edinburgh TV Un-festival- 25th August

[Ian Forrester]

Hi Abigail,
 
You can still sign up at the url below. If you would like to speak, use promo 
code "speaker"

http://cubicgarden.eventwax.com/edinburgh-tv-un-festival-2007

Cheers

Ian Forrester

This e-mail is: [ x ] private; [  ] ask first; [  ] bloggable

Senior Producer, BBC Backstage
BC5 C3, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP
e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
p: +44 (0)2080083965

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Abigail Dankwa
Sent: 31 July 2007 20:15
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: RE: [backstage] Edinburgh TV Un-festival- 25th August

Hi Ian,

I seem to have missed the sign up for the UnFest, would you be able to let me 
know, where I can sign up if it's still available.

Best wishes,

Abigail

--
Abigail Dankwa
Head of Programme Acquisitions
Community Channel
3-7 Euston Square
Regent's Place
London
NW1 3RG
DL:  +44 20 7874 7645
F:+44 20 7874 7644
E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Watch the Community Channel
Watch Community Channel on Sky 539 Virgin TV 233 Freeview 87 or 
video.communitychannel.org _ Privacy and Confidentiality This e-mail, its 
contents & any files transmitted with it are confidential & are intended only 
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The Community Channel does not accept changes made to this e-mail after it was 
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-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mr I Forrester
Sent: 11 July 2007 13:10
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] Edinburgh TV Un-festival- 25th August

Sorry it doesn't give you access on Friday.

Jeremy Stone wrote:
>
> The TV festival runs from Friday PM (the MacTaggart lecture is 
> traditionally on Friday night. This year its Jeremy Paxman).
> All day Saturday and until mid afternoon Sunday.
>
> As part of the Unfest you get tickets to the TV fest Saturday night 
> bash/dinner and the traditional TV fest events on Sunday.
> Ian  - does an unfest ticket entitle you to tickets to the mactaggart. 
> it would be good if it does.
>
>
>
>
> thanks
> Jem
>
> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Brian Butterworth
> Sent: Tue 7/10/2007 12:53 PM
> To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [backstage] Edinburgh TV Un-festival- 25th August
>
> I mean at the George Hotel on the Friday night... best networking 
> event ever... ever...
>
> On 10/07/07, Brian Butterworth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > Ian,
> >
> > Will this include access to the late nights (drinks) at the TV 
> > Festival too?
> >
> >
> >  On 09/07/07, Ian Forrester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi All,
> > >
> > > I wanted to fill you all in on a event we've been working on
> behind the
> > > scenes. And this time its not in London ;)
> > >
> > > Here's the official blurb...
> > > "This year the MGEITF has spawned its own fringe event, the
> Un-Festival.
> > > This day-long event which takes place on Saturday 25 August will
> centre
> > > around the clash of the well established TV world and the 
> > > constantly accelerating Internet world using the unusual 
> > > un-conference
> format, where
> > > the cost of entry is participation.
> > >
> > > The highlights from the Un-Festival will be presented at this 
> > > special session, giving everyone a chance to speculate on the 
> > > future of
> TV, online
> > > entertainment and cross platform narratives."
> > >
> > > Every year the international TV festival holds a few sessions on 
> > > the future of online TV, etc. Every year it falls short of the mark.
> Well not
> > > this year because BBC Backstage is running the show.
> > >
> > > I'm getting together a real solid line up of people including 
> > > people from Joost, Microsoft, BT, BBC, Google, etc. But I'm also 
> > > inviting
> some of
> > > the people from the darker areas of online TV like the guys behind
> some of
> > > the cleverest p2p sites online today.
> > >
> > > Generally the mix should be quite amazing, but we're not done yet.
> > > Everyone who goes to the fringe un-festival will receive a free
> ticket into
> > > the main dinner on Saturday night and Free entry on Sunday all day.
> > >
> > > How's that for a deal?
> > >
> > > I'll be launching the sign up page for the event soon with lots 
> > > more details but till then get your hotels booked. I hope to see 
> > > you
> all there!
> > >
> > >
> > > Ian Forrester
> > >
> > > This e-mail is: [ ] private; [ x ] ask first; [  ] bloggable
> > >
> > > Senior Producer, BBC Backstage
> > > BC5 C3, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP
> > > e: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > p: +44 (0)2080083965
>

Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[David Greaves]

Christopher Woods wrote:
I mean, come on, hands up who here on the list

uses Linux as their primary OS.


Me.

And (FWIW) my wife (her choice).

I'm three years sober ;)

David
PS We can't even dual-boot anymore.
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Richard McMillan]

Me too!

On 01/08/07, robl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> > Not that I'm condoning the choice, personally I'll always prefer an
> agnostic
> > system, but, well, maybe the BBC were just realists when it came to the
> > practicalities of development cost versus ROI from creating versions for
> > (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the
> list
> > uses Linux as their primary OS.
>
> Me
> -
> 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/
>



-- 

Richard B. McMillan

RE: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Simon Cobb]

  (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the 
> list uses Linux as their primary OS.

And me. And as such I just accept that if I want to watch any channel's
output on-demand, there's a box in my living room that will capture it
for me with the minimum of configuration.

It's an old-fangled piece of tech called a video recorder. 

But that's just me

S.

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of robl
Sent: 01 August 2007 09:39
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting


> Not that I'm condoning the choice, personally I'll always prefer an 
> agnostic system, but, well, maybe the BBC were just realists when it 
> came to the practicalities of development cost versus ROI from 
> creating versions for
> (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the 
> list uses Linux as their primary OS.

Me
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[robl]

Not that I'm condoning the choice, personally I'll always prefer an agnostic
system, but, well, maybe the BBC were just realists when it came to the
practicalities of development cost versus ROI from creating versions for
(EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the list
uses Linux as their primary OS. 


Me
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Re: [backstage] More iPlayer protesting

[Andy Leighton]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 04:26:21AM +0100, Christopher Woods wrote:
> The quality was abysmal though, and RealVideo? Urgh.
> 
> The simile employed in the DbD article is a little inaccurate, the more I
> think about it; the BBC's choice of MS-based systems for its iPlayer
> platform is more like their choice to broadcast in PAL - more or less an
> international industry standard, 

Not really.  Any company could make TVs that implemented the PAL
standard.  With the iPlayer they are tying themselves to one particular
company's product.  But it isn't just that which is a problem - by
tying themselves to a single OS they may well distort the market in
computer OSes themselves.

> Having Windows installed on most of the computers around the world makes it
> a good starting point for common ground, 

Well firstly the BBC should be considering the market in the UK not
computers around the world.  iPlayer is a domestic product AFAIK.

Secondly, on launch it seems that the iPlayer does not work for Vista.
Microsoft's latest and greatest version of Windows.  Many of the people
with new computers aren't able to use iPlayer at the moment. Yes, I know
this is going to be fixed, but it does give rise to what does happen
when MS upgrades Windows.  Will similar periods of not-working occur?

Thirdly, the above shows no foresight at all.  What about a few years
time when you might want your set-top box to interface with the iPlayer
server as well as taking the normal OTA transmissions?  What about
future usage on mobile devices?  

> (EXTREMELY) minority OSes? I mean, come on, hands up who here on the list
> uses Linux as their primary OS. 

Me!

-- 
Andy Leighton => [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials" 
   - Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
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Re: [backstage] iPlayer Today?

[Andy Leighton]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 06:54:49PM +0100, Adam Leach wrote:
> Andy wrote:
>> On 29/07/07, mike chamberlain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>   
>>> Options 3, Buy an off the shelf solution and use it. Bonus points if
>>> the people whose content your licensing are happy with it and will
>>> endemnify you against someone cracking it.
>>> 
>> Yes use an Off the shelf solution, provided it satisfies the criteria
>> "Platform Neutral". The BBC's claim "We had no choice but to use MS
>> DRM" is clearly false as there where 2 perfectly good options.
>>   
> What are these two perfectly good options that could provide the same 
> fuctionality as Microsoft DRM & Kontiki.

Write a DRM system themselves OR pay someone to write a DRM system.

As for alternates to Kontiki then there are plenty of P2P type systems
which are more cross-platform without even going to those lengths.

Now there may well be good reasons for not writing something yourself
or contracting a third party.  Namely time to market.  However they
are valid alternatives.  Alternatives the senior management should
have considered.  

That leaves us two versions of what might have occurred.

1) The senior management did not consider these alternatives.  Which
   seems a little short-sighted (and the original Andy would probably
   say negligent).

2) That time-to-market and maybe cost-issues (although long-term costs
   would be hard to factor in) were considered far more important than
   cross-platform issues and the concomitant loss of goodwill.

It also seems inevitable that a Kontiki/Microsoft DRM based solution is
unlikely to be a valid long-term solution.  We have the Mac/Linux issues
(I assume Vista can be solved pretty quickly) as well as (at some future
date) people wanting to use mobile viewers and off-the-shelf set-top 
boxes (which usually aren't based off of a Windows code-base).

-- 
Andy Leighton => [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The Lord is my shepherd, but we still lost the sheep dog trials" 
   - Robert Rankin, _They Came And Ate Us_
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