Re: [backstage] Adding Subtitles/transcripts to /programmes pages
Sorry to bring this topic back up but i would really like to hear from some of the people in the BBC about it. Having the scripts of each show, either in pain text or other format, on the /programmes would be a great resource. it would allow people to search and find information/section of BBC content, which would attract users to the BBC, being a valuable index into the contents. This information, I would of expected to be, already be available from the subtitles that either BBC Subtitles or Red Bee (do they do BBC stuff as well as commercial stations?) so it shouldn't be a great effort to make this available. On a slightly selfish note, it would be great as I could use these on iplayer streams that don't have subtitles on my xmbc. I can easily see the xbmc-iplayer script being modified to be able to prefetch the programmes subtitles and play them with the stream. Would making this information publically available be a lot of effect? Am I being to hopeful? Many thanks Tom 2008/4/14 Steve Jolly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Tom Jacobs wrote: i think it would be really useful if the BBC made available the subtitles for their TV shows via the /programmes pages (or any other accessible, searchable API). Yes, it would be nice. You can get access to them via a DVB card in your PC, of course, but because they're broadcast as pre-rendered bitmaps, you'd have to OCR them before you could do anything useful with them. A few people have gone down this road - some friends and I gave a talk and a demo on the subject back at Open Tech 2005. http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2005/schedule/stephen_jolly.pdf S - 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/
RE: [backstage] Film Reviews
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of James Cridland Sent: 03 June 2008 19:00 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Film Reviews I have forwarded this good idea on. I've also commented that associated RSS feeds should return a 404 for sites we no longer maintain. 410 Gone would be more informative? -- Kevin Hinde Head of Delivery Assurance, Journalism BBC Future Media Technology BC3 C1, Broadcast Centre t: 020 800 84725 (02 84725) m: 0771 501 2424 (072 84725) aim:kwdhinde - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Generally a great idea. But why on earth is this being done this way? The Astons on the channel carry the information anyway, and we know that this can be fed into another computer system, as the MHEG5 version of BBC Parliament. I can't be that hard for BBC Parliament to provide the feed of information that is used to generate the Astons (and the former MHEG5 service) as a live text file (or something). 2008/6/3 Etienne Pollard [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hello, You might be interested to learn about a new project that has just been launched by TheyWorkForYou.com - an online video archive of the House of Commons, with video clips posted in Flash video format alongside the text of speeches from Hansard. You can view them on the website, or you can embed clips of the individual speeches on your blog or personal website by copying and pasting a bit of HTML that is listed below each clip on theyworkforyou.com. See the blog posting at http://www.mysociety.org/2008/06/01/video-recordings-of-the-house-of-commons-on-theyworkforyoucom/ for the full announcement. The key thing now is that we need your help to match up ~28,000 speeches with the video footage (we've already got about 4,300 done). We've built a really simple, hyper-addictive website for people to use, complete with league tables and prizes (the rare and coveted mySociety hoodies). You can find it right now at http://www.theyworkforyou.com/video/ - if you want to appear on the league table then take 30 seconds and register a username. It's crowd sourcing applied to video timestamping - using our simple and remarkably addictive online game (with league tables, and did I mention the prizes?). Matching up individual speeches to video cuepoints is actually done in two stages - firstly, the CaptionerBot makes an approximate match for some of the speeches in Hansard using the raw BBC captions, and then we ask the general public to improve on the work of CaptionerBot using our simple and addictive online game (league table, prizes, etc). The video is taken from BBC Parliament, chopped up and transcoded into Flash video format (generic Flash 6, iirc), and served up to the general public using lighttpd and mod_flv_streaming. This lets us give you direct access to any point in the video file just by specifying a parameter in the URL that indicates seconds elapsed since the start of the file. The backend processing system uses lots of open source software to download and process live footage of the House of Commons from BBC Parliament (ffmpeg, mplayer, mencoder, yamdi, and quite a lot of perl), and the BBC web api to get the schedule information it needs to extract the live coverage. Now, please help us out by timestamping some video! http://www.theyworkforyou.com/video/ is the place to be... All the best, Etienne -- Etienne Pollard [EMAIL PROTECTED] +44 (0) 7946 415 996 - 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/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Radio 4 on Realplayer
James, Thanks for the information. I'm always interested to hear about how the systems work. I'm particularly pleased to hear that the encoding will happen from the full bitrate sources in the future. Aside from not having any service drop-outs and improved monitoring it can only hope that the sound quality will be notably better. Obviously I'm hoping that everything that's on the iPlayer Radio will come as MP3s and the existing podcasts will be better quality (I would personally prefer a VBR stereo In Our Time than the current mono one). It's probably way, way too late to ask for this, but how about having pre-compression (audio compression that is) versions of BBC Radio 3 and 1Xtra as, at least, an option. I can listen to my classical and drum n bass at home with their piano to forte range, would be great to have the same range from BBC radio. I understand why DAB and FM need to have the analogue audio compression, but a clear version online would be cheap and satisfy the audiophiles. I realise that backstage isn't the best way to report faults... it just seems every time you report a fault via the correct route you don't get a notification for (what seems like) ages. Also I'm pleased to hear that the word open is being used in BBC circles - and without being an expletive (I presume). Anyway, congratulations on bringing BBC online radio to the next level! 2008/6/3 James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED]: And to feed back to you (it's your BBC)... The issue here was a peculiar glitch in the signal received by the satellite receiving units at Maidenhead. (At present, all our national network online streams are re-encoded from satellite receivers by our technology partner Siemens). For a while, we switched over to DAB as a backup source of audio, which cured the issue on most stations. (I say 'most' - one of the DAB receivers developed a fault, but that was soon overpatched. Marvel at the detail I'm giving you here). This was successful, though made BBC Radio 1 slightly distorted (since DAB processing is slightly 'louder' than that via satellite); Radio 1 was switched back to satellite delivery on Monday morning and others have since followed suit. Currently scheduled for next month, we'll switch to encoding national radio (live, and on-demand) straight from the transmission chain within Broadcasting House (using the same processing as the digital satellite feed, which is the best-suited for the internet environment). You'll notice a slew of changes to our audio online over the next few months - and, we hope, a set of new, developer-friendly, formats. (I can reveal that our choices of audio codec does not include Ogg Vorbis. Yes, I was the man who installed it at another national station. No, it is not good value for money to attempt the same at the BBC.) The BBC's FMT team are committed to being as open as we can - indeed, earlier today I escaped from an exciting conference which used the word Open more times than is healthy - so I hope this is interesting to some. However, I'd reiterate that our web form, as linked to by my friend and colleague Alan Ogilvie, is the quickest way to alert us to an issue and get it fixed - little mutes in audio may not get picked up by automated checking systems, and we don't generally sit and watch Backstage (indeed, as you've spotted, I rarely pop in here but am very vocal once I do). j (on behalf of his employer just this once) On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Alan Ogilvie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brian - I have alerted our teams. Thank you. We are experiencing on-going problems with a few of our streams, you may notice issues on some listen again programmes (although I think we are down to the last few with a problem at the moment). In future the best way to contact us about streaming issues is via the contact pages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/ (there is a direct email address, but it's worth going through the web form as it will capture useful things like your IP address and things) Alan -- Alan Ogilvie [EMAIL PROTECTED] (IP) Interactive Platforms Producer Distribution Technologies | Audio Music Interactive Room 818, BBC Henry Wood House, 3-6 Langham Place, London, W1B 3DF From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 30 May 2008 18:26 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Radio 4 on Realplayer Is it just me getting audio mutes every few seconds on the Real Audio stream of BBC Radio 4 FM. The LW feed is OK though... Who do you tell these days? -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - 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/ --
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Brian Butterworth wrote: But why on earth is this being done this way? If by Astons you mean the superimposed captions, then if you had read the text below (and the blog posting linked to), you would see that we did try exactly that and it sadly just wasn't good enough. ATB, Matthew The Astons on the channel carry the information anyway, and we know that this can be fed into another computer system, as the MHEG5 version of BBC Parliament. I can't be that hard for BBC Parliament to provide the feed of information that is used to generate the Astons (and the former MHEG5 service) as a live text file (or something). 2008/6/3 Etienne Pollard [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: See the blog posting at http://www.mysociety.org/2008/06/01/video-recordings-of-the-house-of-commons-on-theyworkforyoucom/ for the full announcement. Matching up individual speeches to video cuepoints is actually done in two stages - firstly, the CaptionerBot makes an approximate match for some of the speeches in Hansard using the raw BBC captions, and then we ask the general public to improve on the work of CaptionerBot using our simple and addictive online game (league table, prizes, etc). - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? Seriously, where would the fun in that be? Phil 'timestamp-tastic' Wilson - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Phil, I'm sure one of the first computing acronyms I ever leant was GIGO... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIGO 2008/6/4 Phil Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? Seriously, where would the fun in that be? Phil 'timestamp-tastic' Wilson - 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/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Phil Wilson wrote: Phil 'timestamp-tastic' Wilson People are catching up on you, Phil, better get back to it! ;-) ATB, Matthew - 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/
RE: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Forgive my ignorance, but what is an Aston? Aston is a company who provide systems for generating on-screen graphics for live programmes - however it's also used as a generic term for those same graphics. So the kind of graphics like you get on the News where they'll say Nick Higham reporting, the name of an interviewee or similar. - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
I'm sure one of the first computing acronyms I ever leant was GIGO... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIGO Yes, I know it. Take a look at Etienne's reply for one aspect of the details and why the captions may also count as garbage. Another important point is that the video captioner they've put together matches video to Hansard, rather than just the captions - that is, to the official record of what was said, rather than what was actually said, which is an important distinction. Phil 2008/6/4 Phil Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]: However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? Seriously, where would the fun in that be? Phil 'timestamp-tastic' Wilson - Sent via the 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Brian Butterworth wrote: I thought they were trying to do OCR on the captions from the DVB-T stream. No, we have clear text. As it says in the blog post :-) However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? Sadly not (trust me, I've spent some time on this!) - even ignoring some missing data (so we'd have to do this for then anyway), when there's a long debate sometimes the captioning simply shows a summary of what's going on rather than someone's name (especially if they're a minister so we know who they are); captions don't cover quick interruptions, which can really mess things up if there's a lot of going back and forth between two people; etc. etc. :) ATB, Matthew - 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/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer download client for the Mac
Tim Dobson wrote: The immediate question that, I would like to ask $[spokesman|admin|person] is, in reference to [1], Why? ...and, as usual, the question falls into a deep, dark, hole with the rest of the unanswered questions about iplayer. :( it's a shame really... -- www.tdobson.net If each of us have one object, and we exchange them, then each of us still has one object. If each of us have one idea, and we exchange them, then each of us now has two ideas. - George Bernard Shaw - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
2008/6/4 Etienne Pollard [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I thought they were trying to do OCR on the captions from the DVB-T stream. What I was saying was that the old Freeview version of BBC Parliament used to have a quarter-screen picture and the information that is now in the Astons was provided using MHEG5. This was clear text (to keep the bandwidth down) not bitmap graphics. Forgive my ignorance, but what is an Aston? Sorry, it's a genericized trademark for captions overlaid on TV output.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_Broadcast_Systems OCRing is never going to be brilliant, given the semi-transparent nature of the captions on BBC Parliament. However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? The machines that put the captions up on the screen have internal text-based logs, to which we have access. However, since this is basically just pulling logfiles off a set of operational machines this access isn't 100% reliable. The MHEG5 service was 100% reliable, I would conjecture that it is possible to get them reliably. The data in the log files is of variable quality, since there are some speeches that are not captioned, and other times captions aren't actually speeches (e.g. reaction shot of previous speaker during a long speech can prompt a back and forth of captions, even though the same person is speaking throughout the changeover in captions). So although we use the logfiles to get an approximate fix, we had to resort to the timestamping game for accuracy. IMHO this is a just a clear case of GIGO. The best thing is whoever is operating the captions for BBC Parliament to be provided with the ability to correctly tag the content in the first place. The taxpayer (not Licence Fee payer) is paying for this to be done already, it seems just crazy that they can't do it, ahem, properly. I'm not attacking the idea of the workaround, I'm just saying that it would be best for the data to be prepared correctly at source and then distributed. Hope that helps, -- etienne - 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/ -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Phil, 2008/6/4 Phil Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'm sure one of the first computing acronyms I ever leant was GIGO... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIGO Yes, I know it. Take a look at Etienne's reply for one aspect of the details and why the captions may also count as garbage. Another important point is that the video captioner they've put together matches video to Hansard, rather than just the captions - that is, to the official record of what was said, rather than what was actually said, which is an important distinction. I still can't help thinking that this should be done at source. I thought Auntie was supposed to be give good tagging? Phil 2008/6/4 Phil Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? Seriously, where would the fun in that be? Phil 'timestamp-tastic' Wilson - Sent via the 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/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - 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/ -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
Aston is a company who provide systems for generating on-screen graphics for live programmes - however it's also used as a generic term for those same graphics. So the kind of graphics like you get on the News where they'll say Nick Higham reporting, the name of an interviewee or similar. It's amazing how manual the whole process is, still... And amusing for me (not for them, I'm sure) when little mistakes creep into live broadcasts :D When I was lucky enough to get a tour round the Mailbox studios (an unexpected one-off perk from one of my uni course's lecturers), I was quite surprised when we got to go into the control room during a new broadcast and suddenly had Natasha Kaplinsky's disembodied voice shouting ASTON ON ASTON... ...ASTON OFF at the vision mixer! Personally I think Brian Blessed's voice would been a better motivator ;) - 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/
Re: [backstage] Video recordings of the House of Commons on TheyWorkForYou.com
On 6/4/08, Etienne Pollard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Jun 4, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What I was saying was that the old Freeview version of BBC Parliament used to have a quarter-screen picture and the information that is now in the Astons was provided using MHEG5. This was clear text (to keep the bandwidth down) not bitmap graphics. Forgive my ignorance, but what is an Aston? Aston Broadcast Systems made a rather popular line of TV caption generating equipment - what are sometimes known as 'lower third graphics' are frequently referred to in the UK generically as Astons. OCRing is never going to be brilliant, given the semi-transparent nature of the captions on BBC Parliament. However, a clear text feed of the data would keep the data pure, surely? The machines that put the captions up on the screen have internal text-based logs, to which we have access. However, since this is basically just pulling logfiles off a set of operational machines this access isn't 100% reliable. The data in the log files is of variable quality, since there are some speeches that are not captioned, and other times captions aren't actually speeches (e.g. reaction shot of previous speaker during a long speech can prompt a back and forth of captions, even though the same person is speaking throughout the changeover in captions). So although we use the logfiles to get an approximate fix, we had to resort to the timestamping game for accuracy. Likewise, the caption may not appear as soon as the speaker does - a friend of mine spent a most of a summer in a BBC Parliament transmission gallery, captioning House of Lords coverage in real time. It took while, but she got quite good at recognising peers by their beards. - martin - 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/
Re: [backstage] Radio 4 on Realplayer
@christopher: Ooo ooo oo oo oo oo oo oo, *FLAC streaming*? Lossless WMA? If you'd be happy trebling your licence fee, and explaining why everyone else has to... (grin)... but I've plenty of experience adding odd formats to radio stations which don't have many listeners, thanks. @briantist: Obviously I'm hoping that everything that's on the iPlayer Radio will come as MP3s and the existing podcasts will be better quality (I would personally prefer a VBR stereo In Our Time than the current mono one). VBR is something we've not actually looked at, as far as I'm aware. That's a good and interesting thought - I'll consult with the clever people to see if there are benefits for downloads. We are, though, not encoding everything that the same rate; it depends on what the content is; there are four different encoding profiles that we've identified. More though will need to wait for the blog - and don't read this into saying that we're making everything available as MP3 downloads; naturally, we're not. We can't. It's probably way, way too late to ask for this, but how about having pre-compression (audio compression that is) versions of BBC Radio 3 and 1Xtra as, at least, an option. I can listen to my classical and drum n bass at home with their piano to forte range, would be great to have the same range from BBC radio. I understand why DAB and FM need to have the analogue audio compression, but a clear version online would be cheap and satisfy the audiophiles. In fact, there are separate audio-processing techniques for all outputs - so FM is treated differently to DAB and to DTV. But, as you ask, we'll use the least-processed output for our higher bitrate streams. And honestly, you wouldn't want studio levels; they're a very unpleasant listen (says an ex radio presenter who used to monitor levels by ensuring that the red light didn't flash too much). Radio programmes are produced with the audio-processing in mind; indeed, that's what the presenters hear in their headphones. Also I'm pleased to hear that the word open is being used in BBC circles - and without being an expletive (I presume). I discussed part of the FMT (future media and technology) core values a few times with different colleagues - and always, without fail, open has been the most well-received word. j
[backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
Hello there, I'm a journalist working for BBC East in Norwich and I've joined this mailing list to get advice and guidance - and possibly some ideas - about a project I've been working on for the last 6 months. With the backing of my bosses at Look East and BBC English regions, I've designed, developed and launched a new graphics-rich e-mail newsletter which we now send out each day to about 2000 or so subscribers. This newsletter is hard to describe, but what it does is to aggregate links - complete with headlines and thumbnail images - to the latest video news items which appear on the main Look East website, a 'blog' section promoting that evening's programmes with nested links expanding on the stories being discussed, drop down menus featuring linking to BBC East regional weather, news and sport sites and an occasional text ticker which promotes whatever we fancy - often our local radio stations. It's conceived primarily as a content delivery vehicle first, then a promotional tool, a way of combining all the services offered by the BBC in my region into one tidy package and also a way of elaborating on the stories we're working on. To subscribe -temporarily if you want, I won't mind :-) - go here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/lookeast/newsletter/subscription.shtml Now the thing is, is that I'm a relative novice who is learning as I go along. What I've learned is that e-mail can only support very basic html and that there are limits to what features we can incorporate into this newsletter. However, I'm determined to max out the potential and capacity of this rather unusual way of delivering BBC content. Any html tricks, ideas, criticisms, improvements, widgets or whatever anyone on this mailing list can offer in the way of developing this newsletter concept, I'd be hugely grateful. Several other English regions are toying with the idea of adopting it, so I'm keen on adding new features, but my technical knowledge is still quite limited. this whole experience has been really positive for me and I've become quite an evangelist for e-mail broadcasting, which I want to develop, though the inherent limitations of e-mail do constrain thigs somewhat (no scripting, flash, java etc). This is my baby and I'm throwing it open to y'all to see if some new ideas emerge. Cheers Matt Precey _ All new Live Search at Live.com http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/msnnkmgl001006ukm/direct/01/
[backstage] Ray Gosling and Parsley Sidings
The first radio documentary I heard Ray Gosling do was a series about an overland trip, 'on the road to new zealand', it came out in the late seventies. I think I was expecting a whispering reverential right-on Bob Harris commentary, what we got was very different, very challenging. Ray has this voice, once you've heard it you never forget it, a voice as unique as say John Ebden who used to do regular programmes 'From the BBC Sound Archives'. You could listen to their voices reading the telephone book. Google tells me that Ray Gosling made over a thousand radio documentaries, he is, I believe our greatest living broadcaster, not just my view, ask Andy Kershaw. Has the BBC has preserved all or some of these programmes, how would one go about finding out which ones are left? Are there inventories somewhere that we can get hold of? Are there teams of people digitising all this stuff and what remit are they working too? Sorry if this has been covered before. While I'm on the subject, Arthur Lowe and Ian Lavendar in Parsley Sidings another national treasure that needs bringing back to the surface from which ever dust coated shelf it has been sitting on these past 35 years. There is a British Library Sound Archive, 71 entries for Ray Gosling, nothing for Parsley Sidings, it's not exactly listen again, very 1994 ish. Tell me I have unrealistic expectations and I'll happily agree.
