[backstage] Lunchtime feedback idea
Whilst working back from grabbing some sarnies with some collegues this lunchtime we were discussing politicans being interviewed on Radio 4 and how evasive and downright dodgy some of them (most of them? :-) ) sound. One of my chums then hit on a cunning wheeze for providing feedback to radio listeners that are using DAB radios or the web which we all rather liked. The basic idea was to take short messages from listeners (SMS, tweets, button clicks on the web, etc) when they thought that someone on air was spouting nonsense/evading the question/answering questions he'd rather he'd been asked/etc (we used a more bovine effluent related term during our discussion but I doubt that would be acceptable on the BBC! ;-) ). These could then be turned into a real time indication of listener dissatisfaction with the answers being given, and maybe displayed on the displays of the DAB radios, as well as on the Radio 4 website. Indeed the web site could have graphs of bovine effulent levels during the day, week, month, year, etc so that you could spot when there'd been a particularly heavy burst of nonsense being spouted by someone on the wireless, possibly with hyperlinks to iplayer programmes so that you could nip back in time and hear what caused the listeners to cry foul. - 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] Re: Maker Faire in Newcastle
On Wed, 11 Mar 2009, Ant Miller wrote: [...] random stuff about a BBC Micro for the 21st Century. That sounds intriguing, especially to someone who spent many hours of his school boy life installing/fixing/hacking on the first generation version. I wonder if a dual core Intel CPU with a couple of gigs of RAM and more drive space than existed on the plant in 1984 will work through the Tube? :-) - 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] Multicast Trial
On Wed, 11 Apr 2007, Gordon Joly wrote: I still do not understand why multicast is not a huge hit. But I guess money may be the issue. Coming from a University networks team perspective, multicast has both pluses and minuses. I've been playing with multicast since the early days of the MBONE (ah, live shuttle launch video back when there were shuttle launches and maxing out our then 2Mbps JANET connection!). We're just girding our loins for shipping out multicast based IPTV (INUK stuff) to our student halls. We've had multicast enabled on selected staff networks for some years - its used by several of the Grid computing groups for example. From a software point of view - it just comes bundled with the Cisco routers that we use anyway so that's not really an additional cost. The main plus point of multicast is the obvious one of saving bandwidth if lots of folk are looking at the same sets of high bit rate streams from all over the network. The downsides are trying to stop people from generating their own multicast streams (otherwise some smart alec will start sending out packets on the same multicast group as BBC1 comes in on) and ensuring that in a trunked network environment you don't end up still sending multiple copies of streams down the trunks, one in each VLAN. Stuff like Cisco's MVR is supposed to help with that, but we've had five or six of us banging our heads on the desks trying to get MVR to work - looks like it might not co-exist happily with the VMPS dynamic VLAN assignment that we use to manage the network. :-( Debugging multicast routing issues can also be fun and there's also QoS, packet shaping, firewalling and other similar issues to contend with. Its not as simple as it first seems. With regard to the BBC multicast trial, I can't see any of H.264 BBCtv streams at the moment (though I could last week). I can watch the Real streams OK (RealPlayer 10 on a Fedora Linux box) - I've got News24 on at the moment with the weather man telling me its not going to be so nice this weekend. Quality on this looks good, even if I expand to full screen (which I rarely do). When the H.264 streams work they also look good. The Windows Media streams rarely, if ever, seem to be working. I wonder if, as an end user of this trial, there is somewhere at the BBC I'm supposed to feed this information back to? - 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: WEB API (was Re: [backstage] Noise and Signal)
On Tue, 6 Mar 2007, Andy Leighton wrote: For A Good Read there is nothing in the synopsis at all listing the books covered in that programme. There is a list of past (inc. the current programme) books chosen on the A Good Read micro-site - but again without any sort of markup. Would it be too difficult for someone to use something like span class=booktitleThe Rider/span by span class=authorTim Krabbe/span It could do with an ISBN or two in there as well - that would make tying the books to other, non-BBC bibliographic systems easier (such as library OPACs, OCLC WorldCat or LibraryThing). Talking of the BBC and books, I've recently been playing with the idea of extracting keywords from the BBC News RSS feeds and then using them to do searches on Loughborough University's OPAC (via the Z39.50 search mechanism), the idea being that you could have a look for books we hold that cover current news topics. That might be handy for, for example, politics or journalism students to get a more in depth background to current news stories. At the moment there's nothing that I'd be happy to show the world at large and it might not even be much use when it is working. I'm using the categories from the News RSS fed as the search terms for the Z39.50 search but that gets me loads of matches (1000+ for most news articles!) so I'm going to have think up some mechanism for extracting better keywords that hit a more limited set of books, Really though its just an excuse for me to play with AJAXy stuff a bit. I'm a Perl CGI server side bod normally so this is still a learning curve for 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/
RE: WEB API (was Re: [backstage] Noise and Signal)
On Wed, 7 Mar 2007, Jeremy Stone wrote: I was pointed to that by this blog post http://deboramasweblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/deboramas-www-number-14-radi o-wrap-up.html Which rather takes the BBC to task although it does cite backstage when it admits their attempts at involving the public are laudable and sometimes innovative. I don't think she can shout too much about NPR's book's RSS feed. Whilst it is actually there, it only appears to have, title, description, link and guid tagged but doesn't seem to have author, publisher or the all important ISBN-13. - 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] BBC on YouTube
On Fri, 2 Mar 2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mr Highfield said the BBC would not be hunting down all BBC-copyrighted clips already uploaded by YouTube members - although it would reserve the right to swap poor quality clips with the real thing, or to have content removed that infringed other people's copyright, like sport, or that had been edited or altered in a way that would damage the BBC's brand. This development is excellent news but what popped into my head when I read about it was, how on earth are the BBC getting all the rights to allow YouTube to do this? After hearing that Dyke's plan to open the archives was scuppered by a conductor with a short term contract, I assume that the legal beagals have been very, very busy to allow this content to go out? - 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] Does Wikipedia have a cash crisis? Could this be Another h2g2 moment?
On Mon, 12 Feb 2007, Tom Loosemore wrote: we had a good long look at ways of working together, but sadly we don't own our own bandwidth following the sale of BBC Technology to Siemans a couple of years ago. Does the BBC actually own _anything_ these days? :-) :-) :-) - 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] Movies Data
On Thu, 18 Jan 2007, Kim Plowright wrote: Did I ask on here about sources of information/UIDs for books, DVDs, CDs, Games, other small media objects? I've been playing with Listal http://www.listal.com/ and delicious library http://www.delicious-monster.com/ over christmas, and have been wondering if there was an equivalent wikibase of information for books as there is for CDs at http://musicbrainz.org/ Does http://www.librarything.com/ help you? There's even a few API's detailed at http://www.librarything.com/api.php and seems to be owned/run by a hoopy chap called Tim. - 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] Web2.0 - tennets, rules, development philosophy... I'd love you to give us some feedback
On Mon, 17 Jul 2006, Matthew Somerville wrote: [...] Amazon launched their web services in 2002, and I remember mash-ups being created back then - e.g. Amazon Light. I was mashing up Gopher interfaces mining into our text based BLS OPAC at the University back in 92/93. Is that too old skool? :-) Jim'll - 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] feeds with live graphics?
On Mon, 12 Jun 2006, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] In fact, I think there was a blog about this, which poked fun at the BBC's stock image usage - bunny something or another. The Beeb's news site used to get laughed at in the railway world because they nearly always used a picture of an old obsolete commuter train from the south of England. Even if they were covering the introduction of new high speed trains to Scotland. I think they've had enough complaints over the years to wean them off using that image recently. I assume other subjects have equally amusing stock images for those in the know. Jim'll - 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] All streamable programmes
On Wed, 17 May 2006, Duncan Barclay wrote: This server is configured to support only multicast connections. Please contact the content provider for more information on listening to this broadcast. It seems that JANET doesn't extend to the university accommodation, although I don't see why it wouldn't. The JANET multicast traffic might well make it to your campus network core (assuming your regional MAN carries it - JANET connections don't just terminate on X.25 or SMDS links to the Universities like they did in the Good Old Days), but whether it then gets sent to the subnet that you're on is something your networks folk get to decide. At Loughborough for example we've shipped multicast to some subnets that need it (for e-science and grid computing stuff mostly, plus some video testing) but not all. Student hall rooms will probably be getting multicast next for IP TV (but not the BBC's trial - this is from INUK[1]). Even then its likely that we'll restrict where multicast sources can come from and whether internal multicasting within a hall works (so folk can't start up their own multicast TV station playing out their video collection from their hard disc!). Jim'll 1: URL:http://www.inuknetworks.com/ - 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] How can we best serve you media XML?
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006, Ben Metcalfe wrote: Also, for many users they have the ability to view both kinds of media and as such may want to be given the option rather than forced one over the other. I'd be interested to hear what other's think on this front. Surely using the HTTP/MIME method doesn't force one version onto the user, assuming that they can configure their user agent to prioritise which version they prefer first, which they want second, etc. So I might ask for an Ogg as my first choice and if that isn't available I'll have an MP3. If that isn't available either I'll go for a .au file and finally try a WMA file. Someone else might ask for WMA first or then MP3. This is the mechanism that HTTP has used for ages - seems sensible to me to keep using what works rather than inventing a new wheel. Jim'll - 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] iMP and alternative models to DRM
On Fri, 9 Dec 2005, Al Petfield wrote: I think it would be great if there was a meritocracy whereby artists were paid in proportion to their popularity but I don't suppose record companies would be too happy to see the link between artist and audience become so transparent! The unit based music/video industry already sort of has this. Its called a bargain bin and contains stuff like the Wurzels, CW music, unknown US action movie DVDs, etc that folk won't stump up large bundles of cash to listen to/watch. Jim'll - 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] iMP issue
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005, Luke Dicken wrote: Umm...the BBC aren't allowed to take money from advertising are they? Andy That's what I'd have thought. And it jolly nice to have one major media outlet on the web that *isn't* stuffing your browser full of banner ads, targetted popups, etc, etc. Long may my membership fee (aka telly licence) keep it that way. Jim'll - 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] iMP: accessibility, is the smell really that bad?
On Tue, 8 Nov 2005, James wrote: Here's a few screenies: http://www.webcoding.co.uk/imp/ Note that you can actually play the DRM'd files in Media Player itself, it doesnt have to go through the iMP player design. All the video's can be fast forwarded etc without issue. With all this DRMed fun, I assume that something stops folk from just screen capturing the rendered output and turning it back into an un-DRMed MPEG2 stream? I'm not a windows user, but a quick Google threw up URL:http://www.hmelyoff.com/index.php?section=4 as a possible tool to let you do this; I'm sure there are others (I know years ago my old SGI Indy workstation with the CosmoCompress video capture card let me grab movies from random sections of the screen, so this is nothing new). Jim'll - 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] iMP
On Mon, 7 Nov 2005, Angelo wrote: How long do you foresee the trials taking place for before it is released onto the UK market? Also, I assume the basic technology will prevent those from outside the UK viewing the content on imp, but how will you be able to distinguish between those who have and have not paid their licence fee? Or, will it be the case that those who log on without a licence fee will just be breaking the law? I'm at work so I can't check at the moment, but ISTR that my telly licence has a unique reference number with it. Make that something that you have to put into iMP. Don't pay your telly licence and the number no longer lets you get anything other than the radio stuff (which I think you don't need a licence for these days, right?). The Beeb can use concurrency checking to make sure that 3000 people all over the UK aren't simultaneously using the same licence number (but you'd need to allow some concurrency to allow for multiple sets and family members in the same house using it, possible mobile). Jim'll - 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] other ways of working ?
On Thu, 27 Oct 2005, Lucy Hooberman wrote: More structure for discussion and development - think you all are talking about this already - a wiki for shared learning; and some people like a stage process - take an idea to one stage, then offer it up for more comments to the wider group? If you do decide to go for forums/wikis/etc, please don't throw away this mailing list. Personnally I tend to find that if stuff spins off to a web based forum/wiki/etc I'll end up ignoring it unless its important for my work at the moment, as checking the multitude of such web based services isn't part of my daily routine. Considering the number of stagnant wikis and forums I've come across (especially for providing support to existing products, both commercial and open source), I don't think I'm alone in this. However reading my email is part of that daily routine. If other folk do find these web based mechanisms more to their taste, could it be arranged that they periodically ping the mailing list with pointers to updates, outstanding questions, etc? Jim'll - 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] Backstage - Stagnant
On Tue, 25 Oct 2005, Richard Edwards wrote: I somewhat agree. I am not a programmer but I watch the mails here for a clue as to where people want things to go. The BBC have incredible resources yet there seems to be more innovation of the Apple Discussions board. As an example, this week Sky News re-launched, even as a normal event there should be a complete re-design of the BBC news site by now. Eh? Why would Sky News being re-launched (which was such massive news in and of itself that this was the first I'd heard of it!) cause a complete redesign of the BBC news website? I can imagine it working the other way round, but why would a leading UK web news service change its distinctive look-n-feel just because a wannabe has tried to rebrand itself? As Duncan says, it is a two way street here. My thing is music, but I see Backstage as a programmers BBC3.. I think it should be serious, and therefore needs it's own copyright contract and possibly some kind of fee structure for both sides. Oh no! That sounds like it will just drift down the commercial route. Those of us who just want to play with BBC services and scratch a developmental itch will be back to square one. If folk want money-exchanging-contracts with the BBC, please do it in smoke filled rooms and not on backstage. As for the bursty nature of this mailing list, it probably depends on many factors, including (but not limited to) folks' free time, competition dead lines, sudden bouts of ideas and folk bouncing new ideas off each other. I don't think we've seen a killer app yet that creates a constant background of postings. Jim'll - 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/
[backstage] iMP released
I see from Slashdot[1] that the BBC have started their Internet Media Player[2] trial. Any backstagers in the lucky public group? I see that it has a Windows only DRM so no point in us Linux users applying for the trial. Back to tvtime for us! Jim'll [1] http://slashdot.org/articles/05/10/05/0139223.shtml?tid=129tid=95 [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/ - 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] UPDATE backstage.bbc.co.uk TV Schedule Competition
On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, Ben Metcalfe wrote:
There is an open source Java parser for TV-Anytime
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/projects/tv_anytime_api/) but I'm aware
many of you are not building your prototypes in Java.
Its probably worth pointing out that CPAN also has a TV::Anytime set of
modules for Perl. Handy for those of us that are Perl hackers and don't
do Java!
After reading all the stuff in the last few postings, I wondered just how
tricky TV Anytime format is to process if you can grok Perl and have this
module loaded. So after a few minutes with `perl -MCPAN -e shell` doing
an install TV::Anytime and loading all the dependencies, I had Perl
setup and ready to go. What to do? For a simple test I simply strung
together some of the TV::Anytime perldoc examples with a quick bit of code
to let me search through this weeks TV::Anytime listings for TV programs
that have keywords matching my two major hobbies.
I've attached the resulting Perl code to this email, along with a sample
output. Its lacking comments, user interfaces or indeed any useful
(though I did consider a cronjob to get the TVAnytime data at the start of
the week and then email me the matching list), but at least it shows what
is possible with a minimal amount of Perl hacking.
Its not big and its not clever but then the whole thing from the first
what's this TV Anytime format look like anyway? thought to writing this
email took just over two hours. I doubt Ben Metcalfe and the chaps at BBC
Backstage will allow this as an entry in the comp (and it wasn't intended
as one, though I'll take the prize if the rest of you can't get your arses
into gear! ;-) ) but folk can feel free to take it, expand it, mull it
over, hack it and generally do what you want with it.
TV Anytime might be a pain in the bum if you're writing a parser from
scratch. So don't - use one someone has already written! A big round of
applause is due to Leon Brocard for creating TV::Anytime - it does what it
says on the tin and makes things really easy. So get to it folks...
Jim'll#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use TV::Anytime;
my $tv = TV::Anytime-new(20050901/);
my @searchterms = ('railway', 'computer');
print Program Synopsis Keyword Search\n;
print \nLooking for keywords: ;
my $conj = ;
foreach my $searchterm (@searchterms) {
print $conj . $searchterm;
$conj = , ;
}
print \n\n;
# Find out what services are available
my @services = $tv-services_television;
foreach my $service (@services) {
print Channel . $service-name;
my @genres = $service-genres;
my $shown_genre = 0;
foreach my $genre (@genres) {
next if($genre-name ne ContentCS);
if(!$shown_genre) {
print (;
$shown_genre = 1;
} else {
print , ;
}
print $genre-value;
}
if($shown_genre) {
print );
}
print \n;
my @programmes = $service-programs;
my $matched = 0;
foreach my $program (@programmes) {
my @hits;
foreach my $searchterm (@searchterms) {
if($program-synopsis =~ /$searchterm/i) {
push @hits, $searchterm;
}
}
next if($#hits 0);
$matched++;
print $program-title . matched for ;
my $conj = ;
foreach my $hit (@hits) {
print $conj.$hit;
$conj = , ;
}
print .\n;
print. $program-synopsis . \n;
foreach my $event ($program-events) {
print
. $event-start-datetime . -
. $event-stop-datetime . (
. $event-duration-minutes . mins)\n;
}
my @prog_genres = $program-genres;
}
if(!$matched) {
print \tChannel has no matches\n;
}
}
Program Synopsis Keyword Search
Looking for keywords: railway, computer
Channel BBC One
Neighbours matched for computer.
Left on the Scrapheap: Crazed David attempts to harm Paul. Max is shocked by
Kayla's desperation. Penny uses creative measures to replace Bree's broken
computer. [AD]
2005-09-06T12:40:00 - 2005-09-06T13:05:00 (25 mins)
2005-09-06T16:35:00 - 2005-09-06T17:00:00 (25 mins)
Channel BBC Two
Hack the Planet matched for computer.
Open University. [M206] Meet the hackers who wrote a program capable of
hijacking 100 million computers and the multinationals intent on stopping them.
[S]
2005-09-04T01:30:00 - 2005-09-04T02:00:00 (30 mins)
Eureka TV matched for computer.
CBBC. Fearne uses a new computer to spot Kate in a crowd of fake Kates, plus
how to make your breakfast cereal perform at home. [S]
2005-09-08T07:00:00 - 2005-09-08T07:15:00 (15 mins)
Tetris: From Russia With Love matched for computer.
The tale of an outwardly simple computer block-building game being turned
into a global phenomena. [S]
2005-09-08T22:20:00 - 2005-09-08T23:20:00 (0 mins)
Channel BBC News 24 (News)
Channel has no matches
Channel BBC Three
Channel has no matches
Channel BBC Four
Channel has no matches
Channel CBBC
