[backstage] Re: [backstage] Kinect.. what if..
can you tell me who are the wanders for documentary in BBC channel ? regards arati On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:46:04 +0530 Ant Miller wrote gt;From Roderick Hodgson in Ramp;D who is now actively hacking this platform (mostly in spare time, though we may have somethig for either Big Bang or Maker Faire): gt; gt;http://ww w.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/14/hacked-kinect-is-now-a-3d-video-capture-tool/ gt;http://digitizor.com/2010/11/15/hacked-kinect-brings-futuristic-user-interface/ gt;http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/kinect-running-on-multiple-platforms-looking-cool/ gt; gt; gt;On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Jonathan Chetwynd lt;j.chetw...@btinternet.comgt; wrote: gt;ifixit teardown gt; gt;http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft-Kinect-Teardown/4066/1 gt; gt;~: gt; gt;On 18 Nov 2010, at 15:22, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote: gt; gt;...all this bumpf about how fancy they are[0] is just a load bollocks. gt; gt;I am wondering if them Kinect things are really working a lot simpler; and after waking up in the middle of a shower am now postulating that: gt; gt;1. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They have a simple static laser interference pattern (e.g. akin to [1] or those gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;star projectors you can buy from street vendors). gt; gt;2. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;However this one is very very fine and nicely randomish. i.e. dots less than a few gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;mm appart. gt; gt;3. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They use a crappy low resolution normal monochrome web cam; with a black bit of glass so gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;only IR gets let through. gt; gt;4. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They simply pass the image of this camera back. gt; gt;The reason that this works is that every 'pixel' at CCD level for distances of working range will have 1 to 100 or so 'tiny dots' on it - depending on the distance it is at. Which is why we have roughly the range we get; why we have such a near perfect 1/sigma callibration curve and why the range of values you get it so odd - and why they filter certain types of noise so badly. gt; gt;And perhaps, perhaps: gt; gt;5. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They do a phase locked loop amplifier loop in software by flashing the projector. gt; gt;But I doubt that given the noise/error artifacts. gt; gt;And that is really all there is to it. Anyone here with a good high-res SRL which can do enough IR detection to check if indeed this is the case ? I guess a fun test would be to use a mirror to project a few extra pixels onto a flat area - and see if that area suddenly jumps 'forward'. gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; gt;Thanks, gt; gt;Dw gt; gt; gt;0: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/11/features/the-game-changer and all the mystification on how they work. gt;1:http://www.zimbio.com/Popular+Topics+in+Astronomy/articles/vnjstT2fTM2/Green+30mw+Laser+Pointer+Pen+Style+Star+Holographic gt;- gt;Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. nbsp;To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. nbsp;Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ gt; gt;- gt;Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. nbsp;To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. nbsp;Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ gt; gt; gt;-- gt;Ant Miller gt; gt;tel: 07709 265961 gt;email: ant.mil...@gmail.com gt;
RE: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Kinect.. what if..
Hi Arati, If you'd like to drop me an email with a specific BBC contact query, I'll do what i can to help. I'll need details though, about who you are, what you want, and who you'd like to talk to. This is a big organisation, and it's not always easy to put the right people in touch, Thanks, Ant Sent from my HTC -Original Message- From: arati dwivedi aratisad...@rediffmail.com Sent: 28 November 2010 15:15 To: backstage backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Kinect.. what if.. can you tell me who are the wanders for documentary in BBC channel ? regards arati On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:46:04 +0530 Ant Miller wrote gt;From Roderick Hodgson in Ramp;D who is now actively hacking this platform (mostly in spare time, though we may have somethig for either Big Bang or Maker Faire): gt; gt;http://ww w.adafruit.com/blog/2010/11/14/hacked-kinect-is-now-a-3d-video-capture-tool/ gt;http://digitizor.com/2010/11/15/hacked-kinect-brings-futuristic-user-interface/ gt;http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/11/kinect-running-on-multiple-platforms-looking-cool/ gt; gt; gt;On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Jonathan Chetwynd lt;j.chetw...@btinternet.comgt; wrote: gt;ifixit teardown gt; gt;http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft-Kinect-Teardown/4066/1 gt; gt;~: gt; gt;On 18 Nov 2010, at 15:22, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote: gt; gt;...all this bumpf about how fancy they are[0] is just a load bollocks. gt; gt;I am wondering if them Kinect things are really working a lot simpler; and after waking up in the middle of a shower am now postulating that: gt; gt;1. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They have a simple static laser interference pattern (e.g. akin to [1] or those gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;star projectors you can buy from street vendors). gt; gt;2. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;However this one is very very fine and nicely randomish. i.e. dots less than a few gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;mm appart. gt; gt;3. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They use a crappy low resolution normal monochrome web cam; with a black bit of glass so gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;only IR gets let through. gt; gt;4. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They simply pass the image of this camera back. gt; gt;The reason that this works is that every 'pixel' at CCD level for distances of working range will have 1 to 100 or so 'tiny dots' on it - depending on the distance it is at. Which is why we have roughly the range we get; why we have such a near perfect 1/sigma callibration curve and why the range of values you get it so odd - and why they filter certain types of noise so badly. gt; gt;And perhaps, perhaps: gt; gt;5. nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;They do a phase locked loop amplifier loop in software by flashing the projector. gt; gt;But I doubt that given the noise/error artifacts. gt; gt;And that is really all there is to it. Anyone here with a good high-res SRL which can do enough IR detection to check if indeed this is the case ? I guess a fun test would be to use a mirror to project a few extra pixels onto a flat area - and see if that area suddenly jumps 'forward'. gt; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; nbsp; gt;Thanks, gt; gt;Dw gt; gt; gt;0: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2010/11/features/the-game-changer and all the mystification on how they work. gt;1:http://www.zimbio.com/Popular+Topics+in+Astronomy/articles/vnjstT2fTM2/Green+30mw+Laser+Pointer+Pen+Style+Star+Holographic gt;- gt;Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. nbsp;To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. nbsp;Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ gt; gt;- gt;Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. nbsp;To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. nbsp;Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ gt; gt; gt;-- gt;Ant Miller gt; gt;tel: 07709 265961 gt;email: ant.mil...@gmail.com gt; - 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] Re: [backstage] Kinect.. what if..
hackingnbsp; isnbsp; big difficult situation, arati On Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:41:41 +0530 Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote gt; gt;On 18 Nov 2010, at 17:12, Ant Miller wrote: gt; gt;gt; From Roderick Hodgson in Ramp;D who is now actively hacking this platform (mostly in spare time, though we may have somethig for either Big Bang or Maker Faire): gt;gt; gt; gt;Aye - has kept me up all night. Wonderfuly easy to do things like 3D ing a room or object - or even have clay or video you can grab in the air and the playdough into shape. gt; gt;Dw. gt; gt; gt; gt;- gt;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/ gt;
[backstage] Re: [backstage] TV-Anytime files on Backstage and old Web API for TV/Radio data closing down
DEAR ANDREW I was really busy with-one research of my work, butnbsp; now I will be get in touch with all of you and member of backstage too. regards nbsp;arati On Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:32:11 +0530 Andrew McParland wrote gt;Hi, gt; gt;Just to note that we'll be switching off the old API to schedule data in gt;the next day or so. It now has no schedule data in it, though there gt;seem to be quite a few clients that won't take no results for an answer... gt; gt;Cheers, gt; gt;Andrew gt;BBC Ramp;D gt; gt;On 15/09/2010 11:17, Andrew McParland wrote: gt;gt; Hi, gt;gt; gt;gt; Just to note that we will not be putting any new TV-Anytime files on gt;gt; Backstage - several radio stations are already completely missing from gt;gt; the data. We'll leave the existing files there for the moment. gt;gt; gt;gt; The old API will be closed down soon too. Please use /programmes. gt;gt; gt;gt; Andrew gt;gt; BBC Ramp;D gt;gt; gt;gt; On 26/08/2010 10:50, Andrew McParland wrote: gt;gt;gt; Hi, gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; We are starting to lose the source of data we are using for the gt;gt;gt; TV-Anytime files on Backstage: gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/feeds/tvradio/ gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; and the old web API for TV/Radio data: gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; http://www0.rdthdo.bbc.co.uk/services/api/ gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; This is quite an old system that we haven't really worked on since we gt;gt;gt; first launched it 4+ years ago apart from a few minor patches. Since gt;gt;gt; /programmes can provide much more comprehensive data and is properly gt;gt;gt; supported, we do not intend to fix this problem and so will stop gt;gt;gt; providing new files and remove access to the old web API in the near gt;gt;gt; future. gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; I've mentioned before that developers wanting access to programme data gt;gt;gt; should now use /programmes instead. However, there are still quite a few gt;gt;gt; hits on the old web API, so if you are a developer using it please gt;gt;gt; update your software to use /programmes. gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; Cheers, gt;gt;gt; gt;gt;gt; Andrew gt;gt;gt; BBC Ramp;D gt;gt;gt; - gt;gt;gt; Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, gt;gt;gt; please visit gt;gt;gt; http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. gt;gt;gt; Unofficial list archive: gt;gt;gt; http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ gt;gt; - gt;gt; Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, gt;gt; please visit gt;gt; http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. gt;gt; Unofficial list archive: gt;gt; http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ gt;- gt;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/ gt;
[backstage] Re: Backstage- End of an Era
Hello folks, I wanted to throw in my tuppence worth in the form of a sort of retrospective from my point of view. Opinions my own, and any similarity to those of persons living or dead are entirely coincidental. The good: * Getting BBC people out into the public and meeting developers (both at BBC-hosted events and otherwise) and shows that BBC staffers are people too ;) * Showing that the BBC's creativity is not limited to its traditional output * A forum to ask technical questions about stuff * BBC people being open and honest (less good: having to face the internal grumbles as a result) * (most importantly) demonstrating that the sky will not, in fact, fall in if things are opened up The bad: * I can't speak for anybody else, but I think the timing is potentially terrible. Backstage started winding down not only as I discovered it, but as the stuff Backstage has been helping to make happen has become increasingly more important. * As a knock-on effect, the big takeaway impression is of stuff which is in the process of being decommissioned and a website which hasn't been updated properly in forever, which is a shame. * It's mostly just BBC. The ugly: * This list. Or rather, the fact there's only _one_ list. I think having a general discussion list (heated debates and all) is great, but I think, and others have expressed a similar sentiment, that having 'general discussion' and 'technical help and enquiries, and announcements' all on one list served to discourage the latter and attract people who are interested in the former but less the latter. So I reckon you can break it all down into different things I'd like to see happen or continue in *some* way: * Things like /programmes, /nature are clearly brilliant. More of this across the BBC, please. * A forum of some sort for help and advice in making use of this stuff -- whether it's hangers-on like me, or involved experts like Yves * A place to announce prototypes and such (I'd assume the RD blog would be high on the list for BBC stuff, but there needs to be something for the third-party stuff and unofficial hacks by BBC staff) * General discussions... thing. Somewhere for these to go (friends-of-backstage?) * BBC presence at events, and BBC-hosted events -- hackdays, Maker Faire, etc. I presume this would be fairly easily be turned into a BBC RD interest rather than a BBC Backstage interest as it is now. * A cross-broadcaster vehicle underpinning promoting a lot of this. Where's the data on ITV? Channel 4 (actually, wasn't it there, then switched off recently)? Five? Sky? -- I realise this one's ambitious, but I think it's something which needs to happen. * A voice for developers, hangers-on, hecklers, etc., to whinge and praise when things are done badly/well. So, yeah. That's my take. Make it so :) M. - 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: Backstage- End of an Era
On 22 October 2010 13:51, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: So I reckon you can break it all down into different things I'd like to see happen or continue in *some* way: Come on Mo,this list has very rarely acheived significant volume to even justify splitting it into 2 lists. I'm dissapointed to see Backstage go, but am sure we'll see more available data made accessible across the bbc in future. Thanks to all who contributed over the years. Martin Hatfield @hairyhatfield
Re: [backstage] Re: Backstage- End of an Era
On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 16:21, Martin Poppy Hatfield mar...@moppy.co.uk wrote: Come on Mo,this list has very rarely acheived significant volume to even justify splitting it into 2 lists. It's nothing to do with volume -- everything to do with audience. There has been, over the past year, _loads_ of stuff going on which is relevant to Backstage, and of interest to developers, but it doesn't make the list. M. - 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: Backstage- End of an Era
I've got a little story to tell, before this list disappears In 1990 I had the pleasure of doing a recording session at Maid Vale a full band with the Royal Philharmonic, about 110 people. We set up the studio and found that the small monitors (speakers) on the desk were out of phase. Incorrectly wired. In my commercial world, this would have just been fixed... there and then. In the BBC world, the studio assistant began by telling us that, as they were hard wired, we were therefore wrong. we carried on complaining and eventually a maintenance man came to have a look. complete with crisp white coat and pipe. We weren't allowed to touch the wiring ourselves health and safety you know!! He opened the plug and found it incorrectly wired. Hurrah... fixed in less than five minutes. The BBC assistant then proceeded to tell us that the studio had had a bass problem for so long that an £87,000 budget had been agreed to make changes. Changes which were no longer necessary as out of phase speakers cancel out bass. Our own budget was £250,000 for three days work, work that we came very close to just cancelling. This sums up my experience of Backstage as well. I am no computer tech but I understand the internet and its world far better than most. I have been on it since 1987. Backstage has taught me much, at the same time it has infuriated me... :-) I shall though, be very sad to see it go. I am afraid that the commercialisation of the BBC has been nothing if not cack-handed. :-) Many times I have thought that Backstage was more important to the BBC than the audience. and some of the really heated discussions have been very interesting, if for nothing more than the potentially tiny changes in the true vision of the BBC employees. Although last week there was a post trying to show how positively proactive the Beeb is in trying to keep the net (distribution) neutral whilst hiding themselves behind Siemens, Rights Holders and GEO/IP.. hahahahaha whoever can square that argument is wise indeed. Best wishes all RichE On 22 Oct 2010, at 17:38, Mo McRoberts wrote: On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 16:21, Martin Poppy Hatfield mar...@moppy.co.uk wrote: Come on Mo,this list has very rarely acheived significant volume to even justify splitting it into 2 lists. It's nothing to do with volume -- everything to do with audience. There has been, over the past year, _loads_ of stuff going on which is relevant to Backstage, and of interest to developers, but it doesn't make the list. M. - 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] Re: Backstage- End of an Era
I don't post much here these days, you have been able to see the virtual tumbleweed here for some time. In terms of success, it seems to me that, during the era of Blackberrys where an internal BBC list was an enlightening, intelligent, well-informed, helpful and only occasionally obsessive diversion, that we had the attention of many BBC people. Anyway, it pleases me to be associated here with people who can argue clearly both the technical and socio-economic issues associated with the BBC's online presence. There were lots of successes. Everything from the Look East mailing list to influences on the iPlayer and the very structure of the BBC site. A lot of what was done was subtle help, some things more obvious as pointed out above. Meeting up with backstage people on the various occasions was always stimulating. As they say, all good things must come to an end. Brian On 22 October 2010 17:38, Richard P Edwards re...@mac.com wrote: I've got a little story to tell, before this list disappears In 1990 I had the pleasure of doing a recording session at Maid Vale a full band with the Royal Philharmonic, about 110 people. We set up the studio and found that the small monitors (speakers) on the desk were out of phase. Incorrectly wired. In my commercial world, this would have just been fixed... there and then. In the BBC world, the studio assistant began by telling us that, as they were hard wired, we were therefore wrong. we carried on complaining and eventually a maintenance man came to have a look. complete with crisp white coat and pipe. We weren't allowed to touch the wiring ourselves health and safety you know!! He opened the plug and found it incorrectly wired. Hurrah... fixed in less than five minutes. The BBC assistant then proceeded to tell us that the studio had had a bass problem for so long that an £87,000 budget had been agreed to make changes. Changes which were no longer necessary as out of phase speakers cancel out bass. Our own budget was £250,000 for three days work, work that we came very close to just cancelling. This sums up my experience of Backstage as well. I am no computer tech but I understand the internet and its world far better than most. I have been on it since 1987. Backstage has taught me much, at the same time it has infuriated me... :-) I shall though, be very sad to see it go. I am afraid that the commercialisation of the BBC has been nothing if not cack-handed. :-) Many times I have thought that Backstage was more important to the BBC than the audience. and some of the really heated discussions have been very interesting, if for nothing more than the potentially tiny changes in the true vision of the BBC employees. Although last week there was a post trying to show how positively proactive the Beeb is in trying to keep the net (distribution) neutral whilst hiding themselves behind Siemens, Rights Holders and GEO/IP.. hahahahaha whoever can square that argument is wise indeed. Best wishes all RichE On 22 Oct 2010, at 17:38, Mo McRoberts wrote: On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 16:21, Martin Poppy Hatfield mar...@moppy.co.uk wrote: Come on Mo,this list has very rarely acheived significant volume to even justify splitting it into 2 lists. It's nothing to do with volume -- everything to do with audience. There has been, over the past year, _loads_ of stuff going on which is relevant to Backstage, and of interest to developers, but it doesn't make the list. M. - 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/
[backstage] Re: BBC Weather Summary text
Sorry to double post (couldn't tell for sure if the mail reached the list or not) If no one knows these weather statuses does anyone have any cunning ideas on how to work them out? Thanks Michael On 28/09/10 14:37, Michael Wood wrote: Hi, Is there a standard set of summary text's used in the BBC Weather RSS feed in the title tag e.g. sunny intervals sunny white cloud I'm looking for something to base the selection of an appropriate summary image on. Thanks Michael - 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: BBC Weather Summary text
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Michael Wood Sent: 01 October 2010 15:20 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Re: BBC Weather Summary text Sorry to double post (couldn't tell for sure if the mail reached the list or not) If no one knows these weather statuses does anyone have any cunning ideas on how to work them out? Would this lot be of use? http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/bbcweather/features/symbols.shtml - 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: BBC Weather Summary text
On 01/10/10 15:27, Andrew Bowden wrote: -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Michael Wood Sent: 01 October 2010 15:20 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Re: BBC Weather Summary text Sorry to double post (couldn't tell for sure if the mail reached the list or not) If no one knows these weather statuses does anyone have any cunning ideas on how to work them out? Would this lot be of use? http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/bbcweather/features/symbols.shtml Thanks Andrew, good find, those seem to match up well. Michael - 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: BBC Distribution Transmitter info
Good work Brian. I'm wondering whether to tell distribution! a On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tvwrote: The scraper seems to be working. I've created a page that recreates the old list. http://www.ukfree.tv/reception_transmitters_index.php Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: @briantist http://twitter.com/briantist web: ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 On 2 September 2010 21:27, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tvwrote: Ant, Thanks for your help. I've made some progress scraping the information from the helpdesk system. Quite good results so far, the current active lists is: Aberfoyle,BBC TWO FAILURE; DSO related from 09:15 yesterday to 17:00 yesterday, Bampton,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 10:10 yesterday to 12:30 yesterday Bolehill,BBC ONE Weak Signal from 07:01 today to 08:04 today, Brierley Hill,BBC ONE FAILURE from 04:25 today to 06:27 today,- No problems - Brook Bottom,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 10:15 today to 10:16 today Carmel,,BBC Digital TV Weak Signal; DSO related from 10:06 today to 15:58 today Cerne Abbas,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 09:39 today to 11:05 today Chalford,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 07:04 today to 12:53 today Chalford Vale,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 07:04 today to 12:53 today Chatton,BBC ONE Weak Signal from 10:56 today to 11:45 today BBC TWO Weak Signal from 14:56 yesterday to 15:33 yesterday,- No problems - Chesterfield,- No problems -,BBC Digital TV (One, Two, Three, CBBC, News) Weak Signal from 04:46 yesterday to 06:24 yesterday Crystal Palace,BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,- No problems - Delph,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 10:15 today to 10:16 today Edginswell,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 11:14 yesterday to 11:27 yesterday Emley Moor,BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,BBC Digital TV (One, Two, Three, CBBC, News) Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday Fintry,BBC ONE FAILURE from 09:00 today to 16:00 today, Gartly Moor,BBC TWO FAILURE; DSO related from 08:15 yesterday to 08:23 yesterday,- No problems - Greenhill,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 14:02 on 30 Aug Hannington,BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 10:41 yesterday to 14:05 today,- No problems - Heathfield,BBC ONE Weak Signal from 10:24 yesterday to 11:14 yesterday BBC TWO Weak Signal from 10:27 yesterday to 10:43 yesterday,- No problems - Henley-On-Thames,BBC TWO FAILURE from 04:39 today to 04:44 today, Hughenden,BBC ONE FAILURE from 11:33 yesterday to 12:48 yesterday, Kirkfieldbank,BBC ONE FAILURE; DSO related from 09:06 yesterday to 15:38 yesterday, Lark Stoke,BBC TWO Weak Signal from 15:18 yesterday to 18:23 yesterday,- No problems - Limavady,BBC TWO Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,- No problems - Llanfach,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 10:04 yesterday to 10:14 yesterday Llanharan,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 11:19 today to 12:27 today Midhurst,BBC TWO Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,- No problems - Moffat,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 15:30 yesterday to 15:45 yesterday Oxford,BBC ONE FAILURE from 10:21 yesterday to 10:29 yesterday BBC TWO Weak Signal from 17:16 today to 17:23 today,- No problems - Pendle Forest,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 09:25 today to 09:26 today Pontop Pike,BBC TWO Weak Signal from 13:35 yesterday to 16:03 yesterday,- No problems - Presely,,BBC Digital TV Weak Signal from 09:37 yesterday to 10:30 yesterday Ravenscraig,- No problems - - No problems -, Rhondda,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 14:45 today to 16:00 today Rosehearty,BBC ONE FAILURE; DSO related from 06:57 yesterday to 07:06 yesterday,- No problems - Rowridge,- No problems -,BBC Digital TV (One, Two, Three, CBBC, News) Weak Signal from 11:25 today to 13:41 today Saddleworth,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 10:15 today to 10:16 today South Knapdale,BBC TWO FAILURE from 09:06 yesterday to 13:08 yesterday, Sutton Coldfield,BBC ONE Reduced Quality from 06:17 today to 06:50 today BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 09:33 yesterday to 15:36 yesterda,- No problems - Torosay,BBC TWO FAILURE from 09:05 yesterday to 09:06 yesterday,- No problems - Tynewydd,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 14:45 today to 16:00 today West Runton,BBC ONE FAILURE from 07:02 yesterday to 07:04 yesterday, Yetholm,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 10:56 today to 11:01 today If anyone is interested, the list of postcodes used (with the resulting analogue and Freeview transmitters) is in the attached .CSV file. Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: @briantist http://twitter.com/briantist web: ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 On 1 September 2010 18:15, Ant Miller ant.mil...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Hi Brian, all, After extensive enquiries we have got to the bottom of the current status of this data in the BBC, and I'm afraid a
[backstage] Re: BBC Distribution Transmitter info
The scraper seems to be working. I've created a page that recreates the old list. http://www.ukfree.tv/reception_transmitters_index.php Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: @briantist http://twitter.com/briantist web: ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 On 2 September 2010 21:27, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Ant, Thanks for your help. I've made some progress scraping the information from the helpdesk system. Quite good results so far, the current active lists is: Aberfoyle,BBC TWO FAILURE; DSO related from 09:15 yesterday to 17:00 yesterday, Bampton,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 10:10 yesterday to 12:30 yesterday Bolehill,BBC ONE Weak Signal from 07:01 today to 08:04 today, Brierley Hill,BBC ONE FAILURE from 04:25 today to 06:27 today,- No problems - Brook Bottom,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 10:15 today to 10:16 today Carmel,,BBC Digital TV Weak Signal; DSO related from 10:06 today to 15:58 today Cerne Abbas,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 09:39 today to 11:05 today Chalford,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 07:04 today to 12:53 today Chalford Vale,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 07:04 today to 12:53 today Chatton,BBC ONE Weak Signal from 10:56 today to 11:45 today BBC TWO Weak Signal from 14:56 yesterday to 15:33 yesterday,- No problems - Chesterfield,- No problems -,BBC Digital TV (One, Two, Three, CBBC, News) Weak Signal from 04:46 yesterday to 06:24 yesterday Crystal Palace,BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,- No problems - Delph,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 10:15 today to 10:16 today Edginswell,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 11:14 yesterday to 11:27 yesterday Emley Moor,BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,BBC Digital TV (One, Two, Three, CBBC, News) Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday Fintry,BBC ONE FAILURE from 09:00 today to 16:00 today, Gartly Moor,BBC TWO FAILURE; DSO related from 08:15 yesterday to 08:23 yesterday,- No problems - Greenhill,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 14:02 on 30 Aug Hannington,BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 10:41 yesterday to 14:05 today,- No problems - Heathfield,BBC ONE Weak Signal from 10:24 yesterday to 11:14 yesterday BBC TWO Weak Signal from 10:27 yesterday to 10:43 yesterday,- No problems - Henley-On-Thames,BBC TWO FAILURE from 04:39 today to 04:44 today, Hughenden,BBC ONE FAILURE from 11:33 yesterday to 12:48 yesterday, Kirkfieldbank,BBC ONE FAILURE; DSO related from 09:06 yesterday to 15:38 yesterday, Lark Stoke,BBC TWO Weak Signal from 15:18 yesterday to 18:23 yesterday,- No problems - Limavady,BBC TWO Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,- No problems - Llanfach,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 10:04 yesterday to 10:14 yesterday Llanharan,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 11:19 today to 12:27 today Midhurst,BBC TWO Weak Signal; DSO related from 00:00 yesterday,- No problems - Moffat,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 15:30 yesterday to 15:45 yesterday Oxford,BBC ONE FAILURE from 10:21 yesterday to 10:29 yesterday BBC TWO Weak Signal from 17:16 today to 17:23 today,- No problems - Pendle Forest,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 09:25 today to 09:26 today Pontop Pike,BBC TWO Weak Signal from 13:35 yesterday to 16:03 yesterday,- No problems - Presely,,BBC Digital TV Weak Signal from 09:37 yesterday to 10:30 yesterday Ravenscraig,- No problems - - No problems -, Rhondda,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 14:45 today to 16:00 today Rosehearty,BBC ONE FAILURE; DSO related from 06:57 yesterday to 07:06 yesterday,- No problems - Rowridge,- No problems -,BBC Digital TV (One, Two, Three, CBBC, News) Weak Signal from 11:25 today to 13:41 today Saddleworth,,HD Digital TV FAILURE from 10:15 today to 10:16 today South Knapdale,BBC TWO FAILURE from 09:06 yesterday to 13:08 yesterday, Sutton Coldfield,BBC ONE Reduced Quality from 06:17 today to 06:50 today BBC ONE Weak Signal; DSO related from 09:33 yesterday to 15:36 yesterda,- No problems - Torosay,BBC TWO FAILURE from 09:05 yesterday to 09:06 yesterday,- No problems - Tynewydd,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 14:45 today to 16:00 today West Runton,BBC ONE FAILURE from 07:02 yesterday to 07:04 yesterday, Yetholm,,BBC Digital TV FAILURE from 10:56 today to 11:01 today If anyone is interested, the list of postcodes used (with the resulting analogue and Freeview transmitters) is in the attached .CSV file. Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: @briantist http://twitter.com/briantist web: ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 On 1 September 2010 18:15, Ant Miller ant.mil...@bbc.co.uk wrote: Hi Brian, all, After extensive enquiries we have got to the bottom of the current status of this data in the BBC, and I'm afraid a simple return the model of old is not possible. The Ceefax pages and website were lovingly hand cranked twice a day by dedicated staff, and in terms of cost
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Actual backstage question re HD tagging?
DEAR BRIAN Thanks to provide us information , I HAD ALSO GONE THROUGH of pact code , for techinical auspects with regards arati On Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:31:58 +0530 wrote BBC One HD is about to launch. I normally use the XML feeds, such as this one to get the schedule details. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/programmes/schedules/london/today.xml How will it be possible to work out which programmes are in HD, and which is SD as there isn't an existing tag for this. Currently the assumption is that if it's HD then it's on the HD channel. This won't be the case once there are two HD channels. Thanks Brian Butterworth
[backstage] Re: XML CMS?
Ian, http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/db/feeds/ appears to be offline, had you experience running exist with nodejs? trying to get some further info... cheers ~: On 4 Jul 2010, at 12:35, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote: Not sure whether I an is back at work, or well enough to respond, so does anyone know of a XML CMS preferably open source... I have no experience, but when reviewing book indexes found very little meat on SVG, or XML regards Jonathan Chetwynd On 26 Feb 2010, at 16:39, Ian Forrester wrote: The XML file i'm talking about are mainly stuck in content management systems.
RE: [backstage] Re: XML CMS?
http://www.alfresco.com/ seems quite good, currently using this on a project does xml document management ant -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk on behalf of Jonathan Chetwynd Sent: Sun 7/4/2010 12:39 PM To: Jonathan Chetwynd Cc: Ian Forrester; backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Re: XML CMS? Ian, http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/db/feeds/ appears to be offline, had you experience running exist with nodejs? trying to get some further info... cheers ~: On 4 Jul 2010, at 12:35, Jonathan Chetwynd wrote: Not sure whether I an is back at work, or well enough to respond, so does anyone know of a XML CMS preferably open source... I have no experience, but when reviewing book indexes found very little meat on SVG, or XML regards Jonathan Chetwynd On 26 Feb 2010, at 16:39, Ian Forrester wrote: The XML file i'm talking about are mainly stuck in content management systems. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system. Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately. Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received. Further communication will signify your consent to this.
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup
Pretty cool. I always thought those effects worked better with duplicate images though. Any chance of trying it again with the dups? Sent from my HTC - Reply message - From: Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 21:58 Subject: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk On 17-Jun-2010, at 21:36, Brian Butterworth wrote: Hi, I read http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/stephen-fry-doctor-who So, I found a folder with 15,871 very small caches of the pictures used for each of the iPlayer programmes. Well, they were when I removed 90,000 duplicates. I've made 5,000 of the programme images into a single relevant image. http://bnb.bpweb.net/iplayerimages/ *very* cool! Zoom in. I should speculate about the copyright... oh you’ll never manage to answer that one. I know of a fair few which are BBC employees friends’ photos, some are captures, some are publicity shots… :) M. - 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: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup
Not really, the whole point was that I had 15,871 iPlayer images. Your suggestion sound like repeats to me On 18 June 2010 07:10, l...@leenukes.co.uk l...@leenukes.co.uk wrote: Pretty cool. I always thought those effects worked better with duplicate images though. Any chance of trying it again with the dups? Sent from my HTC - Reply message - From: Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 21:58 Subject: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk On 17-Jun-2010, at 21:36, Brian Butterworth wrote: Hi, I read http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/stephen-fry-doctor-who So, I found a folder with 15,871 very small caches of the pictures used for each of the iPlayer programmes. Well, they were when I removed 90,000 duplicates. I've made 5,000 of the programme images into a single relevant image. http://bnb.bpweb.net/iplayerimages/ *very* cool! Zoom in. I should speculate about the copyright... oh you’ll never manage to answer that one. I know of a fair few which are BBC employees friends’ photos, some are captures, some are publicity shots… :) M. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup
very cool! just a naive question, what tool did you use to create the image? cheers, Jakob. On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:42, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Not really, the whole point was that I had 15,871 iPlayer images. Your suggestion sound like repeats to me On 18 June 2010 07:10, l...@leenukes.co.uk l...@leenukes.co.uk wrote: Pretty cool. I always thought those effects worked better with duplicate images though. Any chance of trying it again with the dups? Sent from my HTC - Reply message - From: Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 21:58 Subject: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk On 17-Jun-2010, at 21:36, Brian Butterworth wrote: Hi, I read http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/stephen-fry-doctor-who So, I found a folder with 15,871 very small caches of the pictures used for each of the iPlayer programmes. Well, they were when I removed 90,000 duplicates. I've made 5,000 of the programme images into a single relevant image. http://bnb.bpweb.net/iplayerimages/ *very* cool! Zoom in. I should speculate about the copyright... oh you’ll never manage to answer that one. I know of a fair few which are BBC employees friends’ photos, some are captures, some are publicity shots… :) M. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: 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] Re: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup
I used AndreaMosiac in the end, very impressed actually. http://www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/ On 18 June 2010 09:50, Jakob Fix jakob@gmail.com wrote: very cool! just a naive question, what tool did you use to create the image? cheers, Jakob. On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 10:42, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Not really, the whole point was that I had 15,871 iPlayer images. Your suggestion sound like repeats to me On 18 June 2010 07:10, l...@leenukes.co.uk l...@leenukes.co.uk wrote: Pretty cool. I always thought those effects worked better with duplicate images though. Any chance of trying it again with the dups? Sent from my HTC - Reply message - From: Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net Date: Thu, Jun 17, 2010 21:58 Subject: [backstage] Little iPlayer icon mashup To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk On 17-Jun-2010, at 21:36, Brian Butterworth wrote: Hi, I read http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/stephen-fry-doctor-who So, I found a folder with 15,871 very small caches of the pictures used for each of the iPlayer programmes. Well, they were when I removed 90,000 duplicates. I've made 5,000 of the programme images into a single relevant image. http://bnb.bpweb.net/iplayerimages/ *very* cool! Zoom in. I should speculate about the copyright... oh you’ll never manage to answer that one. I know of a fair few which are BBC employees friends’ photos, some are captures, some are publicity shots… :) M. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC¹s lack of support for open sour
Has everyone seen - http://whomwah.github.com/radioaunty/ http://whomwah.github.com/tellybox/ Doesn't seem too hard if someone was interested to build a ondemand version of these apps, using the http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/developers for feeds If they didn't really like the format something like solr could be used to rip then reindex the data into a nicer format And someone could create a commandline version of these apps, it's still flash video in a browser but at least it'd be better than nothing... Ant On 28/05/2010 00:15, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 22:56 +0100, Jonathan Tweed wrote: On 27 May 2010, at 20:42, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: Personally, all my use of iPlayer content is to fetch something I'm already aware of; I'm not just browsing randomly. And for that, I find that a command line tool gives a _much_ better experience than any point-and-drool GUI could ever provide. You're missing two very important words there: for you. Surely those two words would be redundant, given that I already went back to that sentence to insert the words 'I find that' before sending it? That was certainly my intention. But there _are_ GUI tools which make use of get_iplayer, such as the get_iplayer.cgi script which runs a local web server and points your browser at it. They haven't received a lot of love because most people with sufficient clue to work on them don't really _care_ about such things. I think Kieran's point is that they should. That's what will drive widespread adoption. That presumes that they _want_ widespread adoption, of course. I can't speak for them but personally, I don't really care very much about how widely get_iplayer (or any other Free Software I work on) is adopted. It's fun when people out there are using your code, but that kind of lost its novelty after the first few million units shipped. I started working on get_iplayer because I find it useful and I know that other people find it useful too. Without it, the iPlayer is fairly useless to me. My broadband at home is far too slow to watch things in real time with any reasonable quality, BT want £128,000 to install a second line, so my only real option is to download things and then watch them. I'm completely uninterested in the GUI side. I'd be the wrong person to do any GUI support because I'd never want to _use_ anything like that. If you or Kieran are actually _interested_ in the GUIs... have you _looked_ at get_iplayer.cgi or at the iPlayer support in XBMC? -- Anthony Mckale, Senior CSD Mob : 07912981657 Internal Phone : (02 776) 64470 BBC FMT Children's, TVC East Tower, Floor 1, Room E164 - 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: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC¹s lack of support for open sour
On Fri, 2010-05-28 at 11:11 +0100, Anthony McKale wrote: Has everyone seen - http://whomwah.github.com/radioaunty/ http://whomwah.github.com/tellybox/ Doesn't seem too hard if someone was interested to build a ondemand version of these apps, A bit like http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/ ? -- dwmw2 - 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: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC¹s lack of support for open sour
Have you tried these? They use the offical bbc emp (embedded media player) which is a offical verified swf in an iframe configured to play the video, Of course I haven't spoken to Duncan for a while, but I think it still works Ant On 28/05/2010 15:15, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: On Fri, 2010-05-28 at 11:11 +0100, Anthony McKale wrote: Has everyone seen - http://whomwah.github.com/radioaunty/ http://whomwah.github.com/tellybox/ Doesn't seem too hard if someone was interested to build a ondemand version of these apps, A bit like http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/ ? -- Anthony Mckale, Senior CSD Mob : 07912981657 Internal Phone : (02 776) 64470 BBC FMT Children's, TVC East Tower, Floor 1, Room E164 - 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: [backstage] Re: [backstage] R e: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC¹s lack of support f or open
On 28-May-2010, at 19:13, Anthony McKale wrote: Have you tried these? They use the offical bbc emp (embedded media player) which is a offical verified swf in an iframe configured to play the video, Of course I haven't spoken to Duncan for a while, but I think it still works Similarly… http://gist.github.com/284592 :) I think this kinda defeats the point, though. Just embedding EMP doesn’t solve anything except “how to embed the EMP into an arbitrary web page” (arguably that could be considered far ‘worse’ than any of the things the likes of get_iplayer does, because you’re “distributing” the content in an different context; the official line is, as far as I know, that the BBC’s content offering is not available for piecemeal syndication…) It’s a fun experiment, though. With the right parameters, you can get it doing the simulcasts, too… or multiple simulcast streams (if you have the bandwidth) :) M. Ant On 28/05/2010 15:15, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: On Fri, 2010-05-28 at 11:11 +0100, Anthony McKale wrote: Has everyone seen - http://whomwah.github.com/radioaunty/ http://whomwah.github.com/tellybox/ Doesn't seem too hard if someone was interested to build a ondemand version of these apps, A bit like http://code.google.com/p/xbmc-iplayerv2/ ? -- Anthony Mckale, Senior CSD Mob : 07912981657 Internal Phone : (02 776) 64470 BBC FMT Children's, TVC East Tower, Floor 1, Room E164 - 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/
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (wa s Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of suppor
I just got sent this: *http://david.woodhou.se/get_iplayer_setup_4.0.exe * On 28 May 2010 00:15, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 22:56 +0100, Jonathan Tweed wrote: On 27 May 2010, at 20:42, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: Personally, all my use of iPlayer content is to fetch something I'm already aware of; I'm not just browsing randomly. And for that, I find that a command line tool gives a _much_ better experience than any point-and-drool GUI could ever provide. You're missing two very important words there: for you. Surely those two words would be redundant, given that I already went back to that sentence to insert the words 'I find that' before sending it? That was certainly my intention. But there _are_ GUI tools which make use of get_iplayer, such as the get_iplayer.cgi script which runs a local web server and points your browser at it. They haven't received a lot of love because most people with sufficient clue to work on them don't really _care_ about such things. I think Kieran's point is that they should. That's what will drive widespread adoption. That presumes that they _want_ widespread adoption, of course. I can't speak for them but personally, I don't really care very much about how widely get_iplayer (or any other Free Software I work on) is adopted. It's fun when people out there are using your code, but that kind of lost its novelty after the first few million units shipped. I started working on get_iplayer because I find it useful and I know that other people find it useful too. Without it, the iPlayer is fairly useless to me. My broadband at home is far too slow to watch things in real time with any reasonable quality, BT want £128,000 to install a second line, so my only real option is to download things and then watch them. I'm completely uninterested in the GUI side. I'd be the wrong person to do any GUI support because I'd never want to _use_ anything like that. If you or Kieran are actually _interested_ in the GUIs... have you _looked_ at get_iplayer.cgi or at the iPlayer support in XBMC? -- dwmw2 - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplay er 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_ip layer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of su pport for open source)
I thought this was an interesting summary http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/bbc_drm_and_demise_get_iplayer_what_hell_going I read some quite thought provoking stories of what the Publishers are up to . so once PACT and other old fashioned societies get involved, then the unintended consequences could be quite tragic. Rich On 27 May 2010, at 09:47, Brian Butterworth wrote: I think the people from PACT got it all banned. After all, they have their own interests to look after, you can't blame them. It's not as if the money is from the public or anything. On 26 May 2010 23:28, Alex Cockell a...@acockell.eclipse.co.uk wrote: Hi folks, Considering it's now being handled here - do we have anyone with any clout as to getting get_iplayer supported officially? Just thinking that there is precedent for a download/streaming engine separate to playback client - just look toward the EBU... :) Watching with interest... Alex -- Alex Cockell Reading, Berks, UK a...@acockell.eclipse.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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplay er 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_ipla yer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of su pport for open source)
What actually needs to happen is that Open Source needs to call the BBCs bluff by actually implementing the SWF verification stuff and producing an application with a compelling user experience that matches or is better than anything else on offer. --- On Thu, 27/5/10, Richard P Edwards re...@mac.com wrote: From: Richard P Edwards re...@mac.com Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source) To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Date: Thursday, 27 May, 2010, 16:07 I thought this was an interesting summary http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/bbc_drm_and_demise_get_iplayer_what_hell_going I read some quite thought provoking stories of what the Publishers are up to . so once PACT and other old fashioned societies get involved, then the unintended consequences could be quite tragic. Rich On 27 May 2010, at 09:47, Brian Butterworth wrote: I think the people from PACT got it all banned. After all, they have their own interests to look after, you can't blame them. It's not as if the money is from the public or anything. On 26 May 2010 23:28, Alex Cockell a...@acockell.eclipse.co.uk wrote: Hi folks, Considering it's now being handled here - do we have anyone with any clout as to getting get_iplayer supported officially? Just thinking that there is precedent for a download/streaming engine separate to playback client - just look toward the EBU... :) Watching with interest... Alex -- Alex Cockell Reading, Berks, UK a...@acockell.eclipse.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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dr opped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source )
You realise that Open Source isn't an organisation that designs software, right? You also realise we've had SWF verification software for quite a long time and we're happily using it to download video behind SWF verified flash apps? I really don't think user experience is the issue. My user experience with iPlayer is that I get home and all my favourite TV shows have magically been downloaded and are visible in Boxee, watchable in HD at a time when my ISP is normally dealing with a mass of traffic. get_iplayer has a pretty big user base without a shiny UI because most people want software to do what they want first and then have it looking cool doing it later. get_iplayer was better than BBC's effort because it enabled HD playback on Linux, which was not something they'd managed before. BeebPlayer was better than the BBC's efforts because it enabled playback on Android, which was something they hadn't managed before. On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 5:01 PM, Kieran Kunhya kie...@kunhya.com wrote: What actually needs to happen is that Open Source needs to call the BBCs bluff by actually implementing the SWF verification stuff and producing an application with a compelling user experience that matches or is better than anything else on offer. --- On *Thu, 27/5/10, Richard P Edwards re...@mac.com* wrote: From: Richard P Edwards re...@mac.com Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source) To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Date: Thursday, 27 May, 2010, 16:07 I thought this was an interesting summary http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/bbc_drm_and_demise_get_iplayer_what_hell_going I read some quite thought provoking stories of what the Publishers are up to . so once PACT and other old fashioned societies get involved, then the unintended consequences could be quite tragic. Rich On 27 May 2010, at 09:47, Brian Butterworth wrote: I think the people from PACT got it all banned. After all, they have their own interests to look after, you can't blame them. It's not as if the money is from the public or anything. On 26 May 2010 23:28, Alex Cockell a...@acockell.eclipse.co.ukhttp://mc/compose?to=a...@acockell.eclipse.co.uk wrote: Hi folks, Considering it's now being handled here - do we have anyone with any clout as to getting get_iplayer supported officially? Just thinking that there is precedent for a download/streaming engine separate to playback client - just look toward the EBU... :) Watching with interest... Alex -- Alex Cockell Reading, Berks, UK a...@acockell.eclipse.co.ukhttp://mc/compose?to=a...@acockell.eclipse.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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (wa s Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of suppor
On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 18:10, Kieran Kunhya kie...@kunhya.com wrote: The point is the view is that Open Source software isn't considered bothering about by the BBC because too few people use it and there's the fear of piracy. (in spite of the fact that downloads from VoD aren't used by pirates because of the poor quality compared to broadcasts) What I always find funny is that by not supporting the Open Source Community the content providers often end up shooting themselves in the foot with their DRM plans. If this means disallowing recordings or respecting time restrictions then so be it. What would be the point? It's open source so almost everyone would use patched versions. It will also lower the proportion of people downloading the files from p2p networks just like iPlayer itself did when it was launched. I doubt it. A crippled (yet still open) solution wouldn't provide as good a product as what's on the torrents or uncrippled get_iplayer or even what you can get from a networked PVR. So most people would carrying on getting their content the way they're currently get their content. * * Most people aren't going to mess about with a command line app to do this. Which is their loss really. I think if people bothered to learn the CLI and basic scripting they'd find that would have a much easier and more satisfying computing experience all round.
Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open sour
On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 10:10 -0700, Kieran Kunhya wrote: You realise that Open Source isn't an organisation that designs software, right? You also realise we've had SWF verification software for quite a long time and we're happily using it to download video behind SWF verified flash apps? The Open Source Community should come up with a solution then...The fact that we already have SWF verification is besides the point; it's just another technical DRM measure. Kieran, your mail seems to be a horrid mix of Iain's words and your own, without anything to distinguish between them. Whatever email software you're using, it's catastrophically broken. I _think_ this bit was you, not just a broken citation (mostly since I don't think Iain would say this): Most people aren't going to mess about with a command line app to do this. User experience is very important. Personally, all my use of iPlayer content is to fetch something I'm already aware of; I'm not just browsing randomly. And for that, I find that a command line tool gives a _much_ better experience than any point-and-drool GUI could ever provide. But there _are_ GUI tools which make use of get_iplayer, such as the get_iplayer.cgi script which runs a local web server and points your browser at it. They haven't received a lot of love because most people with sufficient clue to work on them don't really _care_ about such things. -- dwmw2 - 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: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [b ackstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 relea se (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in res ponse to BBC’s lack of support for open s
On 27 May 2010, at 20:42, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: Personally, all my use of iPlayer content is to fetch something I'm already aware of; I'm not just browsing randomly. And for that, I find that a command line tool gives a _much_ better experience than any point-and-drool GUI could ever provide. You're missing two very important words there: for you. But there _are_ GUI tools which make use of get_iplayer, such as the get_iplayer.cgi script which runs a local web server and points your browser at it. They haven't received a lot of love because most people with sufficient clue to work on them don't really _care_ about such things. I think Kieran's point is that they should. That's what will drive widespread adoption. Cheers Jonathan - 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: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open sour
On Thu, 2010-05-27 at 22:56 +0100, Jonathan Tweed wrote: On 27 May 2010, at 20:42, David Woodhouse dw...@infradead.org wrote: Personally, all my use of iPlayer content is to fetch something I'm already aware of; I'm not just browsing randomly. And for that, I find that a command line tool gives a _much_ better experience than any point-and-drool GUI could ever provide. You're missing two very important words there: for you. Surely those two words would be redundant, given that I already went back to that sentence to insert the words 'I find that' before sending it? That was certainly my intention. But there _are_ GUI tools which make use of get_iplayer, such as the get_iplayer.cgi script which runs a local web server and points your browser at it. They haven't received a lot of love because most people with sufficient clue to work on them don't really _care_ about such things. I think Kieran's point is that they should. That's what will drive widespread adoption. That presumes that they _want_ widespread adoption, of course. I can't speak for them but personally, I don't really care very much about how widely get_iplayer (or any other Free Software I work on) is adopted. It's fun when people out there are using your code, but that kind of lost its novelty after the first few million units shipped. I started working on get_iplayer because I find it useful and I know that other people find it useful too. Without it, the iPlayer is fairly useless to me. My broadband at home is far too slow to watch things in real time with any reasonable quality, BT want £128,000 to install a second line, so my only real option is to download things and then watch them. I'm completely uninterested in the GUI side. I'd be the wrong person to do any GUI support because I'd never want to _use_ anything like that. If you or Kieran are actually _interested_ in the GUIs... have you _looked_ at get_iplayer.cgi or at the iPlayer support in XBMC? -- dwmw2 - 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] Re: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [back stage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC ’s lack of support for open source)
On 26-May-2010, at 15:27, David Woodhouse wrote: I can give accounts on git.infradead.org if you want to publish a git tree there with your changes, or you can just mail patches to the list (or to me in private if you'd like them to be applied anonymously for some reason). JOOI, how much divergance is there between this and http://github.com/jjl/get_iplayer ? M. - 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: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source)
On Wed, 2010-05-26 at 16:02 +0100, Mo McRoberts wrote: JOOI, how much divergance is there between this and http://github.com/jjl/get_iplayer ? Not a lot -- I've been talking to James and trying to make sure I wasn't stepping on his toes. Only the Akamai stuff is different, which we're currently working on. His patch for that is correct; but mine actually works. I think James is going to rebase his tree on top of mine (and hence on top of all the old history imported from Subversion) at the weekend. I also think I've actually worked the Akamai thing out now: http://git.infradead.org/get_iplayer.git/commitdiff/cb3c072b I may do a 2.78 release once everything's sorted, but future announcements will probably only be on the get_iplayer mailing list; not here. -- dwmw2 - 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: get_iplayer 2.77 release (was Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source)
Hi folks, Considering it's now being handled here - do we have anyone with any clout as to getting get_iplayer supported officially? Just thinking that there is precedent for a download/streaming engine separate to playback client - just look toward the EBU... :) Watching with interest... Alex -- Alex Cockell Reading, Berks, UK a...@acockell.eclipse.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/
[backstage] Re: Re: [backstage] A Five year retrospective
On Tue, 11 May 2010 12:45:35 +0530 wrote NOW DAYS THERE IS NEW RULE EMPLIMENTERD IN TOURIST VISA EXTEND , HOW MANY OF US KNOING ?M THIS. ARATI On 10 May 2010 16:18, Soulla Stylianou wrote: Jon/Phil great stories. can anyone trump? I once went to IBC in Amsterdam and back with a friend's passport. I only realised it wasn't mine when I went for a pre-flight coffee. The security people only checked that I had a passport, and at the gate the flight attendant was doing training and the trainee was checking the tickets and the other staffers passports, not that they were in the same name (and yes, this was after 911). At Schiphol, again the check was for the passport, not the travel document name. On returning to the UK, all I had to do was fill in a form at passport control. Another time I lost my passport between the hotel and airport in Barcelona. It turned out if you went to the police station next to the airport,and filled in a A4 form, someone just rubber stamped it and the airport let you get on the plane with no check on your actual identity. They probably try harder these days. Soulla On 10 May 2010 15:57, Phil Lewis wrote: I managed to get into a private corporate champagne buffet at InfoSec Europe/London a couple of years ago by just speaking on my mobile while I walked past the security reception. Wouldn't be quite so funny except that the reception was for invited CISSP members only and I wasn't a member or invited. The champagne always tastes better this way. - Phil Lewis On Thu, 2010-05-06 at 13:14 +0100, Soulla Stylianou wrote: fantastic story. Made me giggle. Great. How long ago was that? What did you come to see? Wonder if anyone can better it. Soulla On 6 May 2010 12:59, Jon Knight wrote: On Tue, 4 May 2010, Soulla Stylianou wrote: hmm. I could see a challenge in the offing if it wasn't likely to cause security breaches. How far can one person go on either a) a bbc backstage lanyard b) a bbc backstage t-shirt. No BBC connection but a mate and I once blagged our way into a show at the NEC with a walkie talkie, a large cable crimping tool and a reel of old thick Ethernet cable. He walked ahead looking official and chatting on the walkie talkie whilst I plodded along behind with the tool in hand and the cable slung over my shoulder. Security held the barrier open for us and we just smiled and nodded as we walked through... :-) The best bit was the look one the face of one of the barcode wander who frequent such shows when he realised we had no barcodes for him to scan and thus no way for him to send us pointless spam. :-) :-) - 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/ -- Soulla Stylianou Client Director DADEN LIMITED e: soulla.stylia...@daden.co.uk t: 0121 250 5678 m: 07814145167 w: www.daden.co.uk http://twitter.com/SoullaStylianou LinkedIN: Soulla Stylianou sl: http://www.slurl.com/secondlife/daden%20prime/160/184/26 sl IM: ImmortalitySou Ballinger Daden Limited is an Information 2.0 Consultancy and full service Virtual Worlds/Second Life development agency. Daden are a Linden Lab Gold Solution Provider for Second Life. -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Re: Looking for hotshot video develeopers to work at the BBC (was RE: [backstage] Fancy joining BBC RD?)
On 14-May-2010, at 11:38, Gavin Johnson wrote: On 13/05/2010 20:33, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: (sadly, even this aside, I’m not applying thanks to being thoroughly in the wrong part of the UK… so this really is just flinging from the peanut-gallery) BBC is pretty London-centric but things are changing. We have people here in Cardiff working on central projects and same is true for other parts of the UK. Unfortunately, I’m in Glasgow… which means that although the corporation has a great big regional headquarters in the shape of PQ, in terms of RD it’s but an outpost where the naughty types get sent to think about what they’ve done[0]. M. [0] I might be making that part up. Brendan’s been having some fun up here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2010/02/bbc-scotland-prototype-program.shtml - 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: BBC iPad application usability
More on this at http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Usability-expert-faults-iPad-user- interface-calls-it-whacky/1273592091 I take everything Nielsen preaches with a LARGE bag of salt. When he makes his own site usable I might pay more attention to his proclamations ;)
Re: [backstage] Re: BBC iPad application usability
On 12 May 2010 15:23, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk wrote: More on this at http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Usability-expert-faults-iPad-user-interface-calls-it-whacky/1273592091 I take everything Nielsen preaches with a LARGE bag of salt. When he makes his own site usable I might pay more attention to his proclamations ;) There are some really important points in the document, however. If they were about a website, they would be poor, but on a super new device they are shocking. -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] Re: BBC iPad application usability
More on this at http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Usability-expert-faults-iPad-user-interface-calls-it-whacky/1273592091http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Usability-expert-faults-iPad-user-interface-calls-it-whacky/1273592091?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed:+bn+(Betanews+Full+Content+Feed+-+BN) On 11 May 2010 08:11, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: The Lord Jakob Nielsen has tested the iPad for usability and found it wanting of Affordances http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordances_and.html. Of the BBC iPad application: Unfortunately, apps aimed at browsing, such as... BBC do not provide a search box on the iPad. Several users had trouble finding the health or the sports section of BBC: those topics unfortunately were accessible only in landscape mode... the within-page navigation bar is transformed into a left-side panel. http://www.nngroup.com/reports/mobile/ipad/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] RE: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for ope n source
Yes thank you off list Secret[] Private[x] Public[] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 10 March 2010 16:36 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source (Off-list, just to keep Ian Forrester’s job safe) Can you tar it up and sling me over a copy, if it’s not too much trouble? Many thanks if you can :) M. - 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/
[backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to B BC’s lack of support for open source
On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 15:07, Iain Wallace ikwall...@gmail.com wrote: http://linuxcentre.net/get_iplayer-dropped-in-response-to-bbcs-lack-of-support-for-open-source I'm sure the iPlayer team will be relieved, having shut down a similar app on the iPhone a few days ago (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/05/bbc_iphone/) this will be one less person to write a strongly worded letter to. Given that this is entirely open source (real open source, not Ian Hunter bizarro-land open source) and the number of users it has it seems unlikely that someone won't fork or maintain the code. If it does fall out of repair, it's back to torrents for TV catch up for me. My immediate question was “I wonder if I have the latest version or not”. I’ve a feeling I may not do, though it works perfectly well (flvstreamer issues notwithstanding). Foot, meet bullet. M. - 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] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_ iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for o pen source
On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 15:41, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: INFO: Current version is 2.72 INFO: Checking for latest version from linuxcentre.net ERROR: Failed to connect to update site - Update aborted I'm almost feeling like we should take it over... Yeah, the update check will fail because the changelog/version files no longer exist on the server. I’ve got an older version; Debian unstable has 2.68. According to my friends on Twitter, there’s a 2.75 in the wild. M. - 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] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source
I have 2.76 - I run --update daily via cron. On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 3:54 PM, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 15:41, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: INFO: Current version is 2.72 INFO: Checking for latest version from linuxcentre.net ERROR: Failed to connect to update site - Update aborted I'm almost feeling like we should take it over... Yeah, the update check will fail because the changelog/version files no longer exist on the server. I’ve got an older version; Debian unstable has 2.68. According to my friends on Twitter, there’s a 2.75 in the wild. M. - 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/
[backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source
On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 16:36, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: (Off-list, just to keep Ian Forrester’s job safe) Wow. That was an _epic_ fail. - 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] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source
(Off-list, just to keep Ian Forrester’s job safe) Can you tar it up and sling me over a copy, if it’s not too much trouble? Many thanks if you can :) M. - 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] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] get_iplayer drop ped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source
Oops! On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 4:36 PM, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 16:36, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: (Off-list, just to keep Ian Forrester’s job safe) Wow. That was an _epic_ fail. - 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] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage ] get_iplayer dropped in response to BBC’s lack of support for open source
On 10 Mar 2010, at 16:36, Mo McRoberts wrote: On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 16:36, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: (Off-list, just to keep Ian Forrester’s job safe) Wow. That was an _epic_ fail. :-) 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/
Re: [backstage] Re: User Agent/Referrer Verification
Aside from that, the key really is the resource, which you'd somehow need to protect in order to stop invalid user agents just spoofing all this info. In that respect it's very similar to swf verify, which doesn't work. I should say: I deliberately didn’t ask for a cryptographic critique. this isn’t code I’m planning on deploying anywhere. however, some folk may (as you have) recognise it as being similar to something else, although my code is obviously pretty generic (it’s built on HTTP, but could just as easily be RTSP, or something else). For what it’s worth, SWF Verification _does_ work, if what you want to do is “prevent access to the media from people who don’t have access the SWF”. Assuming they can’t get it any other way. Which is, of course, a massive assumption to work. SWF Verification doesn’t work for anything else, of course, but it’s not really designed for it, either (the clue is in the name!). It's the access to the referrer part that I don't understand. Why is it any harder for an invalid client to access it than a valid one? This is locking the door and then putting the key under the mat. Once everyone realises where the key is it's all a bit trivial. You'd have to put completely different protection on the referrer file itself. On an _utterly_ unrelated note, isn’t it weird how Red5 can happily implement SWF Verification on the server side, but XBMC apparently can’t on the client? Quite. Padlocks are legal but lock picks are going equipped in British law, but only if you wander around with them. - 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: User Agent/Referrer Verification
I'm trying to work out if this thread is a genuine idea being proposed or if it was simply to highlight the futility of SWF Verification. If it was the latter: Well demonstrated! ;) On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Paul Webster p...@dabdig.com wrote: And for practical purposes ... the UserAgent field changes with version updates. So - as software gets updated it would mean that the back-end would also have to go through the library and re-generate keys for old material (or recalculate it on the fly on access). Taking just an invariable sub-string of the UserAgent field (product up to the /) would remove the issue. But is this an attempt to determine if rogue-application1 using the UserAgent string of legal-application2 might be the basis of some sort of legal protection (copyright or DCMA-style infringement)? Sounds unlikely to me - given that changing UA field is routinely done and documented (e.g. Opera includes it in standard UI so that it can get into sites that include code for specific browsers but don't recognise standard Opera). (MS-IE identifying itself as Mozilla is an example of hackery in this area) Meanwhile - what happens when someone distributes one of more of the pairs of user-agent/key - in that case the rogue app will not need direct access to the original file. Personal view - I wish that the Flash verification had not been turned on - and I would like to see the impact analysis that BBC did before doing it. Paul - Original Message - From: Iain Wallace ikwall...@gmail.com To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: User Agent/Referrer Verification I think I replied from an address which isn't registered with the list earlier, so here's what I said again: The fact that this is all presumably going to be sent in the clear as opposed to encrypted means this would be technically very easy to reverse engineer. Aside from that, the key really is the resource, which you'd somehow need to protect in order to stop invalid user agents just spoofing all this info. In that respect it's very similar to swf verify, which doesn't work. Whether this can be claimed to be a copyright mechanism is a legal rather than technical issue IMO. On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: On 8-Mar-2010, at 22:55, Mo McRoberts wrote: Learned Backstage types, [snip] I’ve written it up here: http://nevali.net/post/435363058/user-agent-referrer-verification It’s been pointed out to me that the write-up would be better in the e-mail, so here it is: This is a snippet of code which verifies access to a given resource based upon a combination of access to a referring resource and a user-agent string. The client generates an sha256-hmac based on the contents of the referring resource (which the client must have access to) and its user-agent string. This HMAC is sent along with the request for a resource. Thus, given a list of referring resources and valid user agents, the server can generate a list of valid keys by performing the same sha256-hmac process on each combination. If a client sends a request which does not appear in this list of keys, the request is denied. I would be interested on an expert opinion as to whether this is considered an “effective” technological copyright-protection mechanism according to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended by The Copyright and Related Rights Regulation 2003), and whether implementing a third-party client which implements this protocol (for the purposes of interoperability) constitutes “any device, product or component which is primarily designed, produced, or adapted for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of effective technological measures” as specified by section 296ZB of the Act. Cheers! M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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/ - 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
Re: [backstage] Re: User Agent/Referrer Verification
And for practical purposes ... the UserAgent field changes with version updates. So - as software gets updated it would mean that the back-end would also have to go through the library and re-generate keys for old material (or recalculate it on the fly on access). Taking just an invariable sub-string of the UserAgent field (product up to the /) would remove the issue. But is this an attempt to determine if rogue-application1 using the UserAgent string of legal-application2 might be the basis of some sort of legal protection (copyright or DCMA-style infringement)? Sounds unlikely to me - given that changing UA field is routinely done and documented (e.g. Opera includes it in standard UI so that it can get into sites that include code for specific browsers but don't recognise standard Opera). (MS-IE identifying itself as Mozilla is an example of hackery in this area) Meanwhile - what happens when someone distributes one of more of the pairs of user-agent/key - in that case the rogue app will not need direct access to the original file. Personal view - I wish that the Flash verification had not been turned on - and I would like to see the impact analysis that BBC did before doing it. Paul - Original Message - From: Iain Wallace ikwall...@gmail.com To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 1:50 PM Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: User Agent/Referrer Verification I think I replied from an address which isn't registered with the list earlier, so here's what I said again: The fact that this is all presumably going to be sent in the clear as opposed to encrypted means this would be technically very easy to reverse engineer. Aside from that, the key really is the resource, which you'd somehow need to protect in order to stop invalid user agents just spoofing all this info. In that respect it's very similar to swf verify, which doesn't work. Whether this can be claimed to be a copyright mechanism is a legal rather than technical issue IMO. On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: On 8-Mar-2010, at 22:55, Mo McRoberts wrote: Learned Backstage types, [snip] I’ve written it up here: http://nevali.net/post/435363058/user-agent-referrer-verification It’s been pointed out to me that the write-up would be better in the e-mail, so here it is: This is a snippet of code which verifies access to a given resource based upon a combination of access to a referring resource and a user-agent string. The client generates an sha256-hmac based on the contents of the referring resource (which the client must have access to) and its user-agent string. This HMAC is sent along with the request for a resource. Thus, given a list of referring resources and valid user agents, the server can generate a list of valid keys by performing the same sha256-hmac process on each combination. If a client sends a request which does not appear in this list of keys, the request is denied. I would be interested on an expert opinion as to whether this is considered an “effective” technological copyright-protection mechanism according to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended by The Copyright and Related Rights Regulation 2003), and whether implementing a third-party client which implements this protocol (for the purposes of interoperability) constitutes “any device, product or component which is primarily designed, produced, or adapted for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of effective technological measures” as specified by section 296ZB of the Act. Cheers! M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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/ - 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: User Agent/Referrer Verification
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 14:23, Paul Webster p...@dabdig.com wrote: And for practical purposes ... the UserAgent field changes with version updates. You would think, wouldn’t you… So - as software gets updated it would mean that the back-end would also have to go through the library and re-generate keys for old material (or recalculate it on the fly on access). Taking just an invariable sub-string of the UserAgent field (product up to the /) would remove the issue. But is this an attempt to determine if rogue-application1 using the UserAgent string of legal-application2 might be the basis of some sort of legal protection (copyright or DCMA-style infringement)? Sounds unlikely to me - given that changing UA field is routinely done and documented (e.g. Opera includes it in standard UI so that it can get into sites that include code for specific browsers but don't recognise standard Opera). (MS-IE identifying itself as Mozilla is an example of hackery in this area) That’s certainly the case in HTTP. Less so in other protocols. As far as I know, there’s only one single UA in RMTP (and only one “Server”-equivalent response). Indeed, one could contend that the fact there’s only one suitable value in each direction relegates it to a protocol-level constant which couldn’t possibly be used as the basis for any legal protection. Meanwhile - what happens when someone distributes one of more of the pairs of user-agent/key - in that case the rogue app will not need direct access to the original file. Yup. Or, a rogue user just distributes the media by hand. Or obtains it through some other means… Personal view - I wish that the Flash verification had not been turned on - and I would like to see the impact analysis that BBC did before doing it. You’re assuming there was some. I’m not at all convinced there was any, and I suspect that’s part of why it was just quietly switched on. I do think the BBC is (collectively) genuine when it says that it’s unfortunate that XBMC has stopped working. This raises more questions than it answers. There are plenty of people on this list alone who could have trivially pointed out the various unintended consequences of doing it, and it’s certainly not won many prizes in the old PR stakes. With the current consultation on iPlayer running and the threat of political turmoil, it seems to me to be the _worst_ possible time to attempt to quietly flip the switch. It really is Freeview HD all over again: quietly do it, hope that nobody notices. The difference in the Freeview HD case is that there was actually straightforward logical reasoning for not telling anybody; the engineers _knew_ the measures would do nothing at all with respect to piracy, but if the rightsholders knew that the public knew it was worthless (even though we’d all find out in a matter of days anyway, especially given that Freesat has it), then they’d walk away. Get them to sign on the dotted line first. Questions persist about BBC HD on Freesat, of course, but they can mostly be put down to everything being sorted out at the last minute rather than any real screw-ups (I’m not convinced the Culture, Media Sport Select Committee would necessarily view the debacle quite so generously, though). I do wonder how much of the TV budget adjustments in the strategy review were driven by the difficulties in getting content from third parties; if the BBC is making more programmes itself, or at least commissioning them into a known landscape (rather than buying them in from the US), there are limits to who can quibble about it broadcasting FTA, HD or otherwise. My gut feeling is that in this case, nobody with any real involvement in the change actually stopped to consider what negative impact it might have (rather than knowing full well what it was and crossing fingers). The PR geniuses need to be taken out and shot, though. Ian Hunter’s blog post was an utter disaster. Given the technically-minded audience of the BBC Internet Blog, wheeling out the Managing Editor of Online to blind everyone with some technical terms was an ill-thought-out move, at best. This situation is one where honesty really would be the best policy: “Sorry about this. We hadn’t actually considered that things like XBMC would break. In all honesty, we didn’t perform a proper analysis of pros and cons in making this change, and promise to consider the implications of things like this more carefully in the future. Just so that everybody’s clear, though, using an unsupported client means that it can break altogether at _any_ time, even if the reason for the breakage seems utterly unfathomable from a logical point of view.” M. M. - 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: User Agent/Referrer Verification
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 14:23, Iain Wallace ikwall...@gmail.com wrote: It's the access to the referrer part that I don't understand. Why is it any harder for an invalid client to access it than a valid one? This is locking the door and then putting the key under the mat. Once everyone realises where the key is it's all a bit trivial. You'd have to put completely different protection on the referrer file itself. Not really. Think of the situation where the media is served from a CDN but the player SWF (i.e., the referrer) is behind a paywall. SWF Verification allows the CDN to have a list of keys which are known-good, and so be (slightly) confident that only those successfully hitting the media have authenticated themselves properly to access the SWF, without needing to build some sort of federated auth system on the CDN. This is, obviously, contingent on nobody with legitimate access to either the SWF or the content redistributing it, but that’s not the problem it’s intended to solve. Also, it all rather depends upon what you define as an “invalid” client: is something which properly implements the protocol and whose user has legitimate access to the SWF a valid or an invalid client? If the answer isn’t “valid”, SWF Verification isn’t the solution you’re looking for. I’m not actually defending SWF Verification, incidentally. But, from what I can gather from various people “in the industry” (plus, of course, Adobe’s legal threats), there’s a huge amount of misunderstanding as to what it actually _is_, which means it gets deployed in ridiculous situations. (Simple example: if the “authentication” layer for your SWF is GeoIP-driven restrictions, and those same restrictions exist on the CDN, implementing SWF Verification is pointless, because those denied from accessing the SWF are *already* defined from accessing the media). On an _utterly_ unrelated note, isn’t it weird how Red5 can happily implement SWF Verification on the server side, but XBMC apparently can’t on the client? Quite. Padlocks are legal but lock picks are going equipped in British law, but only if you wander around with them. Except that implementing SWF Verification in XBMC wouldn’t be anything like having a lock pick. It’s more like having fingers which can grasp a key—you still need the key (the SWF, in this now slightly tortuous analogy!). M. - 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: User Agent/Referrer Verification
I think I replied from an address which isn't registered with the list earlier, so here's what I said again: The fact that this is all presumably going to be sent in the clear as opposed to encrypted means this would be technically very easy to reverse engineer. Aside from that, the key really is the resource, which you'd somehow need to protect in order to stop invalid user agents just spoofing all this info. In that respect it's very similar to swf verify, which doesn't work. Whether this can be claimed to be a copyright mechanism is a legal rather than technical issue IMO. On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 12:14 AM, Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net wrote: On 8-Mar-2010, at 22:55, Mo McRoberts wrote: Learned Backstage types, [snip] I’ve written it up here: http://nevali.net/post/435363058/user-agent-referrer-verification It’s been pointed out to me that the write-up would be better in the e-mail, so here it is: This is a snippet of code which verifies access to a given resource based upon a combination of access to a referring resource and a user-agent string. The client generates an sha256-hmac based on the contents of the referring resource (which the client must have access to) and its user-agent string. This HMAC is sent along with the request for a resource. Thus, given a list of referring resources and valid user agents, the server can generate a list of valid keys by performing the same sha256-hmac process on each combination. If a client sends a request which does not appear in this list of keys, the request is denied. I would be interested on an expert opinion as to whether this is considered an “effective” technological copyright-protection mechanism according to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended by The Copyright and Related Rights Regulation 2003), and whether implementing a third-party client which implements this protocol (for the purposes of interoperability) constitutes “any device, product or component which is primarily designed, produced, or adapted for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of effective technological measures” as specified by section 296ZB of the Act. Cheers! M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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] Re: User Agent/Referrer Verification
On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 13:50, Iain Wallace ikwall...@gmail.com wrote: I think I replied from an address which isn't registered with the list earlier, so here's what I said again: The fact that this is all presumably going to be sent in the clear as opposed to encrypted means this would be technically very easy to reverse engineer. Fair point, and indeed I’d probably want some kind of session key involved (be it HTTPS, or whatever) were I _actually_ to propose this as an implementation for something :) Aside from that, the key really is the resource, which you'd somehow need to protect in order to stop invalid user agents just spoofing all this info. In that respect it's very similar to swf verify, which doesn't work. I should say: I deliberately didn’t ask for a cryptographic critique. this isn’t code I’m planning on deploying anywhere. however, some folk may (as you have) recognise it as being similar to something else, although my code is obviously pretty generic (it’s built on HTTP, but could just as easily be RTSP, or something else). For what it’s worth, SWF Verification _does_ work, if what you want to do is “prevent access to the media from people who don’t have access the SWF”. Assuming they can’t get it any other way. Which is, of course, a massive assumption to work. SWF Verification doesn’t work for anything else, of course, but it’s not really designed for it, either (the clue is in the name!). (I tweaked my code last night after posting this to better explain what it does/doesn’t do or protect against to avoid any misconceptions about what it might achieve were somebody to implement it). Whether this can be claimed to be a copyright mechanism is a legal rather than technical issue IMO. …but does rather depend upon the technical aspects of it, to *some* extent. but yes, it’s the legal aspect I’m really interested in. if somebody else were to implement the same algorithm (no spoofing of resource hashes required) as appears in client.php, would they fall afoul of the CDPA (or, indeed, the DMCA)? On an _utterly_ unrelated note, isn’t it weird how Red5 can happily implement SWF Verification on the server side, but XBMC apparently can’t on the client? M. - 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: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
From: Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv Subject: Re: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get? To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Date: Sunday, 7 March, 2010, 19:15 It occurred to me the other day that one solution to the problem might be to delinterlace the scrolling credits used at the end of programmes on the originals. It might even make them easier to read. But then they'll scroll in a jerky fashion. - 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: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
On 8 Mar 2010, at 09:04, Kieran Kunhya wrote: From: Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv Subject: Re: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get? To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Date: Sunday, 7 March, 2010, 19:15 It occurred to me the other day that one solution to the problem might be to delinterlace the scrolling credits used at the end of programmes on the originals. It might even make them easier to read. But then they'll scroll in a jerky fashion. Clearly you need a motion-compensated deinterlacer. ;-) 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/
Re: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
Clearly you need a motion-compensated deinterlacer. ;-) It's still not going to be as good in 25p as it will in 50i in my opinion unless the scroll speed is reduced. Though judging by recent attempts to destroy end credits on virtually every channel I doubt slower speeds will be tolerated... Presumably soon there won't be any end credits but instead viewers will be directed to /programmes . - 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: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
On 8 Mar 2010, at 11:31, Kieran Kunhya wrote: Clearly you need a motion-compensated deinterlacer. ;-) It's still not going to be as good in 25p as it will in 50i in my opinion unless the scroll speed is reduced. Though judging by recent attempts to destroy end credits on virtually every channel I doubt slower speeds will be tolerated... Presumably soon there won't be any end credits but instead viewers will be directed to /programmes Who said we were deinterlacing to 25p? :-) 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/
RE: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
Who said we were deinterlacing to 25p? :-) Looks like 12p for sports programming ;) - 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: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
Or, of course, you could have pages of text that crossfade - have no scroll at all. They would be much better in that format anyway, because if you ever want to look at the credits, you are going to be using iPlayer or a PVR anyway and the freeze frame would be highly legible. On 8 March 2010 14:29, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk wrote: Who said we were deinterlacing to 25p? :-) Looks like 12p for sports programming ;) - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] Re: User Agent/Referrer Verification
On 8-Mar-2010, at 22:55, Mo McRoberts wrote: Learned Backstage types, [snip] I’ve written it up here: http://nevali.net/post/435363058/user-agent-referrer-verification It’s been pointed out to me that the write-up would be better in the e-mail, so here it is: This is a snippet of code which verifies access to a given resource based upon a combination of access to a referring resource and a user-agent string. The client generates an sha256-hmac based on the contents of the referring resource (which the client must have access to) and its user-agent string. This HMAC is sent along with the request for a resource. Thus, given a list of referring resources and valid user agents, the server can generate a list of valid keys by performing the same sha256-hmac process on each combination. If a client sends a request which does not appear in this list of keys, the request is denied. I would be interested on an expert opinion as to whether this is considered an “effective” technological copyright-protection mechanism according to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended by The Copyright and Related Rights Regulation 2003), and whether implementing a third-party client which implements this protocol (for the purposes of interoperability) constitutes “any device, product or component which is primarily designed, produced, or adapted for the purpose of enabling or facilitating the circumvention of effective technological measures” as specified by section 296ZB of the Act. Cheers! M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
It occurred to me the other day that one solution to the problem might be to delinterlace the scrolling credits used at the end of programmes on the originals. It might even make them easier to read. On 6 March 2010 08:34, Kieran Kunhya kie...@kunhya.com wrote: Don't TV Catchup have both a low- and high- quality streams, where the HQ ones are interlaced? Not aware of multiple streams - only ever watch at the highest possible quality :) However, it certainly doesn't look like it's been encoded as interlaced (which would make absolutely NO sense whatsoever). Flash doesn't have a deinterlacer afaik so that's not possible. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
Don't TV Catchup have both a low- and high- quality streams, where the HQ ones are interlaced? Not aware of multiple streams - only ever watch at the highest possible quality :) However, it certainly doesn't look like it's been encoded as interlaced (which would make absolutely NO sense whatsoever). Flash doesn't have a deinterlacer afaik so that's not possible. - 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: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
Don't TV Catchup have both a low- and high- quality streams, where the HQ ones are interlaced? On 28 February 2010 21:27, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.ukwrote: Watching the CA v. US icehockey final, I noticed - once again - that the BBC Sports online stream, at [1], is horribly deinterlaced. Image sample: [2]. However, TVCatchup's BBC2 stream, at [3], which sources from Freeview, looks fine. How come TVC can do a better job at progressive video than the Beeb can? ;) With the impending F1 season almost upon us, I'd hate to see the same problems with blended deinterlaced footage as was frequently visible on the BBC streams last year. (and I don't want to have to use TVCatchup again.) It's bad enough with the fairly linear movement in motorsports, but with sports like ice hockey you can't even track the players, let alone the puck. [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympic_games/vancouver_2010/live_coverage/d efault.stm [2] http://imgur.com/6pZG9.png [3] http://www.tvcatchup.com/watch.html?c=2 -Original Message- From: Christopher Woods [mailto:chris...@infinitus.co.uk] Sent: 09 February 2010 00:52 To: 'backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk' Subject: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get? I've noticed that for some reason blend deinterlacing is still being used on all BBC Video footage (iPlayer, inline footage on News/Sports sites, etc). It looks naff, causes image doubling in areas of high movement and makes scrolling credits harder to read. (Also don't think it looks as good and halves the perceived framerate) As reference, the doubling is very noticeable on a recent episode of Hustle in the 'action areas': http://i46.tinypic.com/14jxctd.png (a deck of cards is being fountained upwards, falling down onto the camera - note the overlapping ghosts of the moving cards). I first wondered if this was a limitation of how Flash renders interlaced-encoded video, but I happened to be watching a particular sporting event via an unofficial Justin.tv stream and the motion was fluid and crisp. From that I can only assume all BBC videos are encoded as progressive, and as such the Blend deinterlacing is burnt in, with the same going for Live streams... If the content is being deinterlaced from a broadcast source, why not use Bob or Weave? Blend just looks awful, motorsports/action looks dire and even regular stuff looks pants. So, in the absence of any known point of contact for the bods in charge of digitisation across the BBC's online platforms, can someone advise me as to whom I should be addressing my angry letters and suggestions for improvement? ;) - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?
Don't TV Catchup have both a low- and high- quality streams, where the HQ ones are interlaced? Not aware of multiple streams - only ever watch at the highest possible quality :) However, it certainly doesn't look like it's been encoded as interlaced (which would make absolutely NO sense whatsoever).
Re: [backstage] Re: BBC Experimental Website Down?
Hi, Apologies - the move and unexpected connectivity loss did take the API out for a while. Should be back now for you? I can't access it internally, but hey, we have our own connectivity issues :-) I do suggest people use /programmes instead though. Our experimental service won't last forever. Cheers, Andrew BBC RD On 26/02/2010 18:17, Mo McRoberts wrote: On 26-Feb-2010, at 18:05, Tim Coysh wrote: Sorry for bringing up a fairly old topic. The website is again down, though it is temporary. Is there a reason for this? Or is just unexpected downtime? My website relies heavily on this information. Again, Sorry for the hastle! I would place a wild guess that it’s probably being moved from one bit of England to another ;) (Anybody feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, it really was a wild, if slightly educated, guess!) M. - 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] Re: BBC Experimental Website Down?
On 26/02/2010 18:17, Mo McRoberts wrote: I would place a wild guess that it’s probably being moved from one bit of England to another;) (Anybody feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, it really was a wild, if slightly educated, guess!) M. Ah, but you can see out of your window that the sky is covered with Clouds and moving is a mere flick o' the switch away, surely. Gordo - 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] RE: s...@bbc?
The XML file i'm talking about are mainly stuck in content management systems. But i highly suggest you look at the XML in http://mammoth.welcomebackstage.com/exist/rest/db/feeds/ at some point soon. (the server is being worked on so try in a few days) Secret[] Private[] Public[x] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ From: Jonathan Chetwynd [mailto:j.chetw...@btinternet.com] Sent: 25 February 2010 15:42 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Cc: Ian Forrester Subject: Re: s...@bbc? Ian, could you point to any particularly suitable xml files? eg http://www.honte.eu/playGo/games/Shusai-GoSeigen-19340119.xml xslt transforms client-side into an SVG board with pieces, that are played and captured using css, but could as easily be an html list of moves. regards Jonathan On 25 Feb 2010, at 13:00, Ian Forrester wrote: To my mind I can't think of any example of the BBC publishing or generating SVG, but I know quite a few of our content management systems could generate SVG tomorrow if there was the desire, take up and need. Cheers Secret[] Private[] Public[x] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Jonathan Chetwynd Sent: 25 February 2010 12:36 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] s...@bbc? s...@bbc? Has the BBC published anything at all in SVG* format? regards Jonathan Chetwynd * Internet Explorer may soon support SVG**, and Ordinance Survey, National Standards Office and the Meteorological Office already publish data in SVG format... and standards based browsers now have an xslt processors, and this can provide a convenient client-side method for transforming xml into SVG. **Patrick Dengler Senior Program Manager Internet Explorer Team yesterday we submitted our request to join the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) http://www.w3.org/ http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/01/05/microsoft-joins-w3c-svg-working-group.aspx http://www.bbc.co.uk/ This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically stated. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system. Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender immediately. Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or received. Further communication will signify your consent to this.
[backstage] Re: BBC Experimental Website Down?
Sorry for bringing up a fairly old topic. The website is again down, though it is temporary. Is there a reason for this? Or is just unexpected downtime? My website relies heavily on this information. Again, Sorry for the hastle! Tim
Re: [backstage] Re: BBC Experimental Website Down?
On 26-Feb-2010, at 18:05, Tim Coysh wrote: Sorry for bringing up a fairly old topic. The website is again down, though it is temporary. Is there a reason for this? Or is just unexpected downtime? My website relies heavily on this information. Again, Sorry for the hastle! I would place a wild guess that it’s probably being moved from one bit of England to another ;) (Anybody feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, it really was a wild, if slightly educated, guess!) M. - 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] Re: s...@bbc?
Ian, could you point to any particularly suitable xml files? eg http://www.honte.eu/playGo/games/Shusai-GoSeigen-19340119.xml xslt transforms client-side into an SVG board with pieces, that are played and captured using css, but could as easily be an html list of moves. regards Jonathan On 25 Feb 2010, at 13:00, Ian Forrester wrote: To my mind I can't think of any example of the BBC publishing or generating SVG, but I know quite a few of our content management systems could generate SVG tomorrow if there was the desire, take up and need. Cheers Secret[] Private[] Public[x] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk ] On Behalf Of Jonathan Chetwynd Sent: 25 February 2010 12:36 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] s...@bbc? s...@bbc? Has the BBC published anything at all in SVG* format? regards Jonathan Chetwynd * Internet Explorer may soon support SVG**, and Ordinance Survey, National Standards Office and the Meteorological Office already publish data in SVG format... and standards based browsers now have an xslt processors, and this can provide a convenient client-side method for transforming xml into SVG. **Patrick Dengler Senior Program Manager Internet Explorer Team yesterday we submitted our request to join the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/01/05/microsoft-joins-w3c-svg-working-group.aspx
[backstage] Re: BBC Experimental Website Down?
Sorry, its backup now. Must of been a temporary thing. It was obviously me being a bit paranoid. Sorry for the hassle, --- Tim Coysh
[backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Mo McRoberts wrote: Canvas has also announced a “position of alignment” with the HbbTV initiative: http://www.iptv-news.com/iptv_news/october_09/project_canvas_cooperating_with_hbbtv_initiative And frankly, looking at the website: http://www.hbbtv.org/ …it doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence, especially as it doesn’t appear to have publicly released ANYTHING yet except a list of participants. Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HBBtv) is a service like Canvas being implemented by Institut fuer Rundfunktechnik. Hybrid Broadcast Broadband (HBB) is a group at the European Broadcasting Union looking at the harmonisation of Canvas, HBBtv, MHEG-5 IPTV, MHP, OIPTV and commercial offerings from the likes of Samsung and Panasonic. There's a brief write-up here http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech-i/ebu_tech-i_001.pdf -- *Simon Thompson MEng MIET* Research and Development Engineer
Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 21-Oct-2009, at 10:03, Simon Thompson wrote: Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HBBtv) is a service like Canvas being implemented by Institut fuer Rundfunktechnik. Hybrid Broadcast Broadband (HBB) is a group at the European Broadcasting Union looking at the harmonisation of Canvas, HBBtv, MHEG-5 IPTV, MHP, OIPTV and commercial offerings from the likes of Samsung and Panasonic. There's a brief write-up here http://tech.ebu.ch/docs/tech-i/ebu_tech-i_001.pdf Aha, I take it the article I linked to should in fact have been referring to Hybrid Broadcast Broadband, rather than Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV, in that case? M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Why don't you ask your boss Anthony? -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 14 October 2009 22:07 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas On 14-Oct-2009, at 21:30, Anthony McKale wrote: Like wise as someone vaguely involved in canvas for AM i'm not sure what I'm allowed to say [snip lots of cool stuff] all of the benefits of the Canvas are relatively well-understood. the idea of set of technical specs which leverage Internet connectivity along with DVB isn't terribly new, and is just about coming of age. this is all a Good Thing. but, none of this explains why a JV is necessary to achieve this, nor- and this is one which I've become increasingly puzzled by over the past few weeks-why and how there's anything except a paper proposal when the first-stage responses on the (revised) consultation are yet to come, let alone the four-week consultation and actual decision on the project's approval. am I being dim? M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Hey Nick, Why don't you ask your boss Anthony? That was me asking the questions, not Anthony ;) (Unless you meant “why don’t you ask your boss, Anthony?”, in which case “Anthony’s not my boss” :)) M. - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Matt/Adam/Jon? Matt's probably on the list I'll let him tell me, but if it goes ahead (get's approve) it could be v. cool, I predict lots of hacking and homebrew evil drm aside of course Ant -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Nick Reynolds-FMT Sent: 15 October 2009 09:47 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas Why don't you ask your boss Anthony? - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 14 Oct 2009, at 11:47, Mo McRoberts wrote: Thus creating an (effective) two-tier system: those who work go the whole hog within Canvas, or those who adhere to all of the _technical_ specifications but need to come to separate arrangements in order to deliver them, and can’t (of course), brand their devices as being Canvas-compliant. I think the document I linked to implies a more flexible picture than that. 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/
Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 14-Oct-2009, at 12:12, Stephen Jolly wrote: On 14 Oct 2009, at 11:47, Mo McRoberts wrote: Thus creating an (effective) two-tier system: those who work go the whole hog within Canvas, or those who adhere to all of the _technical_ specifications but need to come to separate arrangements in order to deliver them, and can’t (of course), brand their devices as being Canvas-compliant. I think the document I linked to implies a more flexible picture than that. It doesn’t. From §2.3: “We believe that a consistent UX is necessary to create a successful platform of meaningful scale for reasons set out below (see section 2.5 for more detail). At the same time we recognise needs of content providers, device manufacturers, platform operators and ISPs and want to create a flexible approach that supports their business models and still delivers the benefits described above. In order to retain this flexibility in a horizontal market but also the benefits set out above we are proposing a “thin” core UI managed by the Canvas JV with each content provider, manufacturer, etc. able to develop sub-sections of that UI. This is set out in more detail in section 2.6, with a summary of the flexibility offered to each stakeholder set out in section 2.7.” That is, the “thin” core UI is mandated. Figure 1 in §2.6 makes it quite clear what is considered “core UI”. §2.7 is just a sales pitch to each segment on the basis of the structure defined earlier. M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
The hardware determines what functions are available. The specification should only cover the core functionality, needed to access the free services. This may include an embedded browser, standard codecs etc. The user interface could be provided as a reference, but how can it act as a hardware abstraction layer, when the hardware is specified by the manufacturer. It appears the specification has suffered from function and control creep. Manufacturers should be free to extend beyond the core functionality, as a unique selling point. A range could consist of the basic model (access free to air/net content) and enhanced models like a built in PVR, or overnight pre-fetch. DRM support is not required for free to air/net, but adding you tube support may be universal but not part of the core specification. - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Hokay, taking a slightly different tack—rather than moaning about the bits of the proposal which appear incongruous, here’s something more tangible (and arguably useful). This is how I reckon it -should- work (and, obviously, is what I’m speccing for Baird):— Assuming the technical specs for actual content formats and over-IP transport protocols have been settled upon, what we’re left with is delivery of metadata and the UI to make it useful. Essentially, there are two ways that metadata can arrive on a box; one is over the air, the other is via an Internet connection. The same information’s carried in both cases. The supplier of the box would naturally be able to predefine some subscriptions to metadata sources, but the principal initial source in most cases would be OTA (whether it’s carried by Freeview, Freesat, Virgin, or Sky). This basic metadata would consist in the first instance of a set of services. There’s some potential for duplication here, of course, as the same service metadata might arrive by way of different sources, and a service might be listed both in the context of a service offering (e.g., Freeview) or a broadcaster (e.g., the BBC). Identifying the dups is fairly straightforward, though, assuming the format of the metadata is sane. Each service listing contains a location for the actual service metadata itself, as well as: • the various delivery mechanisms for the service and what form they take, accounting for regional variations In the case of BBC 1, this would list each of the dvb:// URLs applicable to the various regional broadcasts, as well as the simulcast URL, the mobile SDP URL • preferred channel numbering This is a straightforward order-of-preference list, which may be constrained by the STB vendor. BBC 1 could, for example, indicate a preference for “1” and “101” in that order. In addition, for each regional variant, there’s a second list, so it might also indicate that 974 is the preferred variant channel for “BBC 1 London”. In terms of variations, the two tie up with one another: if there are no available delivery mechanisms for BBC 1 Scotland, for example, no attempt to assign channel 971 to it would be made. The service metadata carries the above, as well as details of the programmes carried, which may include links to poster frames in various resolutions, links to microsites and HTML-based interactive apps, rich descriptions, and so on. The programme _may_ be an OTA broadcast, or purely on-demand, or both. In either case, the metadata can include information about when the programme is available according to the different delivery media. This would allow a range of different scenarios, from a programme which is aired but never available for catch-up viewing, to the usual iPlayer-style setup where catch-up is available for a limited period shortly after airing, the less common scenario where the programme is available to download immediately but will be aired at some point in the future, right down to on-demand-only programmes which can be streamed or downloaded as required, depending upon the available transports and protocols. In addition, an OTA broadcast could well include extensions to the metadata in the transport stream—which could well be useful for commercial broadcasters wishing to add additional features to advertising, as well as correcting last-minute errors or omissions in the previously-obtained metadata. Subscribing to a service manually would involve some kind of user entry. DNS-SD would be used to reduce the typing required, though, so if you were to subscribe to “freeview.co.uk”, the STB would query for PTRs to SRV records matching _msdf._tcp.freeview.co.uk (or whatever), which work not dissimilarly to the _http._tcp DNS-SD discovery mechanism. Fallback methods are trivial, though (e.g., HTTP request to the root with a specific Accept: header). If you’re a content-provider, it’s mostly a matter of publishing the metadata in the right place in the right formats. Unless I’m being dim, this—if specified properly, in technical terms, plus some “thou shalt provide xxx feature in order to be able to call yourself compliant and use the logo” would encompass Canvas’s aims without requiring:— a) a joint venture and the associated costs, ramifications, entry requirements, and risk of accusations of gatekeeperism; b) a mandated UI (sidenote #1: if it doesn’t appear to encompass Canvas’s aims, it means I’ve either missed something in my reading of them, or in the description above). (sidenote #2: obligatory mock-ups of what it could look like, but noting that the specs don’t define this: http://emberapp.com/nevali/collections/nxtv-stb-mock-ups/ ) What I can’t figure out is why the above isn’t sufficient. I realise the BBC folks aren’t going to be able to give an answer to that question _but_ if there are any
Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 14 Oct 2009, at 12:23, Mo McRoberts wrote: I think the document I linked to implies a more flexible picture than that. It doesn’t. There's stuff in section 2.7 that talks about the flexibility manufacturers would have to change the appearance of the core UI (up to a point), which to me implies more flexibility than a simple choice between Canvas UI and Canvas branding or neither. 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/
Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 14-Oct-2009, at 13:45, Stephen Jolly wrote: On 14 Oct 2009, at 12:23, Mo McRoberts wrote: I think the document I linked to implies a more flexible picture than that. It doesn’t. There's stuff in section 2.7 that talks about the flexibility manufacturers would have to change the appearance of the core UI (up to a point), which to me implies more flexibility than a simple choice between Canvas UI and Canvas branding or neither. My reading of it (taken in the context of the earlier sections which were quite explicit about which parts were readily-modified and which weren’t) suggested that there was only very limited flexibility there… though re-reading it I can see it’s a bit ambiguous and where you’re coming from. Hmm. (Of course, if there was no JV and minimal UI specification, it’d be a moot point… ;) M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Just to be clear, I'm not saying we're not allowed to say anything, its just not clear what we can be said. I've heard so much about Canvas over the last year, I'm not even sure whats public, whats hear-say and whats actually secret (if anything) :) As some one said its a hot potato. I've just started re-reading Jonathan Zittrain's the future of the internet and how to stop it. - http://futureoftheinternet.org/. If you've not read it, go and download it or buy it now. And been thinking since watching Micromen #b00n5b92, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92) about the balance between the pc and ce (consumer electronics). This is at the very start of Zittrain's book. Sorry for the length two inventions—iPhone and Apple II—were launched by the same man, the revolutions that they inaugurated are radically different. For the technology that each inaugurated is radically different. The Apple II was quintessentially generative technology. It was a platform. It invited people to tinker with it. Hobbyists wrote programs. Businesses began to plan on selling software. Jobs (and Apple) had no clue how the machine would be used. They had their hunches, but, fortunately for them, nothing constrained the PC to the hunches of the founders. Apple did not even know that VisiCalc was on the market when it noticed sales of the Apple II skyrocketing. The Apple II was designed for surprises— some very good (VisiCalc), and some not so good (the inevitable and frequent computer crashes). The iPhone is the opposite. It is sterile. Rather than a platform that invites innovation, the iPhone comes preprogrammed. You are not allowed to add programs to the all-in-one device that Steve Jobs sells you. Its functionality is locked in, though Apple can change it through remote updates. Indeed, to those who managed to tinker with the code to enable the iPhone to support more or different applications, Apple threatened (and then delivered on the threat) to transform the iPhone into an iBrick. The machine was not to be generative beyond the innovations that Apple (and its exclusive carrier, ATT) wanted. Whereas the world would innovate for the Apple II, only Apple would innovate for the iPhone. (A promised software development kit may allow others to program the iPhone with Apple’s permission.) Jobs was not shy about these restrictions baked into the iPhone. As he said at its launch: We define everything that is on the phone You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers. On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 13:21 +0100, Mo McRoberts wrote: Hokay, taking a slightly different tack—rather than moaning about the bits of the proposal which appear incongruous, here’s something more tangible (and arguably useful). This is how I reckon it -should- work (and, obviously, is what I’m speccing for Baird):— Assuming the technical specs for actual content formats and over-IP transport protocols have been settled upon, what we’re left with is delivery of metadata and the UI to make it useful. Essentially, there are two ways that metadata can arrive on a box; one is over the air, the other is via an Internet connection. The same information’s carried in both cases. The supplier of the box would naturally be able to predefine some subscriptions to metadata sources, but the principal initial source in most cases would be OTA (whether it’s carried by Freeview, Freesat, Virgin, or Sky). This basic metadata would consist in the first instance of a set of services. There’s some potential for duplication here, of course, as the same service metadata might arrive by way of different sources, and a service might be listed both in the context of a service offering (e.g., Freeview) or a broadcaster (e.g., the BBC). Identifying the dups is fairly straightforward, though, assuming the format of the metadata is sane. Each service listing contains a location for the actual service metadata itself, as well as: • the various delivery mechanisms for the service and what form they take, accounting for regional variations In the case of BBC 1, this would list each of the dvb:// URLs applicable to the various regional broadcasts, as well as the simulcast URL, the mobile SDP URL • preferred channel numbering This is a straightforward order-of-preference list, which may be constrained by the STB vendor. BBC 1 could, for example, indicate a preference for “1” and “101” in that order. In addition, for each regional variant, there’s a second list, so it might also indicate that 974 is the preferred variant channel for “BBC 1 London”. In terms of variations, the two tie up with one another: if there are no available delivery mechanisms for BBC 1 Scotland, for example, no attempt to assign channel
RE: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Surely the best place to start would be the BBC Trust's website and read the Canvas documents. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/search/search.shtml?scope=bbctrusturi=%2F bbctrust%2Fq=canvasgo.x=47go.y=4 If you search hard, and I admit its hard, then you can find that the consultation on Canvas closed on 1st September. BBC people who are actually directly involved in Canvas should wait until the Trust announces its decision before talking about it - otherwise they'd be in trouble. But there's no reason why people on this mailing list can't talk about it. Unless someone on this list knows something confidential! As for when the Trust intends to announce its decision, well that seems obscure at the moment. -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mr I Forrester Sent: 14 October 2009 19:03 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas Just to be clear, I'm not saying we're not allowed to say anything, its just not clear what we can be said. I've heard so much about Canvas over the last year, I'm not even sure whats public, whats hear-say and whats actually secret (if anything) :) As some one said its a hot potato. I've just started re-reading Jonathan Zittrain's the future of the internet and how to stop it. - http://futureoftheinternet.org/. If you've not read it, go and download it or buy it now. And been thinking since watching Micromen #b00n5b92, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92) about the balance between the pc and ce (consumer electronics). This is at the very start of Zittrain's book. Sorry for the length two inventions-iPhone and Apple II-were launched by the same man, the revolutions that they inaugurated are radically different. For the technology that each inaugurated is radically different. The Apple II was quintessentially generative technology. It was a platform. It invited people to tinker with it. Hobbyists wrote programs. Businesses began to plan on selling software. Jobs (and Apple) had no clue how the machine would be used. They had their hunches, but, fortunately for them, nothing constrained the PC to the hunches of the founders. Apple did not even know that VisiCalc was on the market when it noticed sales of the Apple II skyrocketing. The Apple II was designed for surprises- some very good (VisiCalc), and some not so good (the inevitable and frequent computer crashes). The iPhone is the opposite. It is sterile. Rather than a platform that invites innovation, the iPhone comes preprogrammed. You are not allowed to add programs to the all-in-one device that Steve Jobs sells you. Its functionality is locked in, though Apple can change it through remote updates. Indeed, to those who managed to tinker with the code to enable the iPhone to support more or different applications, Apple threatened (and then delivered on the threat) to transform the iPhone into an iBrick. The machine was not to be generative beyond the innovations that Apple (and its exclusive carrier, ATT) wanted. Whereas the world would innovate for the Apple II, only Apple would innovate for the iPhone. (A promised software development kit may allow others to program the iPhone with Apple's permission.) Jobs was not shy about these restrictions baked into the iPhone. As he said at its launch: We define everything that is on the phone You don't want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn't work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers. On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 13:21 +0100, Mo McRoberts wrote: Hokay, taking a slightly different tack-rather than moaning about the bits of the proposal which appear incongruous, here's something more tangible (and arguably useful). This is how I reckon it -should- work (and, obviously, is what I'm speccing for Baird):- Assuming the technical specs for actual content formats and over-IP transport protocols have been settled upon, what we're left with is delivery of metadata and the UI to make it useful. Essentially, there are two ways that metadata can arrive on a box; one is over the air, the other is via an Internet connection. The same information's carried in both cases. The supplier of the box would naturally be able to predefine some subscriptions to metadata sources, but the principal initial source in most cases would be OTA (whether it's carried by Freeview, Freesat, Virgin, or Sky). This basic metadata would consist in the first instance of a set of services. There's some potential for duplication here, of course, as the same service metadata might arrive by way of different sources, and a service might be listed both in the context of a service offering (e.g., Freeview) or a broadcaster (e.g., the BBC). Identifying the dups is fairly straightforward, though, assuming the format
Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 14-Oct-2009, at 19:03, Mr I Forrester wrote: Just to be clear, I'm not saying we're not allowed to say anything, its just not clear what we can be said. I've heard so much about Canvas over the last year, I'm not even sure whats public, whats hear-say and whats actually secret (if anything) :) As some one said its a hot potato. I've just started re-reading Jonathan Zittrain's the future of the internet and how to stop it. - http://futureoftheinternet.org/. If you've not read it, go and download it or buy it now. And been thinking since watching Micromen #b00n5b92, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92) about the balance between the pc and ce (consumer electronics). It’s a nice quote, but has suffered the test of time quite badly! Apple did indeed release an SDK, after months of pressure[0] from developers. Subsequently, the two platforms which look the most likely to be worthy competitors to iPhone OS long term (Android and WebOS) are both comparatively open, and most other mobile platforms are also fairly open, even if the delivery mechanisms are a royal pain and the SDKs aren’t actually that good. There’s a danger of conflating the ability to lock down a device with a need to restrict the platform on which it runs, or even that an open- ended platform requires a whole load of confusing and inappropriate stuff in the CE side in order to be useful, when really that’s a matter of good UI design. Freeview STBs, for example, come in all shapes and sizes, and nobody has any real difficulty in choosing one, unless they have specific requirements. The openness of the platform here means that those specific requirements can usually be met in some form or another. My Freeview box is a piece of cheap tat which doesn’t do anything interesting or special, and gives me virtually no control over much at all, but the DVB-T PCI card is a different matter altogether! M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Like wise as someone vaguely involved in canvas for AM i'm not sure what I'm allowed to say other than it looks very cool from a tech point of view ... also the UX rocks It seems like a massive leveler in terms of indies/advertisers/ small tv companies and generally a win-win-win for everyone that doesn't own there own platform and make shed loads of bespoke /proprietary stuff for other people because there the mheg experts etc... It's easy to make apps in, it's easy to hire staff to make apps in, it's generally an easy open platform (from what I've seen so far) It's be a step forward for the industry and it'll hopefully improve the competition in the apps/adverts arena Zap -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 14 October 2009 19:35 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas On 14-Oct-2009, at 19:03, Mr I Forrester wrote: Just to be clear, I'm not saying we're not allowed to say anything, its just not clear what we can be said. I've heard so much about Canvas over the last year, I'm not even sure whats public, whats hear-say and whats actually secret (if anything) :) As some one said its a hot potato. I've just started re-reading Jonathan Zittrain's the future of the internet and how to stop it. - http://futureoftheinternet.org/. If you've not read it, go and download it or buy it now. And been thinking since watching Micromen #b00n5b92, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n5b92) about the balance between the pc and ce (consumer electronics). It's a nice quote, but has suffered the test of time quite badly! Apple did indeed release an SDK, after months of pressure[0] from developers. Subsequently, the two platforms which look the most likely to be worthy competitors to iPhone OS long term (Android and WebOS) are both comparatively open, and most other mobile platforms are also fairly open, even if the delivery mechanisms are a royal pain and the SDKs aren't actually that good. There's a danger of conflating the ability to lock down a device with a need to restrict the platform on which it runs, or even that an open- ended platform requires a whole load of confusing and inappropriate stuff in the CE side in order to be useful, when really that's a matter of good UI design. Freeview STBs, for example, come in all shapes and sizes, and nobody has any real difficulty in choosing one, unless they have specific requirements. The openness of the platform here means that those specific requirements can usually be met in some form or another. My Freeview box is a piece of cheap tat which doesn't do anything interesting or special, and gives me virtually no control over much at all, but the DVB-T PCI card is a different matter altogether! M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 14-Oct-2009, at 21:30, Anthony McKale wrote: Like wise as someone vaguely involved in canvas for AM i'm not sure what I'm allowed to say [snip lots of cool stuff] all of the benefits of the Canvas are relatively well-understood. the idea of set of technical specs which leverage Internet connectivity along with DVB isn’t terribly new, and is just about coming of age. this is all a Good Thing. but, none of this explains why a JV is necessary to achieve this, nor— and this is one which I’ve become increasingly puzzled by over the past few weeks—why and how there’s anything except a paper proposal when the first-stage responses on the (revised) consultation are yet to come, let alone the four-week consultation and actual decision on the project’s approval. am I being dim? M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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] Re: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 12-Oct-2009, at 08:12, Mo McRoberts wrote: From the FT: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ba940c48-b6c5-11de-8a28-00144feab49a.html Responding to myself (it’s an exciting life I lead), I notice that the FT says: “The broadcaster wants the Trust to force the BBC to allow anybody - not just public service broadcasters - to join Canvas.” It was my impression that being a PSB wasn’t a prerequisite for joining the JV (just having a bucketload of cash to spare). It’s a bit odd that, one, as most of Sky’s stance seems to be predicated on the slightly sensible position of “build and use the specs and the platform will be created from that”. Jury’s out on this one until I can read their actual response, I guess. That’ll teach me to rely on the FT ;) M. -- mo mcroberts http://nevali.net iChat: mo.mcrobe...@me.com Jabber/GTalk: m...@ilaven.net Twitter: @nevali Run Leopard or Snow Leopard? Set Quick Look free with DropLook - http://labs.jazzio.com/DropLook/ - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Google ... http://www.projectcanvas.co.uk/project-summary BBC blog. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/10/sky_can_help_project_canvas_un.html Nor is it a BBC standard that the venture would adopt. A standard for connected TVs is being developed now with the Digital Television Group - this was always our intention and work has already begun. Our ambition is that the Canvas platform would be compliant with that standard. - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
Mo McRoberts wrote: “The broadcaster wants the Trust to force the BBC to allow anybody - not just public service broadcasters - to join Canvas.” Is it safe to post ? As for following up your own posts ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/08/project_canvas/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/08/project_canvas/page2.html To repeat, the technology that Project Canvas is developing is an open standard that any box maker or online service can use for free as long as they abide by the rules of the standard to ensure universal compatibility. It's the same with any industry standard. It's all a power play. On one side are traditional CE makers who want to keep their grip on Internet technology, controlling where users can browse and which videos they can watch. On the other side is Project Canvas. Its members, at least in this instance, want to open up an important piece of Internet technology and give it free to anyone who wants to use it to develop products and services that meet the published standards. Deja Vu ? - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 22:05, David Tomlinson d.tomlin...@tiscali.co.uk wrote: Is it safe to post ? As for following up your own posts ... http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/08/project_canvas/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/08/project_canvas/page2.html To repeat, the technology that Project Canvas is developing is an open standard that any box maker or online service can use for free as long as they abide by the rules of the standard to ensure universal compatibility. It's the same with any industry standard. It's all a power play. On one side are traditional CE makers who want to keep their grip on Internet technology, controlling where users can browse and which videos they can watch. On the other side is Project Canvas. Its members, at least in this instance, want to open up an important piece of Internet technology and give it free to anyone who wants to use it to develop products and services that meet the published standards. That was all written before the exec clarified the proposition and the consultation was extended. I was all for Canvas until it became clear what it *actually* was. M. - 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: Sky hits out at Project Canvas
On 12 Oct 2009, at 22:47, Mo McRoberts wrote: That was all written before the exec clarified the proposition and the consultation was extended. I was all for Canvas until it became clear what it *actually* was. Do share. :-) 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/
[backstage] RE: Encryption of HD by the BBC - cont ...
Thanks for this David. -Original Message- From: David Tomlinson [mailto:d.tomlin...@tiscali.co.uk] Sent: 06 October 2009 10:35 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Cc: Nick Reynolds-FMT Subject: Encryption of HD by the BBC - cont ... This has discussion continued in a modest way on the blog comments. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/10/freeview_hd_copy_protecti on_a.html I am sorry to say Nick is making misleading reassurances. (He is not sufficiently technical or familiar with the material, to understand the logical inconsistencies - this is an observation of fact, not a personal attack). See Nick comment No. 34. Yes you will be able to put a HD tuner into my Open Source MythTV box and watch BBC HD, again if suitable tuners become available. The only reason tuners would not become available (they are currently available for Standard Definition), is that they will be excluded by the licence required to decrypt the signals. Free and Open Source Software Drivers will be excluded (excluding Myth TV) if there is any meaningful copy protection (unless the licence is breached). If the copy protection is to be meaningful, the BBC must break the law, regarding an unencrypted signal (semantics aside) and exclude FOSS from accessing the copy protected signals (which may only apply to Hollywood films, US imports, or may apply to the majority of content). See Nevali's comments, No. 35, 36, 42. Clearly Nevali, is part of the official consultation process. Issues: 1.1 Free and Open Source software is incompatible with DRM. 1.2 Reassurances to the contrary, contradict this knowledge. And undermine statements from the BBC. 2.1 What the BBC is proposing is in breach of the law by any reasonable semantics, the law is clear and does not allow for exceptions. 2.2 You may wish to proceed as if this was not true, but it is a fatal flaw that will destroy the agreements the BBC is entering into, and damage the BBC. 2.3 The BBC TRUST cannot ignore the fact that the BBC is intending to breaking the law. Semantics will not be sufficient to obfuscate this issue. 2.4 Several other options exist to exploit the flaw in the BBC's intentions. I am aware how it is possible to subvert the law, but ultimately the letter of the law, will be used to force the BBC to broadcast unencrypted. 3.1 We are in a transition phase, away from copyright and DRM. 3.2. The BBC appear to be insufficiently aware of the arguments against DRM and, dangers of the course of action they have embarked upon, to act in the public intrest 3.3 The BBC are not familiar with the argument against DRM which has failed repeatedly. 3.4. The BBC are not sufficiently aware of the arguments against intellectual property which has already lost the intellectual debate. 4.0 Free and Open Source software proponents have experience of a copyright, patent, and DRM free environment, and are therefore more ready to embrace the concepts, and freedoms involved. In view of the above, how can the BBC management claim to represent the public interest ? The BBC can choose to ignore the above, but the issues will not go away. And the BBC will be seen to be, not side of the public, but on the side of special interests on these issues. This is intention of this email to raise issues with the BBC Management of which Nick is one of the current spokesmen. Further Reading: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/thompson_bpi.shtml But that's changing. The first episode of the new Dr Who series was available on the unauthorised site Bit Torrent three weeks before its premiere on BBC ONE. And, although of course our main model in the UK is free-to-air unencrypted broadcast, the BBC has a duty to exploit the residual commercial value of the rights we invest in on behalf of the public: we do that both here and around the world. So we have an intense interest in effective digital rights management systems; in technical, legal and regulatory means to protect the property of rights-holders; and in increasing public awareness of the moral and economic consequences of the theft of intellectual property. On this last point, I believe the BBC could do considerably more than it does at present. Mark Thompson, BBC Director-General Thursday 14 July 2005 Some background on semantics in law. http://ssrn.com/abstract=831604 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=831604 We consider in the paper whether a pragmatics of semantic content can be a useful approach to legal interpretation. More extensively, since a pragmatic conception of meaning is a component of an inferential semantics, we consider whether an inferentialist approach to legal interpretation can be of help in treating and resolving some problems of legal interpretation. In sum: Is legal inferentialism a suitable conception of legal interpretation? Some of the Anti-copyright argument.
[backstage] Re: Freeview HD vs existing HDMI upscaling freeview boxes (was RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?)
Briefly, DVB-T2 uses MPEG4 delivered in a 30Mbps (compare 18Mbps and 24Mps) multiplex using 256QAM (compared with 16QAM and 64QAM) with LDPC/BCH error correction (not FEC) and 32k carriers (compare 2k and 8k). http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051377 Basically, this is not a software upgrade! 2009/9/17 Brendan Quinn brendan.qu...@bbc.co.uk Alan wrote: I assume my topfield HD will be out of date with these proposed changes? Ant replied: You'll need to retune, but the services you currently get on Freeview should still be available. Think of Freeview + as an optional upgrade. To which Alun wrote: I meant in terms of the HD element if they are changing the spec? If there is a decryption requirement I doubt the Topfield will have it? I would say you're right, your box wont' receive HD freeview signals. But that's not (only) because of any encryption, it's because the spec for encoding HD over freeview [1] was only agreed last week and the first box was announced five days ago, to be released in the first half of 2010: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/09/12/pace-unveils-dvb-t2-freeview-h d-box/ I guess you have this box [2]: http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1 0catid=2Itemid=3 It uses HDMI upscaling to work with your HD TV. But it's not actually processing the real freeview HD signal and never can -- your box needs different chips to be able to do that. So to actually see Freeview HD in HD, you will need to buy a new box :-( HTH, Brendan. [1] known as DVB-T2. The DVB are the standards committee for most TV standards in Europe, India, Australia etc. The BBC is a member. DVB-T was the standard for regular freeview, so DVB-T2 is the standard for next-gen freeview: the T is for terrestrial. You can guess that DVB-C is for cable and DVB-S is for satellite... They also have C2 and S2 standards for HD over those platforms. [2] URL edited for brevity -- yes it was much longer than that before -- but it seems to work... - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
[backstage] Re: Freeview HD vs existing HDMI upscaling freeview boxes (was RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?)
2009/9/17 Brendan Quinn brendan.qu...@bbc.co.uk Alan wrote: I assume my topfield HD will be out of date with these proposed changes? Ant replied: You'll need to retune, but the services you currently get on Freeview should still be available. Think of Freeview + as an optional upgrade. To which Alun wrote: I meant in terms of the HD element if they are changing the spec? If there is a decryption requirement I doubt the Topfield will have it? I guess you have this box [2]: http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1 0catid=2Itemid=3http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1%0A0catid=2Itemid=3 I have an even older Topfield PVR, which doesn't even have an HDMI output (just scart), so that's guaranteed never to be upgradeable. On the other hand though, standard definition freeview looks good enough on my telly, plus I can record hours and hours worth of programmes, and even download them to a computer via a USB cable (admittedly, this takes ages) and re-encode to fit on an iPhone/iPod touch (requires buying an MPEG2 encoder licence for Quicktime) - all legally (though an absolute faff). If only I could stream BBC iPlayer direct to my TV via my Apple TV box, I wouldn't really ever need a Freeview HD box. Frankie -- Frankie Roberto Experience Designer, Rattle 0114 2706977 http://www.rattlecentral.com
Re: [backstage] Re: Freeview HD vs existing HDMI upscaling freeview boxes (was RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?)
30 Mbps is a bit of a low estimate for T2. Wikipedia suggests at least 35. 2009/9/18 Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv Briefly, DVB-T2 uses MPEG4 delivered in a 30Mbps (compare 18Mbps and 24Mps) multiplex using 256QAM (compared with 16QAM and 64QAM) with LDPC/BCH error correction (not FEC) and 32k carriers (compare 2k and 8k). http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051377 Basically, this is not a software upgrade! 2009/9/17 Brendan Quinn brendan.qu...@bbc.co.uk Alan wrote: I assume my topfield HD will be out of date with these proposed changes? Ant replied: You'll need to retune, but the services you currently get on Freeview should still be available. Think of Freeview + as an optional upgrade. To which Alun wrote: I meant in terms of the HD element if they are changing the spec? If there is a decryption requirement I doubt the Topfield will have it? I would say you're right, your box wont' receive HD freeview signals. But that's not (only) because of any encryption, it's because the spec for encoding HD over freeview [1] was only agreed last week and the first box was announced five days ago, to be released in the first half of 2010: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/09/12/pace-unveils-dvb-t2-freeview-h d-box/http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/09/12/pace-unveils-dvb-t2-freeview-h%0Ad-box/ I guess you have this box [2]: http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1 0catid=2Itemid=3http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1%0A0catid=2Itemid=3 It uses HDMI upscaling to work with your HD TV. But it's not actually processing the real freeview HD signal and never can -- your box needs different chips to be able to do that. So to actually see Freeview HD in HD, you will need to buy a new box :-( HTH, Brendan. [1] known as DVB-T2. The DVB are the standards committee for most TV standards in Europe, India, Australia etc. The BBC is a member. DVB-T was the standard for regular freeview, so DVB-T2 is the standard for next-gen freeview: the T is for terrestrial. You can guess that DVB-C is for cable and DVB-S is for satellite... They also have C2 and S2 standards for HD over those platforms. [2] URL edited for brevity -- yes it was much longer than that before -- but it seems to work... - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 -- Simon Thompson GMAIL Account
Re: [backstage] Re: Freeview HD vs existing HDMI upscaling freeview boxes (was RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?)
Wikipedia is wrong (that's a suprise). The carrying capacity is 30Mbps, according to the specification. 2009/9/18 Simon Thompson st...@zepler.net 30 Mbps is a bit of a low estimate for T2. Wikipedia suggests at least 35. 2009/9/18 Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv Briefly, DVB-T2 uses MPEG4 delivered in a 30Mbps (compare 18Mbps and 24Mps) multiplex using 256QAM (compared with 16QAM and 64QAM) with LDPC/BCH error correction (not FEC) and 32k carriers (compare 2k and 8k). http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051377 Basically, this is not a software upgrade! 2009/9/17 Brendan Quinn brendan.qu...@bbc.co.uk Alan wrote: I assume my topfield HD will be out of date with these proposed changes? Ant replied: You'll need to retune, but the services you currently get on Freeview should still be available. Think of Freeview + as an optional upgrade. To which Alun wrote: I meant in terms of the HD element if they are changing the spec? If there is a decryption requirement I doubt the Topfield will have it? I would say you're right, your box wont' receive HD freeview signals. But that's not (only) because of any encryption, it's because the spec for encoding HD over freeview [1] was only agreed last week and the first box was announced five days ago, to be released in the first half of 2010: http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/09/12/pace-unveils-dvb-t2-freeview-h d-box/http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2009/09/12/pace-unveils-dvb-t2-freeview-h%0Ad-box/ I guess you have this box [2]: http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1 0catid=2Itemid=3http://www.topfield.co.uk/index.php?option=com_contentview=articleid=1%0A0catid=2Itemid=3 It uses HDMI upscaling to work with your HD TV. But it's not actually processing the real freeview HD signal and never can -- your box needs different chips to be able to do that. So to actually see Freeview HD in HD, you will need to buy a new box :-( HTH, Brendan. [1] known as DVB-T2. The DVB are the standards committee for most TV standards in Europe, India, Australia etc. The BBC is a member. DVB-T was the standard for regular freeview, so DVB-T2 is the standard for next-gen freeview: the T is for terrestrial. You can guess that DVB-C is for cable and DVB-S is for satellite... They also have C2 and S2 standards for HD over those platforms. [2] URL edited for brevity -- yes it was much longer than that before -- but it seems to work... - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 -- Simon Thompson GMAIL Account -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
