[backstage] Reporting audio oddities to Radio engineers?

2011-07-27 Thread Christopher Woods
Listening to 1Xtra tonight (RAM Takeover on Bailey's show), noted there was a ~1dB discrepancy between L and R channels (L +1dB) on the online stream. Is there any kind of public-facing address or webform which actually eventually gets to BBC engineers so they can investigate any potential dodgy

RE: [backstage] OT: Name That Bizarre Sound at the Bottom of the MW Spectrum

2011-07-21 Thread Christopher Woods
I recorded this a while ago (3rd of January 2011) when I was scanning MW and LW bands late at night... as one is wont to do when one is bored. This was at my Dad's old place in Steeple Claydon, picked up right at the bottom end of the MW band:

[backstage] OT: Name That Bizarre Sound at the Bottom of the MW Spectrum

2011-07-17 Thread Christopher Woods
Sorry this isn't exactly BBC-related, but sure there's enough collective knowledge of radio and bizarre 'broadcasts' to help me identify this mystery sound. I recorded this a while ago (3rd of January 2011) when I was scanning MW and LW bands late at night... as one is wont to do when one is

[backstage] Problem with newsvote BBC email services double opt-in?

2011-06-06 Thread Christopher Woods
A while back I tried to sign up to BBC News updates but the double opt-in doesn't appear to be working for me - I receive the confirm your email message but the confirmation link just takes me to the fire and brimstone 500 error page. Anybody else seeing this? Should it be happening (or has the

FW: [backstage] Problems with iPlayer video - how to report?

2011-02-25 Thread Christopher Woods
Resending this as it doesn't appear to have made the list. -Original Message- From: Christopher Woods [mailto:chris...@infinitus.co.uk] Sent: 22 February 2011 13:36 To: 'backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk' Subject: RE: [backstage] Problems with iPlayer video - how to report? Chris, Can't

RE: [backstage] Problems with iPlayer video - how to report?

2011-02-21 Thread Christopher Woods
Chris, You can find links to service status and a contact form from here: http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/using_bbc_iplayer/t ech_report Comments about World Service content do get through to me, so filling in the form does work. Super : Whilst I have your eye as such, are

RE: [backstage] Problems with Listen Again on Frontier Silicon radios

2011-02-21 Thread Christopher Woods
Just using belt and braces... But I had issues playing Pick of the pops and Sounds of the 70s on listen again on my Roberts wifi radio. already filed a problem this morning. programmes would stop 5 mins in. Running potp now, but it's only filled the immediate use buffer, rather than letting

[backstage] Problems with iPlayer video - how to report?

2011-02-20 Thread Christopher Woods
Watching the AV Referendum Speeches there's a LOT of picture sound breakup, looks like a bad OB sat feed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zb198/House_of_Commons_AV_Referendum _Speeches/ To whom should this problem be reported and what's the best way to report technical problems in

RE: [backstage] Streaming video on variable bandwidth connection?

2011-02-08 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Sam Smith Sent: 06 February 2011 20:10 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Cc: friends-of-backst...@pielists.net Subject: Re: [backstage] Streaming video on variable

RE: [backstage] Streaming video on variable bandwidth connection?

2011-02-02 Thread Christopher Woods
I'm trying to work out what technology to use I have no experience in this myself but I've been impressed by the reliability and quality of the LiveU system. Leo Laporte (and co) used it to do walkabout live coverage of CES 2011 and it really held up well, even in the LVCC (where NOBODY can

[backstage] Enabling NVIDIA GPU acceleration on iPlayer videos...

2011-01-10 Thread Christopher Woods
I got a Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook with an integrated NVIDIA ION GPU for Christmas :-) It's a 1.6GHz device which I can easily top out the CPU on, but with DXVA support and an HDMI port it becomes an ideal low-cost HTPC substitute for occasional viewing. The first thing I set off to try was the

RE: [backstage] Enabling NVIDIA GPU acceleration on iPlayer videos...

2011-01-10 Thread Christopher Woods
It's proably the h264 decoder of the flash player, it's quite buggy and a bit of a cpu hog, Good news is adobe are making it better all the time, so a lot of the early buggyiness is gone, it's just the cpu concerns that are about, Indeed, 10.2 is much better and regular 1080p plays at

RE: [backstage] Enabling NVIDIA GPU acceleration on iPlayer videos...

2011-01-10 Thread Christopher Woods
It might not handle Main profile maybe? I'd hazard a guess that YouTube stuff is all Baseline... (though this doesn't explain my MPC would play it all back swimmingly unless there's some transcoding voodoo going on rather than just re-containering) I can assure you that MPC (with

RE: [backstage] Enabling NVIDIA GPU acceleration on iPlayer videos...

2011-01-10 Thread Christopher Woods
I think the iPlayer app in MythTV or Boxee should let you watch using hardware acceleration. Well, Boxee doesn't want to fully hardware accelerate. The colourspace is squashed, which indicates it's *trying* to use hardware acceleration (the colourspace is being squashed into 16-235, which is

RE: [backstage] Enabling NVIDIA GPU acceleration on iPlayer videos...

2011-01-10 Thread Christopher Woods
get_iplayer doesn't attempt any transcoding of video - it just remuxes the flv into mp4 And also to the suggestion of using python script Kieran... I'm not *quite* that nerdy to pipe my video through mplayer, I usually give up in frustration before getting it working! ;-) I ended up giving

RE: [backstage] where is the BBC's SVG or scaleable vector graphics content?

2010-11-29 Thread Christopher Woods
Apple devices, both mobile and desktop, still occupy a minority across the deployed userbase (just a disporportionately large mindshare, the Reality Distortion Effect hard at work as always). Android MS still have lion's share of mobile devices worldwide and they're going to be locked in a battle

RE: [backstage] where is the BBC's SVG or scaleable vector graphics content?

2010-11-29 Thread Christopher Woods
the one that brings tears to my eyes is animation without a timeline. it must be de facto that one starts with onion-skinning, a score and timeline, but I'm not sure that a timeline-less format would be best. I can get my head round a timeline based animation format quite easily (and

RE: [backstage] The Sky at Night BBC1 vs BBC4 editions

2010-11-08 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of b...@bt Sent: 08 November 2010 14:38 To: BBC Backstage Subject: [backstage] The Sky at Night BBC1 vs BBC4 editions Just a quick question. The BBC4 edition of Sky at

RE: [backstage] The Sky at Night BBC1 vs BBC4 editions

2010-11-08 Thread Christopher Woods
. - Original Message - From: Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Sent: Monday, November 08, 2010 4:54 PM Subject: RE: [backstage] The Sky at Night BBC1 vs BBC4 editions -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner

RE: [backstage] The Sky at Night BBC1 vs BBC4 editions

2010-11-08 Thread Christopher Woods
Can I have a why oh why? moment. Me too! Why oh why wasn't an automatic channel redirect included in the original Freeview spec? I can think of several use cases for that feature.

RE: [backstage] Test

2010-10-21 Thread Christopher Woods
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Ant Miller ping? ...pong - 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] 'Project Canvas' to be called 'YouView':

2010-09-22 Thread Christopher Woods
Um, it's not weview, it's YouView, (though no, I'm no fan of the name or the branding) derp. My brain has no excuse for why it did that. I know I thought this originally before my brain decided to replace half the name (perhaps in protest? ;-) but YouView's even worse! Rubbish take off

RE: [backstage] 'Project Canvas' to be called 'YouView':

2010-09-20 Thread Christopher Woods
Yeah, and I *love* the way that the jv is kicking the foss community in the teeth over tc... The least they could do is give something back! Actually, correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't they got to make the source code available? I've already been on the phone to them about possibly

[backstage] iPlayer intuitive shortcuts (was: regional news - footage available online?)

2010-09-13 Thread Christopher Woods
Whilst (hopefully) people have their eye on iPlayer stuff, is there any chance we can get the sensible redirects added back to the iPlayer? i.e. bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio1 bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbcone bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bbc3 Etc... Each channel still has its own page with its own URL, It's always how

RE: [backstage] Google Instant method?

2010-09-13 Thread Christopher Woods
On 11/09/2010 09:26, Brian Butterworth wrote: They covered it all here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0eMHRxlJ2c Brian Butterworth Bit of a con in parts. I thought the search for a woman in the museum was fake. Amusingly enough I was trying out Google Scribe only a month or so

RE: [backstage] Google Instant method?

2010-09-13 Thread Christopher Woods
On 11/09/2010 09:26, Brian Butterworth wrote: They covered it all here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0eMHRxlJ2c Brian Butterworth Bit of a con in parts. I thought the search for a woman in the museum was fake. Amusingly enough I was trying out Google Scribe only a month or

RE: [backstage] regional news - footage available online?

2010-08-24 Thread Christopher Woods
Regions output online is somewhat hit and miss. For example an album launch I was involved with was covered on BBC London evening news - a 3/4 minute VT segment which I finally managed to beg a copy of on DVD and it was completely different from the accompanying video which ended up in a Flash

RE: [backstage] regional news - footage available online?

2010-08-24 Thread Christopher Woods
That's pretty standard for news packages - the studio output will then be mono'ed before it hits the transmission chain. And you're quite right, it's for archiving purposes. It seems a bit lowest common denominator, doesn't it - surely in this day and age it would be preferable to encode at

RE: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management

2010-07-16 Thread Christopher Woods
What does this mean for consumers in real terms? is pretty important -- that's why I wrote the guardian article (can't think of a better way to refer to that piece, sorry). The Grauniad recital =D I'll get my coat - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please

RE: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management

2010-07-15 Thread Christopher Woods
A HUGE aside here, but still relevant given the previous discussion of the traditional royalty share model and how it favours the labels. I work for a (fairly small) indie label - from witnessing this model in action I feel I have to stick up for the label given that I see the model working (or

RE: [backstage] Audio levels on iPlayer material (again)

2010-07-09 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of David Tomlinson Sent: 09 July 2010 09:34 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Audio levels on iPlayer material (again) Christopher Woods wrote: I

RE: [backstage] Audio levels on iPlayer material (again)

2010-07-09 Thread Christopher Woods
I wasn't aware that Christopher [Woods] works for the BBC ...Neither was I ;-) I think I misinterpreted context of your comment, didn't notice the tongue in cheek second line (sorry!) Hopefully it's something relatively simple to fix and it's just an overeager preset default... Hardly the end

[backstage] Audio levels on iPlayer material (again)

2010-07-08 Thread Christopher Woods
I posted a while back asking about why iPlayer videos start loud then get quieter a few seconds later... It's hard to hear with most materal, but this programme exhibits the effect beautifully: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kntl1/The_Birth_of_British_Music_Han del_The_Conquering_Hero/

[backstage] Anybody know about this?

2010-07-02 Thread Christopher Woods
Just searched for Beryl Bainbridge BBC Four Documentary in Google, and amongst results this popped up: BBC - BBC Four Programmes - Beryl's Last Year 24 Mar 2010 ... Novelist Dame Beryl Bainbridge makes a record of her life, convinced she is about ... BBC Four: Audio Interviews - Beryl Bainbridge

[backstage] Squelchy audio on iPlayer HD programmes

2010-06-06 Thread Christopher Woods
I've noticed that Doctor Who and Doctor Who Confidential episodes for the past several weeks have had the characteristic 'bubbly' or 'warbling' audio that comes with either 1 encoding step or slightly dodgy first generation audio encoding. The problem manifests itself particularly in reverb tails,

RE: [backstage] Ian

2010-05-18 Thread Christopher Woods
If he's compus mentis please pass on all of our best wishes! :-) _ From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Ant Miller Sent: 18 May 2010 14:27 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Ian Hi Tim, I'm up in mcr

RE: [backstage] Ian Forrester

2010-05-18 Thread Christopher Woods
Dear All As you may have heard Ian Forrester was taken ill last week and is now recuperating in Hope Hospital in Salford. [snip] (I'd imagine on all of our behalves) thanks for the update Rain; we're all eager to hear any good news as Ian gets better so where appropriate please keep us

RE: [backstage] Re: BBC iPad application usability

2010-05-12 Thread Christopher Woods
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] iplayer brokenness?

2010-04-11 Thread Christopher Woods
A friend of mine reported over twitter they were getting buffering issues, they didnt say if it was on live, or not... Oop, just got the non-working content message on this week's Fab Groove: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ry8vj/Fabio_and_Grooverider_11_04_20 10/

RE: [backstage] iplayer brokenness?

2010-04-10 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of backst...@gorge.org Sent: 10 April 2010 22:01 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] iplayer brokenness? Hi, Trying to watch and listen to progs on

RE: [backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer?

2010-04-09 Thread Christopher Woods
That wasn't the first time the poor old dears got IP and IP mixed up, I heard it on @R4Today some days ago. Shows a lot about where their minds are. Yes, but what happens when they debate other technical issues? Medical, military, etc. None of us are experts in all fields

RE: [backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer?

2010-04-08 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Ian Forrester Sent: 07 April 2010 14:10 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer? I don't think

RE: [backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer?

2010-04-08 Thread Christopher Woods
at 15:04 +0100, Christopher Woods wrote: Cheers. Also, on the HoC footage from last night - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rzk4b - the programme won't actually start streaming (just looks like it begins to buffer, fails, then retries immediately ad nauseum). Maybe it's just your

RE: [backstage] TODAY: Digital Economy Bill Flashmob, 5pm [Manchester]

2010-04-06 Thread Christopher Woods
For all interested parties: the ORG is also encouraging people to phone their MPs today, and there's ads appearing in the Grauniad and the Times (funded by donors to their last rush fundraising campaign). Go to the 38degrees site to find your MP's phone number if you fancy giving them a call!

RE: [backstage] TODAY: Digital Economy Bill Flashmob, 5pm [Manchester]

2010-04-06 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Stephen Jolly Sent: 06 April 2010 11:51 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] TODAY: Digital Economy Bill Flashmob, 5pm [Manchester] How did the

RE: [backstage] TODAY: Digital Economy Bill Flashmob, 5pm [Manchester]

2010-04-06 Thread Christopher Woods
Just seen some on Facebook as well. I'm just off to the shop to pick up a Grauniad to see how my tenner looks on print ;) Austin Mitchell (and surprisingly, a few other Labour MPs) are talking a lot of sense about the DEB. Shame it'll just get pushed through the wash-up almost irrespective of

RE: [backstage] TODAY: Digital Economy Bill Flashmob, 5pm [Manchester]

2010-04-06 Thread Christopher Woods
I'm hoping they'll do the right thing and kill the bill. Nope - just voted to send it to the committee stage tomorrow. The eyes have it, the eyes have it. RT @rhodri: And that was that, folks. The ayes have it. Chuckling in the chamber. That's democracy, folks. #debill And now they all head

[backstage] Any more DEB reading footage from today on iPlayer?

2010-04-06 Thread Christopher Woods
(directed firstly towards iPlayer-knowledgeable Beeb staff but is an open question) Frustratingly only the first hour or so of today's House of Commons coverage is available on the iPlayer's primary entry for today, with no more footage forthcoming it would seem. (current episode:

RE: [backstage] Why are iPlayer SD programmes encoded at funky resolutions?

2010-03-30 Thread Christopher Woods
:1.89, on a computer monitor the pixels are 1:1. 832x468 is therefore the profile nearest the desired output of 1:1.89? http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051225 On 29 March 2010 01:19, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk wrote: I've noticed for a while that the HQ iPlayer

[backstage] Why are iPlayer SD programmes encoded at funky resolutions?

2010-03-28 Thread Christopher Woods
I've noticed for a while that the HQ iPlayer stuff (not the HD) is encoded at 832x468. (recent example: Australian F1, or pretty much every single high quality iPlayer video you look at). No complaints about the actual PQ, just really curious as to the technical decisions that led to this target

RE: [backstage] BBC News online stream quality drop?

2010-03-26 Thread Christopher Woods
This was my logic - if they're using 48kbps AAC, why not use AAC+ to squeeze that bit more out. It's only speech anyway so it's not like transients or harmonics really come into play that much ;) -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk

RE: [backstage] BBC News online stream quality drop?

2010-03-25 Thread Christopher Woods
be because the News stream gets a lot of views on Budget day? On 24 March 2010 12:05, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk wrote: The quality on that is the same as if you click directly via the BBC News web site. As PMQs is on now, go look at the BBC News version of the Parliament feed

[backstage] BBC News online stream quality drop?

2010-03-24 Thread Christopher Woods
Noticed in the past week there's only a 384kbps stream of BBC News via the web site - it looks rubbish, jerky video and low quality audio. Better quality on TVCatchup. Does anybody know if this downgrade is permanent? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please

RE: [backstage] BBC News online stream quality drop?

2010-03-24 Thread Christopher Woods
2010 11:18 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC News online stream quality drop? There's another version of the BBC News channel at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlive/bbc_news24/ On 24 March 2010 11:01, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk wrote: Noticed

RE: [backstage] BBC News online stream quality drop?

2010-03-24 Thread Christopher Woods
be because the News stream gets a lot of views on Budget day? On 24 March 2010 12:05, Christopher Woods chris...@infinitus.co.uk wrote: The quality on that is the same as if you click directly via the BBC News web site. As PMQs is on now, go look at the BBC News version of the Parliament feed

RE: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?

2010-03-08 Thread Christopher Woods
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:

RE: [backstage] RE: BBC Flash video and deinterlacing - is this really the best we can get?

2010-03-05 Thread Christopher Woods
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

RE: [backstage] Video on Demand Dissertation Survey

2010-03-02 Thread Christopher Woods
Is that all? I like to know where my responses will be used, how or if they will be anonymised, and if there is anything at all sensitive, some kind of mention that that they have been educated on the ethics of survey usage. When I undertook my BSc dissertation I was obliged to fill out

RE: [backstage] A quick Dolby E question

2010-03-01 Thread Christopher Woods
From that document Flipfactory only seems to support 16/20 bit modes. I've tried both SoundCode and Surcode and they are only 16/20 bit as well. Huh, I (thought I was) reliably informed SurCode could handle 24. Well, if that lot doesn't work I suspect you're talking Dolby-only hardware if

RE: [backstage] A quick Dolby E question

2010-02-28 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Kieran Kunhya Sent: 27 February 2010 02:25 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] A quick Dolby E question A teeny bit off-topic but I'm sure there are

RE: [backstage] indefinitely live BBC archive?

2010-02-28 Thread Christopher Woods
why can't the BBC make some programmes available all the time? Rights, dear boy. And kids, in their limitless quest to just get what they want now, care not one bit for that most wonderfully complex of one-word answers. Then again, most regular people don't care either. ;) - Sent via the

RE: [backstage] BBC iPlayer for Apple TV

2010-02-16 Thread Christopher Woods
Generally if you take the p*** I'll get shouted at and I'll ask you nicely to close the service/script/prototype :) of course breaking the backstage licence will you a heavy knock at the door :) Publishing some definitions might help :) The first rule about the Backstage Licence is

RE: [backstage] BBC iPlayer for Apple TV

2010-02-16 Thread Christopher Woods
Excellently put. What made me more sad was that I felt I needed to state the obvious :( I wish I could be a fly on the wall in a meeting between the Beeb and controlling rightsholders / contract negotiators for the current iPlayer programming. There must be some serious long-term powerplays

RE: [backstage] H.264

2010-02-04 Thread Christopher Woods
Surprised nobody posted about this already :) From the MPEG LA: MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as Internet Broadcast AVC Video) during the next License term from

RE: [backstage] H.264

2010-02-04 Thread Christopher Woods
Nothing changes - H.264 for Internet Broadcast has been free, but was due to require a paid license as of this year. MPEG-LA have extended the free period for 5 years. (The BBC probably _does_ have a license for the AVC family, but it wouldn't affect this). Any idea why the MPEG-LA did

RE: [backstage] BBC RD Move- Video

2010-02-01 Thread Christopher Woods
Possibly- the specific file formats we need to encode to to upload to iplayer are pretty standard, but the way we make these films is using a 3rd party editor (he's great by the way). Delivering finished films from his home edit suite to us is proving maddeningly unreliable- a combination of

RE: [backstage] BBC RD Move- Video

2010-02-01 Thread Christopher Woods
On the basis of no information at all, I'm guessing that the USB drives in question might have been formatted NTFS, or something. Fingers crossed their editor guy's using NTFS-3G :) (which, for those who use it, just got a premium commercial counterpart release with some nice fixes as Tuxera

RE: [backstage] BBC RD Move- Video

2010-02-01 Thread Christopher Woods
just epic fails to read some DVDs, and it can't burn DVD+DLs either. That will probably be because it is a DVD-R drive - during the DVDR format wars Apple was on the DVD-R team so didn't support DVD+R till drives came with both. Urgh, really? I completely forgot about that, I wasn't on

RE: [backstage] iPad

2010-01-31 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Jim Tonge Sent: 30 January 2010 22:55 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] iPad On 30 Jan 2010, at 22:39, Alex Mace wrote: FUD. Nothing so

RE: [backstage] iPad

2010-01-31 Thread Christopher Woods
I think it is more about conflation / coalescence / convergence on one device. The more one can consume, interact and communicate on one platform, the better, I think. Ultimately there will always be two parallel markets: the walled garden and the open, communal one. Google and Apple

RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?

2010-01-27 Thread Christopher Woods
On 27 Jan 2010, at 08:31, Mo McRoberts wrote: that's a good point: I wonder how much of the broadcast output *is* encoded in real-time? all of it? I believe so. Not unless they've changed their previous policy of ingesting popular / headline shows prior to their airing, then making

RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?

2010-01-27 Thread Christopher Woods
That's on-demand content, not broadcast. The two are encoded via separate systems. Were we not talking about the iPlayer videos?... derp sidles off - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit

RE: [backstage] iPad

2010-01-27 Thread Christopher Woods
-Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 27 January 2010 22:38 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] iPad So, what does everyone think? (disclaimer: I generally hate Apple

RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?

2010-01-26 Thread Christopher Woods
There should have been another sentence in my post, sorry. Yes, xvid being divx backwards is a geeky joke. Of course DivX ;-) in itself was a sly homage to a doomed-to-fail industry attempt :D And before XviD, once upon a time its parent was called Project Mayo... Remember that heady time

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
The need to support IE6 brings out that kind of reaction in me, too. Hopefully sometime next year all the internal users who bump up IE6's market share in our stats will have migrated to something made this century and we might just be able to start thinking about dropping it

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
Hopefully it'll leave Firefox well and truly in the bin where it belongs. Must admit I always preferred IE for everyday use (and advocated it very strongly for non-geek users), but I'm an absolute Chrome convert. It. Just. Works. And its Javascript engine is blisteringly quick. I

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
There's no need to support IE6. I don't even consider IE6 backward competibility when I design web sites, nor do I care if people don't like that. You wouldn't win any points round here for that attitude, I'm afraid. There isn't anyone here who *wants* to be supporting IE6, I

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
(I can type faster than the browser can open a new tab? in 2009? are you kidding me?) I found that my IE7/8 tabs started loading WAY fster as soon as I went into Accelerators/BHO options and disabled the Java Quick Start. By turning that one thing off I reduced tab load times from 5-10

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
I'll be sure to tell the Secretary of State for Health that when he can't use the next release of www.nhs.uk on his office PC. The DoH's still using IE6?! - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
Along with many other central government departments - yes. For reasons outlined very well by Phil in his last reply. It's your money we spend. Santa Claus on a motorbike! It's about time some of that money is allocated to a sitewide browser upgrade :( Can't it just be lumped onto the

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
You're clearly well-versed in the economics of large distributed government IT infrastructures and DH IT projects to boot. But of course, I'm Joe Public! It's My Money! Your advice will be highly valued, I'm sure. Happy to provide it. Also available for daily on-site consultancy - my fee

RE: [backstage] The browser wars, reloaded?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
Ah, but that is the very point of the internet. The very point of IP. The very design. The net was designed to work even if nukes were dropped on the world. No central control means network survival. ...Until one of only two core LINX routers has a senior moment or Google

RE: [backstage] Is this BBC Homeplug product legal?

2009-12-14 Thread Christopher Woods
Usually one wire, singular. With HomePlug I can have ethernet wherever there is a power point, and I do move them around now and then. Can I cast my vote for a 20m CAT5 cable under the carpet, up the stairs, to a discreetly placed gigabit switch on the landing / in the study? You still

RE: [backstage] Google Wave

2009-11-27 Thread Christopher Woods
2009/11/27 Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net Brian Butterworth wrote: Hi folks, I have some Google Wave invites left .. please let me know if you would like one. I also have 16 left. If you'd like one, you're welcome. I wouldn't get excited though. I'm still not really impressed by it.

RE: [backstage] Good news for mashups - Ordnance Survey maps to go free online

2009-11-18 Thread Christopher Woods
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/17/ordnance-survey-maps-online The online maps would be free to all, including commercial users who, previously, had to acquire expensive and restrictive licences at £5,000 per usage, a fee many entrepreneurs felt was too high. About time too.

RE: [backstage] iPlayer on Freesat in November.

2009-11-10 Thread Christopher Woods
No obvious statement that it can play the upcoming Freeview HD content but I presume that this is the plan. I'm not sure where they're going to get DVB-T2 chipsets from... TI/RadioScape make them don't they? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please

RE: [backstage] The BBC is encrypting its HD signal by the back door

2009-10-04 Thread Christopher Woods
I do wonder what the point of all this is. I know sometimes circumstances complicate matters, but from the POV of a viewer the Beeb shouldn't be beholden to the rightsholders. I certainly don't want to see a repeat of the same kind of infighting witnessed in the States over the Broadcast Flag. Any

RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?

2009-09-18 Thread Christopher Woods
I totally agree about the Freeview logo. When I was a kid you could get Cooper Black[1] in Boots The Chemist dry transfer lettering (poor man's Letraset). Everytime I see it I just think of the layouts I did at school using a typewriter (before the school has a printer) and Cooper Black.

RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?

2009-09-17 Thread Christopher Woods
Moreover, you just *know* that within months of any broadcast flag implementation, the more creative technological tinkerers will have subverted the flag entirely using commonplace/free equipment and software. Like region coding, broadcast flags really are an exercise in stupidity and corporate

RE: [backstage] License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV?

2009-09-17 Thread Christopher Woods
I think that there's going to be a lot of unhappy freeview HDTV owners wondering why the TV they have recently bought isn't picking up the new HD channels when they're launched (especially as the TV was probably sold as HD Ready). Prime opportunity to flog another STB / CAM to correctly

RE: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - encoding from broadcast rather than master tapes

2009-09-10 Thread Christopher Woods
I thought most TV programmes that can be taken from master tapes are. I've never seen anything recorded off air on iPlayer, and no credit squeezes myself - even for programmes broadcast live. I just had a look at last nights Lottery draw for example and there was nothing on that, nor on

RE: [backstage] You Tube to drop support for IE6

2009-07-15 Thread Christopher Woods
Large parts of the UK government still use IE6 unfortunately. Especially unfortunate if you happen to be a member of that community :-( For shame, maybe they'll have to do some real work for once ;) IE6 should die a slow and painful death. Lack of comprehensive support for widely used

RE: [backstage] You Tube to drop support for IE6

2009-07-15 Thread Christopher Woods
IE6 should die a slow and painful death. Yep. The main reason www.nhs.uk still supports it is because of all the internal users who have it - many of them senior stakeholders for whom the standard argument about obsolescence wouldn't wash. It's just disgraceful really. Maybe the

RE: [backstage] New Blog in beta

2009-04-07 Thread Christopher Woods
Any more feedback on the beta BBC Backstage site? http://www.welcomebackstage.com Don't forget you can now finally comment and ping the new site, even the RSS works as expected. Oooo, purdy. Like that new logo! Wishing I'd thought of that (I had an idea down the same lines but it was

RE: [backstage] New Blog in beta

2009-04-07 Thread Christopher Woods
Oh my, don't ever look at it in IE6 :) I completely forgot transparent PNG's are not supported still! Scary stuff IE7 supports alpha chans, and I'm using 7 (but if you're using alpha channel PNGs then they're not showing correctly on the site for some reason... Are they 24-bit?)... They

RE: [backstage] New Blog in beta

2009-04-07 Thread Christopher Woods
Also, there's a couple of bits you've missed... feed:http://welcomebackstage.com/feed/; ? Never seen feed: prefixing an RSS feed :P And the top strapline is STILL overlapped by the dropdown menu. Also, if you wipe your mouse cursor up and down the Prototype menu, it behaves peculiarly (sometimes

[backstage] F1 not appearing in iPlayer?

2009-03-27 Thread Christopher Woods
As the new F1 season approaches I'm eagerly looking forward to the various coverage. I'm a little bemused to see that things like Friday's Practice (which is available to view in full on the Beeb's F1 portal) is not available to watch via iPlayer. Is there a reason for this? - Sent via the

RE: [backstage] Google Streetview ... UK at last

2009-03-19 Thread Christopher Woods
I bet you've never queued outside there though to watch an episode of Two Pints being filmed! (and then proceeded to trace your route back to the car park on the other side of the main road... 16 quid to park for about five hours! twilight robbery.) _ From:

[backstage] 1Xtra, Radio1 and Radio 4 currently off-air on iPlayer landing page for a few minutes?

2009-03-01 Thread Christopher Woods
How come they sometimes show this? (like they were just around 7pm) The TV-Anytime XML feeds have listings but the iPlayer front page wasn't showing them correctly. However, upon reloading the page a couple of minutes later, it was fine. Each station's respective pages on the iPlayer site showed

[backstage] Radio 4 DAB problems?

2009-02-23 Thread Christopher Woods
... I couldn't hear any problems with Radio 4 today, but ironically I've only been listening via FM (quips could be made at this point but I'll hold off for another time ;). I just heard the broadcast apology regarding the issues that they've apparently been having with the DAB broadcast, and I'm

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