Re: [backstage] FYI: Open iPlayer
There’s no (public) evidence, beyond the existence of Kangaroo, that other broadcasters are actually all that interested in a one-stop aggregation portal (I’d be tempted to say “more fool them”—right now, they need all the help they can get). coughs http://testtubetelly.channel4.com /coughs - 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] 4oD + Facebook Connect = TestTubeTelly
http://blogs.channel4.com/platform4/2009/07/13/4od-facebook-test-tube-telly/ - Few 1000 C4 programmes on demand with Facebook-powered social nav. Also includes broadcaster's stuff from their YouTube channels. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] video cameras + sailing dingies
2009/5/23 Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net: Hey there, This isn't a common question I'd guess but here's a good a place to ask as any! :) So basically I've just acquired a small waterproof HD video camera and I'm looking for the best way to mount it onto my Laser EPS[1] sailing dinghy. Am a bit late to this party, but a bloke at my sailing club attaches a rear-facing camera to a long cane sticking out the front of his cat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHimuDDAmks clearly, easier to do this with a catamaran, but might be worth a try since you get a better sense of what's occurring. - my favourite sailing/web crossover discovery is http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
[backstage] Free that data / Power of Information Task Force report
If you want better access to Government data, then get commenting on the Power of Information TaskForce report here http://talk.dius.gov.uk/poit/ The stuff about freeing up Ordinance Survey geospatial data is here: http://talk.dius.gov.uk/poit/2009/01/trading-funds/ On this one, your comments matter... - 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] Loosemore joins Channel4
does it need explaining? ;o) http://www.4ip.org.uk - i don't start until end of Sept... 2008/8/21 Ian Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/21/channel4.ofcom Wow backstage are slow to pick this one up... I wonder if Mr Loosemore will be explaining his move on the list? :) Ian Forrester This e-mail is: [x] private; [] ask first; [] bloggable Senior Producer, BBC Backstage Room 1044, BBC Manchester BH, Oxford Road, M60 1SJ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] work: +44 (0)2080083965 mob: +44 (0)7711913293 - 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] Freeing up Postcodes, etc
Sadly, the BBC's intentions to release it in-house geo-location API was long ago stymied by various licencing nightmares (It's been 'coming soon' since May 2005 http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/data/PostcoderApI?v=msy ) However, good news for those who fancy playing with postcodes, addresses and associated geolocation goodness: the full Royal Mail Postcode PAF file is available to those entering the Cabinet Office's ShowUsABetterWay.com data re-use competition. See http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/data.html#mail for details of how to get hold of the file,but don't dawdle as the competition runs to end of Sept. -Tom
[backstage] New Government APIs (plus win 20k to develop your mashup idea)
The Cabinet Office's Power of Information Task Force just launched a competition for mash up ideas using public data. See www.ShowUsABetterway.com Some new government APIsand data dumps too: http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/data.html Neighbourhood Statistics API from the ONS, Health care information API from NHS Choices, a list of all UK schools from the DCSF and the zip of Official Notices from the London Gazette. - 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] New Government APIs (plus win 20k to develop your mashup idea)
... read the licence constraints first still, it's a start! 2008/7/2 Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]: This looks quite interesting... http://openspace.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/openspace/ 2008/7/2 Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The Cabinet Office's Power of Information Task Force just launched a competition for mash up ideas using public data. See www.ShowUsABetterway.com Some new government APIsand data dumps too: http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/data.html Neighbourhood Statistics API from the ONS, Health care information API from NHS Choices, a list of all UK schools from the DCSF and the zip of Official Notices from the London Gazette. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Topics - in beta
lovely... really solid start IMHO... so when do we get machine readable versions of /topics ? They were promised soon for /programmes when that launched back in Oct 2007? ;o) 2008/6/5 Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]: James, This does, indeed, look very promising. I'm hoping that we can have automatic links to these pages from the BBC News and other content pages. 2008/6/4 James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED]: For those of you who don't read the (full RSS feed) at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/ you might have missed out on today's announcement - http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/06/bbc_topics_in_beta.html With my personal developer hat on, I was impressed at Matt's bit of FAQ in his post that says: Can I get the feeds and build them into my own website or personal feeds? Yes, feeds will be available soon. Oooh. j -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Adding Subtitles/transcripts to /programmes pages
When at the BBC a couple of years ago i asked who owned copyright on BBC subtitles with a view to getting a feed onto backstage (remember the indies... and that subtitle creation is outsourced at least some of the time to Red Bee) answer came there none... i suspect because no-one had asked the question before, and therefore getting to an answer was Hard 2008/6/4 Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Jonathan, 2008/6/4 Jonathan Hassell [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Tom - good question. I don't have the answer for you immediately but, as one of the people behind subtitling online at the BBC, I'll look into this for you. I'm really pleased to hear this. I've been going on about it for years and met with reasons why not. What would be LOVELY would be if the subtitles could be combined with timing information and then this could be linked to the iPlayer. So, you could come to Google (or the BBC Search) and enter a phrase you heard during a programme and not just find the programme and the timing, but directly link to the actual point in the programme on the iPlayer. J. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Sent: Wed Jun 04 09:31:21 2008 Subject: Re: [backstage] Adding Subtitles/transcripts to /programmes pages Sorry to bring this topic back up but i would really like to hear from some of the people in the BBC about it. Having the scripts of each show, either in pain text or other format, on the /programmes would be a great resource. it would allow people to search and find information/section of BBC content, which would attract users to the BBC, being a valuable index into the contents. This information, I would of expected to be, already be available from the subtitles that either BBC Subtitles or Red Bee (do they do BBC stuff as well as commercial stations?) so it shouldn't be a great effort to make this available. On a slightly selfish note, it would be great as I could use these on iplayer streams that don't have subtitles on my xmbc. I can easily see the xbmc-iplayer script being modified to be able to prefetch the programmes subtitles and play them with the stream. Would making this information publically available be a lot of effect? Am I being to hopeful? Many thanks Tom 2008/4/14 Steve Jolly [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Tom Jacobs wrote: i think it would be really useful if the BBC made available the subtitles for their TV shows via the /programmes pages (or any other accessible, searchable API). Yes, it would be nice. You can get access to them via a DVB card in your PC, of course, but because they're broadcast as pre-rendered bitmaps, you'd have to OCR them before you could do anything useful with them. A few people have gone down this road - some friends and I gave a talk and a demo on the subject back at Open Tech 2005. http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2005/schedule/stephen_jolly.pdf S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Stephen Fry: There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure
unhelpfully, the BBC's not yet put up the transcript of the speech, so it's hard to judge given the vagries of reporting... http://www.bbc.co.uk/thefuture/ 2008/5/8 Andrew Wong [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Can I just pedal backwards very quickly as I realise that in reading the article, Mr. Fry actually said no such thing... he just pointed out that the lock wasn't particularly secure. Which is not news to anyone... *pedals backwards rapidly* From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Wong Sent: 08 May 2008 10:20 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Stephen Fry: There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure It's rather interesting that one of the very few TV personalities who really *gets* the digital revolution (tm) and all that is essentially arguing that the digital arms race needs to be beefed up, instead of starting negotations. My personal opinion, not those of my employers etc. Andrew From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 08 May 2008 08:31 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Stephen Fry: There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/08/bbc.television2 He also sounded a warning for BBC executives, accusing them of incredible naivety in believing they could control the distribution of programmes online. Programmes distributed via the BBC's increasingly popular online iPlayer service are supposed to be viewable for a week only, and can be stored on a PC for up to 30 days. But Fry said that large numbers of viewers were bypassing the corporation's digital rights management software, and more would follow. There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure, said Fry, host of the TV quiz show QI. His recent documentary on the Gutenberg printing press was one of the most popular programmes on the iPlayer catch-up service. The BBC is throwing out really valuable content for free. It shows an incredible naivety about how the internet and digital devices work. Fry admitted to bypassing the copy protection to transfer programmes to his Apple iPhone, and said the corporation's iPlayer was hurting its commercial rivals. Brian Butterworth - 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] Stephen Fry: There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure
Good example of how the world looks *very* different if you're a rights holder currently making money from your secondary rights... even a rights holder as clued up as Fry 2008/5/8 Andrew Wong [EMAIL PROTECTED]: It's rather interesting that one of the very few TV personalities who really *gets* the digital revolution (tm) and all that is essentially arguing that the digital arms race needs to be beefed up, instead of starting negotations. My personal opinion, not those of my employers etc. Andrew From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 08 May 2008 08:31 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Stephen Fry: There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/08/bbc.television2 He also sounded a warning for BBC executives, accusing them of incredible naivety in believing they could control the distribution of programmes online. Programmes distributed via the BBC's increasingly popular online iPlayer service are supposed to be viewable for a week only, and can be stored on a PC for up to 30 days. But Fry said that large numbers of viewers were bypassing the corporation's digital rights management software, and more would follow. There is this marvellous idea the iPlayer is secure. It's anything but secure, said Fry, host of the TV quiz show QI. His recent documentary on the Gutenberg printing press was one of the most popular programmes on the iPlayer catch-up service. The BBC is throwing out really valuable content for free. It shows an incredible naivety about how the internet and digital devices work. Fry admitted to bypassing the copy protection to transfer programmes to his Apple iPhone, and said the corporation's iPlayer was hurting its commercial rivals. Brian Butterworth - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer, loved by millions, disliked by a single US citizen
2008/4/30 Nick Reynolds-FMT [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The BBC Trust regularly looks at BBC services to see if they make sense in a rolling programme of reviews of service licences, which include public consultations. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/bbc_service_licences/service_rev iews.html I wonder what impact the recent launch of BBCGreen.com would have on investors considering whether to support a environment-focussed web start-up aimed at a UK audience? - Oh hang on, BBCGreen.com is done by BBC Worldwide and so isn't covered by bbc.co.uk's service licence. Neither is bbc.co.uk/iplayer. Is news.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] BBC iPlayer, loved by millions, disliked by a single US citizen
New BBC services now have to go through a market impact assessment to ensure they are not anti competitive: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/public_value_test/#part-5 but existing BBC services (ie everything other than iPlayer and BBC HD) have not been and will not be subject to such rigour... the public value test is a one way expansion valve, only allowing for new BBC services, never testing existing BBC services to see if they still make sense. - 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] b00b3zjr
2008/4/29 Paul Tweedy [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Andrew Bowden Sent: 29 April 2008 09:13 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] b00b3zjr In some circumstances, yes HTTP_REFERER is fine. However query strings are arguably a useful method in some circumstances - feeds being a prime one. Reading a feed in Bloglines for example wouldn't give you a good way of tracking. So then that leads to the question of do you want two ways of tracking where people came from, which is technology dependent, or one way? Which fits in better with workflows, stats reporting etc etc. Yes indeed, and to be open and clear on the purpose of this - the value in the query string is appended to the item page URI depending the logical page area in which it appears - Featured, Most Popular, etc - so we can do clickthrough measurement of how traffic arrives at item pages and how the site design is performing in relation to the content - which can inform future iterations/tweaks of the UI to make it better. Plain old HTTP_REFERER (which we certainly do also have for general user journey reporting) can't give us this granularity. It's a bit of a hack, certainly, but not the worst one we could have come up with. :) web analytics from the Dark Ages... - 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] Ofcom Public Service Broadcasting review II: This time it's bloggable
Rather more digestable highlights here, also in fashionable interweb form: http://ofcompsbreview.typepad.com/summary - Brian seems - like all conspiracy theorists - to like making stuff up that fits his cosy world view! On 11/04/2008, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ofcom seems - like all public bodies - to like making work for itself. It seems that it didn't get work out what Public Service Broadcasting is all about the first time round and so now we have the sequeal! http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/psb2_1/execsummary/ And they have a BLOG! Would you believe it? http://ofcompsbreview.typepad.com/ I suspect the whole idea is to bore everyone into submission so Ofcom can get away with doing whatever the goverment has told it to decide... but they have a BLOG! Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer in Wii
am on wii now and can confirm that iplayer works. ish. I gave it a try earlier and I think it works rather well :-) Zoom in once with the + button and press 1 to get rid of the menu bar means that it fits my TV screen perfectly! aha... that's the info I was lacking... thank you... -t - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer in Wii
On 09/04/2008, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Oh that's it. I need a wii now! The javascript fun you can have with wiis is awesome. I had a little hack around with them before (oddly within iplayerlist). Its all on the opera website. Think I might have to pursue this a little further. On 9 Apr 2008, at 15:04, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In case anyone hasn't seen the news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7338344.stm Discuss. Andy - 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/ am on wii now and can confirm that iplayer works. ish. - 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] competition...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/mar/26/digitalmedia.radio?gusrc=rssfeed=media GNM hires Yahoo developer Guardian News Media is set to expand its technology department with the appointment of Matt McAlister, currently the director of Yahoo's developer network in San Francisco. McAlister will be taking up the new role as head of the Guardian's development network from the end of April, leading a new project to offer data and tools for external developers. - 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] Embracing the torrent of online video
On 26/03/2008, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's great news. How about a BBC trial? Click would be a good choice? Don't hold your breath. BBC is all non-DRM download trialed out. It's 18 months after the Creative Archive (download, watch, some re-use rights granted) trial closed. http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/ looks decidedly dead. The Open Archive trial (some download, watch, no-re-use rights) closed last year, although all evidence of it appears to have been expunged from bbc.co.uk/archive The Video Podcast trial also closed last summer. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/5202498.stm The next step should be the BBC asking the BBC Trust to do a public value test on their proposals. No sign of this having happened on the BBC Trust Website... - 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] he has a point...
http://blog.aqute.com/aquteresearch/2008/03/twitter-second.html - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?
Peter Bazelgette (ex-boss of Endymol) came out against DRM in a speech to the Convergence Think Tank last week - he wants to allow and encourages peopel to share TV, but be able to track who watches things so revenue can be shared appropriately blah blah In short, I think the light is beginning to dawn... On 26/03/2008, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I spoke to John Wittingdale MP at the MGEITF last year ( http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051282 ) and he gave me the distinct impression that MPs have been convinced that DRM will protect the jobs He seemed quite open to the argument that it might be a CULTURAL imperative (as in nation speaks peace unto nation) to provide BBC content outside and inside the UK without DRM, but not if costs UK jobs. I suggested, for example, that if CBeebies was shared worldwide with BitTorrent (say) it would ensure that all those children around the world who want to speak English or want English culture, will get ours rather than the Disneyfication from our colonial cousins. Surely there is enough evidence that the BBC's Worldwide reach on radio service the British people well? Why is the digital light being stuffed under a GeoIP/DRM bushel? As far as I can tell, it just enriches a few individuals at the top (think Simon Cowell) and doesn't lead to extra money for those people who are salaried, as rights holders tend to be the (ahem) entrepreneurs. On 14/03/2008, Fearghas McKay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 13 Mar 2008, at 20:03, Dave Crossland wrote: MP's don't generally respond to letters from non-constituents. As long as he reads it, that's okay. He probably won't even see it - his office won't pass it on to him as you are not a constituent. f - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - 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] Embracing the torrent of online video
The next step should be the BBC asking the BBC Trust to do a public value test on their proposals. public value test = device for kicking things into the longest grass. Public Value Test = new hurdle the BBC has to pass before any new service launches, as set out in new Charter. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/public_value_test/index.html You can draw your own conclusions as to what this means in terms of the BBC's speed to market / appetite for radical ideas. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?
I tell you, there's a big pot of money awaiting someone who develops a trusted-enough tracker for usage of online video (a big recruited online panel running background tracking software might even do...) after all, it can hardly be *less* reliable than BARB, let alone RAJAR... On 26/03/2008, Sean DALY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I had some background discussions with PACT while preparing my interview with Ashley and what I learned (unsurprisingly) is that rights holders want to be compensated; the actual method is up for discussion. They hear that DRM doesn't work or is ineffective, but they don't see an alternative. Pooling schemes hit a roadblock: many rights holders hope to have a very successful creation and be compensated for that far over and above what other rights holders might earn. I believe that tracking viewing (and by that I mean anonymised aggregates, not Phormlike snooping) is probably key to eliminating DRM. Sean. - 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] Embracing the torrent of online video
I didn't say innovative. I said radical. Radical ideas change the game, and hence now prone to be PVT'd. Radical was the BBC making me a computer when I was 12. To test your thesis, let's examine Creative Archive. The BBC has had nearly 5 years, and trials galore, to answer the question is this a good idea? is it good value for money? Do licence fee payers actually want it? Do they need it? Yet the BBC has not put it forward to the BBC Trust for a public value test, let alone launched it. Why? I'll suggest a hypothesis: i) it's too radical for you to dare apply for a PVT, let along actually do it ii) it's too obviously the right long term answer for you to kill it off. (As in, Brian, you were right - apols - it's in the long grass) On 26/03/2008, Nick Reynolds-FMT [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Could not disagree more. There's plenty of innovation possible at the BBC without having to go through a PVT. The new system is much better than the new one. BBC management need to have someone saying: this might be a cool idea but is it good value for money? Do licence fee payers actually want it? Do they need it? The problem is inside people's heads and not the fault of the Trust. You can have radical ideas and implement them if you want to. You just have to try harder. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/greenslade/2008/01/neils_interrogation_of_ly ons_s.html#comment-882642 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Loosemore Sent: 26 March 2008 16:55 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Embracing the torrent of online video The next step should be the BBC asking the BBC Trust to do a public value test on their proposals. public value test = device for kicking things into the longest grass. Public Value Test = new hurdle the BBC has to pass before any new service launches, as set out in new Charter. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/framework/public_value_test/index.html You can draw your own conclusions as to what this means in terms of the BBC's speed to market / appetite for radical ideas. - 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] iPlayer DRM is over?
We only have the BBC's word that the content providers have forced them to develop iPlayer this way. There is a built-in detection mechanism. We can ask the content producers. Or just read the evidence they gave to MP's as part of the All Party Internet Group's inquiry into DRM PACT* put it another way, telling us that the movie business analysis is that in order to beat piracy they must ensure that legal versions are available, and they consider TPM** essential for this. * PACT = Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television = content producers trade body for tv ** TPM= Technological Protection Measures = DRM http://www.apcomms.org.uk/apig/current-activities/apig-inquiry-into-digital-rights-management/DRMreport.pdf - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?
Ofcom: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/complain/ please don't ...my inbox is full enough alread (Ofcom does not regulate the BBC - that's the job of the BBC Trust) Your MP: (via) http://www.writetothem.com/ Your MEP: (via) http://www.writetothem.com/ now there's an accessible, standards-based website... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?
On 13/03/2008, Matt Barber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Wrong - the door is open with a welcome sign because all the progs are broadcast first of all on TV without DRM. Adding DRM later on is just a meaningless waste of money. If people want to get content online, they can and they will. This is irrelevant really because we're after a legal, long standing solution. Uploading rips of torchwood to youtube is illegal. Not saying it's not done, but it's still not what we're after here is it? what he said. I can't help but feel a bit sorry for the BBC here. Rock and hard place. It's just removed DRM from the last two iPlayer releases (90% of iPlayer users do not suffer from DRM) That must have entailed some very hairy conversations with rights holders (see reference to Writers Guild) given it's the first major TV broadcaster to put hundred of non-DRM'd versions of its current TV schedule on t'internet (I could be wrong here... but hulu et al are all still DRM'd) Given that Anthony Rose (man running iPlayer, ex-Kazaa) is very very far from being a fool, there's a small cynical bit of me that thinks going non-DRM mp4 with iPhone is a very smart move for the BBC. There's no way that someone as smart as Rose would not have anticipated the consequences of using the mp4 iPhone release of iPlayer as a back door. You may think people in the BBC are stupid - I can assure you they're not. Non-drm'd mp4 (h264) has been the obvious cross-platform way forward for yonks - to the BBC, if not to the rights holders. By introducing non-DRM'd mp4 iPlayer onto a sexy devices like the iPhone/iPod touch, the BBC must have known it was entering an arms race it can't win in the long term. That may not be to the BBC's disadvantage. In time it'll be able to go back to rights holders and say look, piracy has not gone through the roof since we launched non-DRM versions of iPlayer, meanwhile usage has gone through the roof (10x increase), we're fighting a losing battle on the iPhone - this is an arms race we can't win, but which delivers negative user benefit. Let's just ditch the DRM for downloads too and see what happens One step at a time, innit. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?
I'll post my letter to the MP who brought it up tomorrow :-) MP's don't generally respond to letters from non-constituents. You're better off writing to your own MP, raising whatever issue you care about, and pointing out which other MP(s) is/are clued up on the issue so your own MP can go ask them if you catch their interest. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?
I'll post my letter to the MP who brought it up tomorrow :-) MP's don't generally respond to letters from non-constituents. As long as he reads it, that's okay. he won't read it - you'll get a polite form letter back from his secretary (which may or may not be his wife/mother/son/mistress's daughter) - 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] Interesting iPlayer news
someone shouldda thought of that one... On 24/12/2007, Martin Deutsch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ah, sorry, I could have been clearer - While I can see Strictly (and the rest) listed on bbc.co.uk/iplayer, none of the video clips are available to play here. They're apparently being served from a non-bbc.co.uk domain, therefore are unavailable on The Cloud - unless I pay. On 12/24/07, Troy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm looking at iPlayer now and 'Strictly Come Dancing' is th -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Martin Deutsch Sent: 24 December 2007 10:29 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Interesting iPlayer news Alas, the promise of being able to catch up with Strictly Come Dancing while having a cafe latte in Coffee Republic doesn't quite hold true yet. Having missed a flight this morning, I'm spending far more of Christmas Eve than I'd like to in Heathrow Airport. I was hoping to kill some time watching some things on the streaming iPlayer, but they're all unavailable. I'm presuming they're being served from a non-bbc.co.uk domain - is it Akamai? I can listen to streaming radio though - so could just spend the next few hours listening to 6 Music... - martin On 10/16/07, Martin Deutsch [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This appears to have gone live already - I've just connected to The Cloud hotspot in the pub across the road, and it's happy to let me on to *.bbc.co.uk and watch streaming video. The Cloud's login page (which appears when you try to access non-free sites) also has links to t3.co.uk and channel4radio.com. Channel4.com appears to work too, but not 4oD. The link to bbc.co.uk points to http://www.bbc.co.uk/mobile/wifi/, and there's also a fancy flash video (trailer?) promoting bbc.co.uk. You can, seemingly, access this from anywhere at https://hotspot.thecloud.net/cloud-ssg-web/ssg.do - martin On 10/16/07, Steve Jolly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Steve Jolly wrote: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007 /10_october/16/adobe.shtml Also (and apologies for not noticing this before I sent the first email), interesting WiFi hotspot partnership news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007 /10_october/16/cloud.shtml S - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/ - 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] flash streaming version of iplayer is live
On 12/12/2007, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 12/12/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: asta la vista DRM debate I wouldn't be so sure about that; isn't there DRM in Flash video streaming too? sorry - you're right - flash streaming using flash media server can be DRM'd though I'm intrigued as to why The Monarchy (a commercially valuable Independently-produced programme) is not available streamed but appears to be available for download. - does it work with gnash, i wonder? It doesn't work, although a black to white gradient is rendered and that's it, so it doesn't crash or anything too bad. The download information section says Sorry, downloading BBC iPlayer programmes is currently only available for Windows. (Why?) same on this mac - 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] flash streaming version of iplayer is live
asta la vista DRM debate I wouldn't be so sure about that; isn't there DRM in Flash video streaming too? sorry - you're right - flash streaming using flash media server can be DRM'd Is the Flash iPlayer using flash media server with the DRM turned on? I dunno - given Flash Media Server v3 (the one with DRM) was only officially launched last week, I'd surprised if said DRM worked with my 2005-era Flash 8 Firefox plug in - which is happily playing Joan Rivers as I type. But I could well be wrong... and the BBC stated last week that it's planning to use FMS v3 http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/143967/adobe-releases-flash-media-server-3.html I'm sure you linux peeps can poke around under the bonnet and find out, can't you? ;o) - 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] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software
On 03/12/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 03/12/2007, Dave Cross [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You don't need the BBC to release it. Yeah, a lot of the comments on that blog post said similar things - that notwithstanding it would be very helpful for the community if the BBC shared the source. I should imagine that running a site the size of the BBC could influence the engineering somewhat in way which would be useful/interesting to study. We'll never know unless they free up the code. :) open sourcing code will only take you so far: http://iamseb.com/seb/2007/12/perl-on-rails-why-the-bbc-fails-at-the-internet/ Whilst I applaud the technical achievement of the individual developers, I deplore the situation that has forced them to do this. - 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] Muddy Boots on Backstage
Thanks for the feedback ! Muddy boots is cool... TheyWorkForYou.com adds links to Hansard by matching Proper Names with Wikipedia entries. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-11-21a.1190.1 The number false positives is acceptable and the wikipedia links are miles better than the user-generated glossary with which the site was launched. But it's still limited since it only parses for Capitalised Phrases or ACRONYMS. Shifting to term extraction seemed an obvious route, but as I think Muddy Boots shows, term extraction tends to throw up unacceptably large number of 'false positive' terms- these result in crappy random links and are user experience poison. However, you can minimise false positive terms by running the copy through several different flavours of term extractor, and only using terms thrown up by x or more of them (where x depends on your appetite for false positives vs false negatives). So, why not throw the copy through several more term extractors then only use the overlapping terms? - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... - 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] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - The BBC has at least one *excellent* term extractor in house which adds extra metadata like 'this term is a person/place/topic'... would be a lovely API to offer, hint hint... API? Nah, it would be a larger contribution if they released the source code. Not in this case. Source code isn't that important for term extraction. What matters much more is the dictionary, and this is where the BBC's librarians have added lotsa value. In this case access to the data is more valuable than access to source code. Given you can't have both (the source code isn't owned by the BBC) I'd be happy with open data. See my sig. I did. Cathy Come Home would seem to disprove it as a hypothesis. - 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] Muddy Boots on Backstage
On 26/11/2007, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 26/11/2007, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given you can't have both (the source code isn't owned by the BBC) I'd be happy with open data. Open data would be fantastic, free software + open data would be better. See my sig. I did. Cathy Come Home would seem to disprove it as a hypothesis. I disagree, it can work on many levels. On one level people were free to take the ideas from Cathy Come Home and discuss/loby them to get social change. On another unrelated level would be how society can re-use and remix the original footage. I chose my example with care. People were not free (as in freedom) to choose whether or not they wanted to pay for Cathy Come Home to be made in the first place. It they had been granted the freedom not to pay the licence fee, it would never have been made. This renders discussion of use/re-use freedoms somewhat moot. - 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] Hmm...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/26/bbc.television3 - 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] Muddy Boots on Backstage
People were not free (as in freedom) to choose whether or not they wanted to pay for Cathy Come Home to be made in the first place. It they had been granted the freedom not to pay the licence fee, it would never have been made. This could be said about the decisions of any public body. your point being? (The BBC is not 'any public body' - it is unique in being funded by a hypothecated regressive tax. ) This renders discussion of use/re-use freedoms somewhat moot. How so? How are the freedoms of use/re-use ever rendered moot? In the case of Cathy Come Home (the test I set for your hypothesis) you don't get to have the programme at all without societal coercian. Which - in the case of Cathy Come Home - renders talk of 'society being free to use the results of creativity' moot. The lovely magic of digital is that in many cases (software, music, the written word) you no longer need capital to be creative. In such cases, I'd agree with your .sig. But where creativity still requires capital - or has done in the past - then the freedoms which should be granted on use / re-use are less obvious. After all, it's someone's capital (or licence fee) at stake, and human nature has been finely tuned to reject freeloaders. It's my abtuse way of rejecting glib rhetoric. - 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] Muddy Boots on Backstage
I disagree entirely with your hypothetical link between cost of creative production and the freedoms that should be awarded to society. Copyright and trademark law were specifically designed to give away a little bit of societal freedom in exchange for stimulated creativity. I agree with all of this. Society would benefit from hugely from re-use now digital tech means it can do so widely and (more or less) equitably. Understand where I'm coming from. I'm against glib absolutism, not re-use. And one hard lesson I learned from Creative Archive's failure is that *blanket* insistance upon re-use - or even unrestricted global use - for all works future, present and past *can* mean art isn't made in the first place, or isn't placed in the public domian. If you'd have said to the makers of Cathy Come Home Oh, and by the way, anyone will have the right to do what they want with your work it would not have been made. And today, insistance on global re-use would mean it remained gathering dust in the BBC's archive. It takes patience, time and - most importantly - evidence to demostrate that re-use can be a good thing for all concerned. At no point is cost of creative production mentioned nor should it enter the discussion. Hmm. You don't stimulate much creativity if said stimulation does not cover the costs of production. The job of our government is to protect the the public, not the private entities that expend creative effort. It is not the public who are freeloaders when they ask for freedom to use, reuse and modify - it is the creatives who are asking/expecting too much from society. Rights are a balance - as you say - between societal freedom and creative stimulation. I'd argue that both sides of that equation stand to gain from re-use now media is going digital and the cost of copying, sharing and re-using is tending towards zero. But you don't help rebalance laws by jumping up and down on one end proclaiming your own sacred manifesto to be The One True Word and decrying those nasty private entities at the other end to be ripping off society. It's such dogma which gets you described by otherwise pretty measured civil servants and MPs as 'The Copyleft Taliban' and does the cause of changing the law to enable and encourage re-use nothing but harm. The name of the game is to provide evidence of the benefits of re-use. I'm pretty encouraged that the Treasury is now getting an independent economist to look at the the case for re-use of Government data off the back of the Power of Information Review. It was that sober review, full of case studies and real-life examples of the benefits of re-use that lead to this change of heart. I guess I'm just bored of placard waving. I want to see stuff actually change. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Podcasts Including Music
* How about outright payment for perpetual rights? Way too expensive, especially worldwide. i'm not so sure. Ofcom's (my current employer) view is that the ability to copy and share in perpetuity is an adherent *advantage* if your aim is to deliver public service media (BBC etc.) It may cost more to procure the rights than would be the case if something was rented for broadcast, but the additional value returned to the UK public over years, and through addition re-use means this delta is well worth the cost. see http://www.openmedianetwork.org.uk/anewapproach/openmedia.htm - 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] Require Information on BBC Content
On 19/11/2007, Matthew Cashmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Imran - I know a few people have replied off list with suggestions - but I wanted to reply to you here because I believe the information may be useful to others. The backstage site / project aims to help developers get access to the BBC's data and content - our moto is 'use our stuff to build your stuff'. If there's something that you want that you can't find on the site then drop us an email and we'll see what we can arrange. In terms of what you can do with the content read the backstage license at http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/terms_of_use.html is the programme catalogue data still covered by these terms of use? http://catalogue.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/termsofuse - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC tech chief: You Freetards don't matter
I suspect it's called an enormous pre-moderation queue On 06/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is there a good reason that my posting on the http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/11/open_standards.html page has not appeared. On 06/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The whole Linux thing is a total red herring. It is not for you, Mr Highfield, to determine what computers and operating systems that people who HAVE to pay the TV Licence will use. The BBC Charter runs for ten years. Can you really say you know what OS and platforms people will be using in a decade? That's a retorical no by the way. The sad, sad part of the whole debate is not the cross-platform issue, but the throwing away of the BBC's unique funding method. If you HAD not wasted time and effort on snake oil DRM solutions, and sorted out with the rights holders to get as much content onine as possible, then there would be a clear polticial argument to shift the BBC Licence Fee from a charge on homes with TV sets to homes with Broadband. (This is possible, the Archers is a podcast, EastEnders could be a VODcast) You could even save the costs of collections by getting the ISPs to collect the fee for you. But the path you have chosen is simply going to wreck the BBC on the shores of advertising and subscription. You have made a critical mistake, Mr Highfield, much like Mark Thompson made at Channel 4. DRM = RIP BBC On 06/11/2007, Kevin Hinde [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: BT Tech Chief: You freetards *do* matter http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2007/11/open_standards.html -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv -- Please email me back if you need any more help. Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv - 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] What would you do? (Was: BBC tech chief: You Freetards don't matter)
Forget management, I fear you'll find that the BBC Trust's permission to offer 7 days catchup TV was predicated on using DRM. Various parts of its non-DRM on demand radio proposals (book readings, classical music) failed the Public Value Test due to the BBC Trust's fears over the negative market impact of non-DRM downloads. Though option 2 seems, to me at least, to clearly be in the license-payer's (and our) interest - and a technically superior option - it's certainly a much higher-risk strategy from Ashley's perspective, and, politically, would most likely be a very hard sell to BBC management. At what point does option 1 become untenable? Cheers, David -- David McBride [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Computing, Imperial College, London - 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] Use of Tinyurl in Emails
Using TinyUrl is a symptom of poorly designed urls... On 05/11/2007, Sean Dillon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Adam wrote: Tinyurl is a great service and i can understand why it is used, but i feel that using this type of service in a wider audience is a bad idea. We're having this exact same argument at the moment here, and I would agree that ideally this service should be located under the main publisher's domain. The Guardian uses tinyurl extensively, as do many other publications. We have decided to build our own system instead, as at least this way we are able to track who's clicking the links and where they're coming from as well. Seán - 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] Use of Tinyurl in Emails
On 05/11/2007, David Greaves [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Adam Lindsay wrote: Martin Deutsch wrote: But if you're talking well-designed URLs for journey planning, see: http://www.traintimes.org.uk/cardiff/birmingham/8:00 Thank you for that site pointer. An excellent example, and a great one to bookmark! True - but that is just a clever UI to a search engine. nah, that's Matthew Somerville making our lives easier... And for any 'clever' URL scheme you can think of for indexing content I can guarantee that TMTOWTDI - and if I use *my* way to make up the URL and not your way then I'm toast You want an 8am train from Cardiff to Birmingham? http://www.traintimes.org.uk/8:00/cardiff/birmingham The requested URL /8:00/cardiff/birmingham was not found on this server. nooo! Matthew will now doubtless fix the url to work every which way, and he's got more important things to do... - 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] Ashley Highfield speaks again
My question to Kevin Hinde would be, how many users are we unsure of their Operating system? Where are they classed? For example, I have a small blog and I have some visitor statistics (using bbclone) on that. The 3rd most popular operating system is ? ie unrecognised. for an example see http://bbclone.de/demo/ The BBC must have similar results, whose OS it can't distinguish, if so where are these? data from a mainstream non-BBC site (c2m UK users a month) Windows 95.1 % Macintosh 3.2 % Unknown 1 % Linux 0.5 % - 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] Ashley Highfield on iPlayer - 26min Interview
On 31/10/2007, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 31/10/2007, Deirdre Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: File sharing between friends is essential for friendship ??? I'll try again: Example: Your friend sends you an instant message, Have you seen [random-artistic-work]? and you reply No, but send me a copy and I will. and they initiate the file transfer, or send you the torrent file. Example: Your friend comes over with her laptop, and you start watching a film, but decide to go out and pause it. You copy the file and finish watching it later. These kinds of things are part of the social fabric of life where everyone has broadband and laptops. I'd agree with this but none of these new social norms necessarily *require* copyright-infringing file sharing, particularly as broadband becomes more ubiquitous. for example, you could / can perform the above social discourse with something Joost-esque, which would leave he rights holders with at least the option of gaining a return on their invest, via targeted advertising perhaps. Not saying that's a good thing, but your current logic does not work for me. FWIW I think it's a more powerful argument to state that the value of a recording per-se is now tending towards zero, digital tech having removed scarcity from much of the value chain. The business models which recognise this will thrive in the long term. - 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] Ashley Highfield on iPlayer - 26min Interview
FWIW I think it's a more powerful argument to state that the value of a recording per-se is now tending towards zero, digital tech having removed scarcity from much of the value chain. The business models which recognise this will thrive in the long term. Redressing things in the discourse of corporate businesses, like this, is okay, but can lead to nasty outcomes like thinking that DRM is legitimate. since when has a value chain been the discourse of corporate business? the BBC operates within a value chain, as does anyone else making doing stuff what is valued by others - be they acting as citizens or as consumers I think you're just incapable of addressing my substantive point. It's *dead* easy to make anti-DRM arguments using whatever 'discourse' you choose - the fact you choose to come at it from an angle which is outside the rule of law is why there are people on this list who now think you're a pro-DRM advocate in disguise. - 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] Ashley Highfield on iPlayer - 26min Interview
My point? it's not always as easy to take an off air broadcast and put it online. I see you've never tried Myth TV, my box is in the process of being built, the only thing stopping me is cash for my ridiculesly over-specced box; not difficulty. Plucking signals straight out of the air and onto a hard drive isn't hard with multiple DVB-T DVB-S cards. Hardware prices are only coming down, and building a box with 2 * 500GB drives 6 DVB-T and one DVB-S tuners (with room for expansion) etc. won't be as expensive or difficult in a couple of years. Agreed. But such automation have been technically possible for several years and I've been surprised that it's had no impact on TV piracy here or abroad. I've commissioned several generations of such multi-channel DVB - Web systems both inside and outside the BBC. Started off using Myth then dumped it cos it was too clunky. Latest version dumps indexed flash video to Amazon S3. http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/et2007/view/e_sess/10186 A rather sweet xvid version (backend by the amazing Dom Ludlam, web front end by the equally mercurial Phil Gyford ) ran during 2005 inside the BBC firewall, offering all BBC TV programmes transcoded real time from DVB-T to xvid using commodity *nix kit. I demo'd this version (BBC Macro) to the BBC Executive Board and Board of Governors in 2005 to show them what was inevitably coming down the line. However, the industrialised TV piracy of free to air TV isn't *yet* a problem - as I said, the capping is still done by hand, and so only a tiny minority of UK programmes get pirated. I do agree that it's probably going to come sooner rather than later, so long as the broadcasters download offerings remain separate and thus of limited appeal. But it does suggest that demand for on demand TV onto a PC isn't as vast as was the case for music, since some enterprising pirate would surely have industrialised automated the whole end to end DVB - .torrent process by now. And when it *does* comes I'm willing to lay a small bet that the see, DRM is pointless (it is) argument will be drowned out by a loud lobby of rights holders demanding that the BBC encrypts its broadcast signal. But I'm sure we're all well-versed in the arguments as to why the BBC broadcasts in the clear in the first place, aren't we? Aren't we? - 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] Ashley Highfield on iPlayer - 26min Interview
* One question I have is: why Kontiki? Given that the files being distributed are DRM-wrapped anyway, why not use something more mainstream such as Bittorrent? Cos at the design stage the very word 'Bittorrent' was capable of sending rights holders running for the hills, regardless of reason. Less true now. First, the BBC are _already_ broadcasting all of their content, digitally and in the clear, in the form of RealPlayer streams, terrestrial radio and (HD) television broadcasts and also via internet multicast. all above are geographically bounded. general users can't yet *easily* grab a broadcast stream and copy/share a file internationally Even UK pirate sites rely on very few expert cappers who do this by hand, hence the relative scarcity of UK TV programmes on the darknets compared to music.(that said, it's perfectly possible to automate the whole process from DVB stream to DivX .torrent if you apply enough cpu and hard disk to the broadcast stream and SI data. Allegedly. Cough.) Secondly, all evidence to date shows that DRM does not in fact prevent the redistribution of content by end-users -- indeed, the WMPv9 DRM scheme currently used by the iPlayer distribution service had already been broken before the Beta had even launched! right holders would argue that it's enough rather than absolute deterrent which matters. * Rights buy-outs: it's not necessary to buy out the rights to putting on live shows, publishing books and many of the other functions mentioned by Ashley in the podcast in order to set up a functional, DRM-free iPlayer service. how so? What would be required is to do a series of radical deals with a staggeringly wide range of rights holders, many of whom get a load of cash from residual and secondary rights exploirtation, and are very keen to see these conserved for as long as poss, even if in the long term this isn't viable. This includes the recording industry, BTW, given how much music exists within TV shows. I'm not saying this shouldn't be done. I'm just pointing out that it *would* require the mother and father of all rights deals and even then you wouldn't get everyone. Moreover, his assertion that all of the downstream rights - for books and so forth - would become worthless if the shows themselves could be readily downloaded seems dubious. agreed that worthless is an overstatement - but it's hard to argue that they'll not be reduced, which is enough for most rights holders to resist. Indeed, the value of many related works - books, live shows, etc. - may well _increase_ significantly if the original shows themselves were more readily available. sadly there are far fewer related works for TV than for music - comedy excepted. otherwise this is a powerful argument. * One of the things Ashley talks about is a potential new future distribution model which he hopes that technology will enable the publication of content with no DRM -- but distributed in an intelligent wrapper that is able to enforce a set of rules for how it should behave. I think someone needs to tell Ashley that the mythical future technology he's describing _is_ what the rest of us would call DRM! i *think* he mean't to express a desire for standard machine-readable means of attaching (if not enforcing) rigfhts to media. Kinda CC+ without creative reuse? -T - 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] Thoughts from a previous BBC employee
On 11/10/2007, Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, this is true. And a charity can have wholly owned subsidiary that makes profits, in much the same way. BBC - not for profit corporation. BBC Worldwide - a global company that makes a profit. Gordo At 14:09 +0100 9/10/07, Mr I Forrester wrote: [...] Our partnerships with other large companies like Yahoo and Google has been important for us and them. [...] And what bugs me is when companies Microsoft (and the rest) deal with the BBC (e.g. when the BBC included a BBC channel in the release of IE4) and not the commercial arm (BBC Worldwide). And somebody paid for the server farm in New York for BBC News Online, and I don't think it was the licence fee, since that could not be justified, could it? no, iirc that investment came from World Serivice (funded by Grant In Aid from the Foriegn Office), since international news was under the perview of World Service rather than BBC Worldwide. The Foreign Office refused to continue this arrangement cos it prefered World Service to focus on BBC Arabic TV / Farsi - hence the adverts on BBC.com debate. - 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] Thoughts from a previous BBC employee
I don't mean to sound snide, but I'd struggle to point to a single online project where I could say there, the BBC are leading the way.. At the risk of showing my ignorance; perhaps a web section of the BBC should be split off with a different mandate. tum tee tum http://www.openmedianetwork.org.uk/anewapproach/default.htm - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Programme Catalogue - any APIs yet? (also IMDB api etc.)
On to my questions: Has anyone yet been able to create an API around the BBC Programme Catalogue? It seems this would be the best data source to use so far. the BBC Programme Catalogue is already one big restful API... which may be enough for your needs, depending... replace 'infax' in with 'xml' in any url and see what you get back eg http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/xml/programme/ICYD984E http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/xml/on_this_day/2003/8/13 http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/xml/contributor/2221 - 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: Uploading the BBC programme catalogue to freebase (was RE: [backstage] Programme Catalogue vs. Freebase (was: BBC Programme Catalogue -any APIs yet?))
On 09/07/07, Oliver Cole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, 2007-07-09 at 21:30 +0100, Brendan Quinn wrote: I was considering entering a hack for Hack Day around that very thing. But then they went and made me one of the judges ;-) Wanna help? A simple set of scripts that scrape the archive (er I mean call that big RESTful API) and post entries/updates to the freebase sandbox server would be an interesting experiment. I've not yet (bulk) posted data on Freebase - I'll take a look at this when I'm more au fait with it. compare http://www.freebase.com/view/?id=%239202a8c04000641f80012406 with http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/series/DOCTOR+WHO ! Freebase is still in alpha as far as I know - those who can't see the first link can see a screenshot at: http://cornflakes.imen.org.uk/~oli/DrWho.png Those who are particularly interested can feel free to ask me for one of my remaining 4 invites - and I imagine Brendan has some too. There may be some rights issues around what would basically amount to opening up the programme catalogue under the creative commons attribution license, where the attribution wouldn't go to the BBC but to Freebase... Well, the RDF for the catalogue links to http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/05/api_licence.html: The BBC grants to You a ... non-sublicensable right to copy... Further: d. not publish, distribute or otherwise make the APIs available, (including in any Work You create), in a way that would enable other people to download or use the APIs other than as set out in this Licence. standard backstage API licence - it was the only one lying around at the time... (nov 2005) I don't see any legal way that we can export the data to Freebase and relicense it as CC-BY. yeah... the attribution back to BBC kinda matters... though given the programmes are clearly BBC programmes, I'm not sure it's the end of the world... Would you be able to get the appropriate BBC people to get this done? I'll do a bit of lobbying... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Ofcom complaint raised
Quick question: if someone was to produce a Linux (or other OS) iPlayer style client and server application that provided DRM protection* based on time limiting and there was some level of country limiting** would the BBC use it? (I would actually be genuinely interested in an answer to this question.) YES! - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Ofcom complaint raised
On 22/06/07, Michael Sparks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday 22 June 2007 15:21, Peter Bowyer wrote: Possibly everyone has decided to heed the suggestion that this topic is best dealt with elsewhere, leaving this list for its intended use. Without reading the text of the complaint, OFCOM is definitely a better place to complain that this mailing list, IMO OFCOM has no regulatory power over the BBC other than certain kinds of taste and decency of non-internet broadcasting. The BBC Trust is the BBC's regulator. Complain to them if you wish. But do so with patient logic and evidence. - 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] www.FreeTheBBC.info
Apparently today's rights-holder production companies believe that
DRMcan stop the mass market from sharing works. Probably not;
simplymaking the works All Rights Reserved does enough damage to
thepotential for the mass market, by criminalizing businesses that
findways to monetise the Internet.
One might also say criminalising businesses who get rich off the
creativity of others :)
The point, to me, is simple: DRM doesn't work. It doesn't stop anyone
taking your content for free. Therefore, work out business models which
don't rely on DRM.
and, yes, the licence fee could be one of them - see Creative Archive
passim, or OFCOM's ideas for a new Public Service Publisher using a
Creative Commons commercial sharealike licencing model.
however, if the BBC were to adopt such a 'buy all rights in
perpetuity' model, it would mean making far, far fewer programmes,
since each programme would have to cost more (*much* more in many
cases) to compensate rights holders for the reduction in secondary
income from repeats, DVDs, overseas sales etc. We'd also probably lose
any stars the moment we made them (Gervais, etc) cos they could make
more than we could afford upfront commercially. And we'd lose all
sport. And the Olympics.
But hey, making far fewer programmes may not seem the end of the
world, since everyone only really likes a few programmes, and it's all
going on demand anyway so why worry about filling linear schedules,
right?
Then you realise that everyone != people like us, both in terms of the
programmes they like, and more importantly, in terms of their
likelihood to use the internet.
Everyone pays for the licence fee, and so everyone deserves to get
value from it.
So you need a wide range of programmes to cater for people's
increasingly fragmented tastes, and a variety of delivery methods to
cater for a range of tech capabilities.
41% of the UK population didn't use the Internet last month. We reckon
up to 20% of them *never* will. They'll pop their clogs before they
ever do anything on demand.
They pay for the BBC too.
Right now I find it hard to justify reducing the range of programmes
that 41% enjoy, just so the 5% of the population who regularly share
TV programmes over the internet can get *even more* value from the BBC
And incidentally, that 5% ('geeks like us') already gets far, far,
more value from the BBC than the 41% who are not online.
It's a balance. And we know that balance will shift over time,
possibly quite quickly once the current teenagers grow into adults.
For me, the long game is clear. You can now copy and share digital
media at near zero marginal cost. That's a miracle in terms of
increasing the value you can get out of *any* media, and in the long
term business models which make use of the ability to copy and share
will win.
The licence fee could be one such business model. But the argument is
about the balance between investing in linear vs making the most of
on demand.
The short game is also ruthlessly simple. The only way to get
programmes out and retain the current range and diversity of BBC
programmes is to use DRM. I might not like that, but I'll defend the
decision to do so in today's context.
Restating the case in terms of dogmatic absolutes isn't adding much to
the argument - dogmatic absolutists are very easy to pigeonhole and
ignore. Argue with ruthless logic, based on the core purposes of the
BBC.
If the BBC went non-DRM, bought out rights in perpetuity, thus made
fewer programmes, how could it do so on a way that meant 41% did not
lose out in order to give the 5% even more value?
And I hereby trump Ian's ORG badge-waving: the only person who
donated £5 a month to ORG before me was the guy developing their site.
;o)
-
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Re: [backstage] Getting Recipe Data
Been there once before a couple of years ago... iirc , every TV chef owns his/her rights to the recipes that appear in aggregate in the recipe db on bbc.co.uk/food So it's fearsomely complex (therefore expensive) to even begin clearing, presuming BBC could ever get the necessary rights from individual chefs, which is doubtful TBH. sorry... On 04/06/07, Ian Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Good question, I don't think we had any plans although we are working on other data sets. But maybe food could be a nice little database which we could clear the rights to. Cheers Ian Forrester This e-mail is: [] private; [ ] ask first; [ x ] bloggable Senior Producer, BBC Backstage BC5 C3, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7TP e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] p: +44 (0)2080083965 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rob Young Sent: 04 June 2007 12:43 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] Getting Recipe Data Hi, Is there any plan (or is it there and I just can't find it) to expose the recipe data which can be searched on in www.bbc.co.uk/food ? Cheers Rob - 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] Getting Recipe Data
On 04/06/07, Adam Leach [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Loosemore wrote: Been there once before a couple of years ago... iirc , every TV chef owns his/her rights to the recipes that appear in aggregate in the recipe db on bbc.co.uk/food So it's fearsomely complex (therefore expensive) to even begin clearing, presuming BBC could ever get the necessary rights from individual chefs, which is doubtful TBH. sorry... How about a searchable rss feed or similar that returns links to the specific recipes. This would be useful in other areas like Top Gear review of cars where it might be useful to link directly to the information. Adam oooh... now both of those are interesting ideas - 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: [Bulk] RE: [backstage] Web 2.0 'neglecting good Accessible design'
On 17/05/07, ~:'' ありがとうございました。 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's true the flashearth site is fast and keyboard accessible, but again with a mouse it's nearly useless. similarly for flickr no doubt there are sites that suit each, but I've yet to see one that's easy to use and universally accessible, or even close http://www.neighbourhoodfixit.com? - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Archive trial
On 18/04/07, Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 16:39 +0100 18/4/07, Ian Forrester wrote: Hi All, Outside of the framework debate... The BBC Archive trial is getting closer to opening its doors. Exclusively I can now tell you that the register your interest form is up (16:30). So if your interested in taking part in the trial, go to http://bbc.co.uk/archive now. Many thanks for your time - unfortunately due to the specifications of this trial, we are not currently aiming to recruit past or present BBC staff. !!! yep, and quite right too, if the BBC Trust's decision making is not just impartial but seen to be impartial. Allowing BBC staff past or present to join put the latter at risk, since the data from this trial will form the core empirical input into the BBC Trust's Public Value Test on the Open Archive (which is separate from iPlayer 'catch up' Public Value Test, the decision on which is due soonish. That's why they need so much personal data, to make sure the sample is balanced across a whole series of dimensions to reflect the UK population as a whole (hence UK only) We're also gonna release 50 hours for download by anyone in the UK, whether on the trial or not. - oh, and it's all non-DRM'd, albeit geo-IP'd
Re: [backstage] BBC Archive trial
it'll be delivered via the internet... using that funny HTML stuff (streamed in Real/WM I expect, cos that'll make it easier to set up - it is a trial after all...). The actual site itself is very nice, IMHO (not that I had anything to do with it!) On 18/04/07, James Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ian - any idea how this trial is going to be delivered? any tech specs on the trial itself? i'm thinking scary black boxes and dial groups. wait, that was nielson. --- :) On 18 Apr 2007, at 16:39, Ian Forrester wrote: Hi All, Outside of the framework debate... The BBC Archive trial is getting closer to opening its doors. Exclusively I can now tell you that the register your interest form is up (16:30). So if your interested in taking part in the trial, go to http://bbc.co.uk/archive now. There is no press launch or anything like that yet, so your really the first people to find out about this. So do it today before the 20,000 places disappear. Cheers, Ian Forrester Senior Producer, BBC Backstage BC4 B4, Media Village, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7RJ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 02080083965 - 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/ -- *James Cox, *Internet Consultant t: 07968 349990 e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: http://www.imajes.info/
Re: [backstage] BBC Archive trial
Shame. I love the idea of digging into blackadder and jeeves and wooster and all the other comedy greats -- but getting them in a format that is at least somewhat representative of their quality. Sucks that I'd have to stream it certainly encoding into divx or mpg would show some understanding of the marketspace. I'm not sure what you mean when you suggest encoding as divx or mpg would show an understanding of the marketplace. It is unfortunately not quite so simple. This is a limited, fixed length trial that will hopefully lead to a Public Value Test. Surely then it makes sense to make use of the BBC's existing Real/WM infrastructure to deliver the content? Hell, if we were going to show some understanding of the marketplace we'd do it all in Flash (which I still hope we do, TBH)
Re: [backstage] BBC announces 3G mobile syndication trial with Orange, Vodafone and 3
3G technical trial. 12 months long. it's public service, as Brian says. Nowt to do with BBC Worldwide. we don't have regulatory permission to broadcast BBC TV 24/7 live on the open net until iPlayer public value test has been approved by the BBC Trust (assuming they do indeed approve this). On 29/03/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Chris, I wouldn't worry about it, the service is going to be even worse than the DAB service used by Virgin Mobile! Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christopher Woods Sent: 29 March 2007 13:51 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] BBC announces 3G mobile syndication trial with Orange, Vodafone and 3 Oh for CRYING out loud - why not a partnership with T-Mobile? They have the best 3G HSDPA network in the UK! And I'm on T-Mobile! Typical. -Original Message- From: Brian Butterworth [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 29 March 2007 11:46 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] BBC announces 3G mobile syndication trial with Orange, Vodafone and 3 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/03 _march/29/3g.s html Can we have the BBC one, BBC THREE and (in particular) BBC News 24 streams online please? If you can stream them on a mobile, it would be useful if they could be provided online in the same format (I mean, that's what you are doing anyway...) Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.20/737 - Release Date: 28/03/2007 16:23 - 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/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.20/737 - Release Date: 28/03/2007 16:23 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.20/737 - Release Date: 28/03/2007 16:23 - 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] BBC announces 3G mobile syndication trial with Orange, Vodafone and 3
On 29/03/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 3G technical trial. 12 months long. it's public service, as Brian says. Nowt to do with BBC Worldwide. we don't have regulatory permission to broadcast BBC TV 24/7 live on the open net until iPlayer public value test has been approved by the BBC Trust (assuming they do indeed approve this). You don't have permission to carry adverts on BBC Worldwide service either, but that hasn't stopped this has it? http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BBCWorldwide That's not broadcast live, is it. Which is what the must carry provision covers. Which I suspect you knew already. Sometimes I do wonder why we bother. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC parliment
There are some very very interesting opportunities with Parliamentary video coverage. The rights situation is being explored (no need for a petition, TBH - I think all parties are pretty willing to experiment in this area), as are the metadata/API opportunities. Having an existing API to a structured version of the parliamentary transcript really, really opens up all sorts of exciting opportunities http://www.theyworkforyou.com/api (the marvel that is Matthew Somerville in action, once again) Thanks for the parliamentlive.tv link everyone, it seems my requests would probably be better off being put to the admin there, and perhaps a petition on http://petitions.pm.gov.uk, would be a better route to take; any with over a hundred signatories seem to get some form of response. Vijay On 09/03/07, Matthew Somerville [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: vijay chopra wrote: notice the distinct lack of downloadable video content. Is there any possibility of a Video version of the Today in Parliament podcast? As others have pointed out, parliamentlive.tv might be what you're looking for (in conjunction with some streaming downloader to capture the streamed content). The rights negotiations should be minimal to zero, Sadly I doubt that, given http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_publications_and_archives/commons_foi/access.cfm : The rates at which the Parliamentary Recording Unit can provide video and audio recordings of parliamentary proceedings is dependent upon the length of recording required, how the footage is to be used and the nature of the organisation requiring the footage. Current rates are available on request. - 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] First BBC Backstage Podcast: DRM and the BBC
Indeed, this seems particularly pointless when I can simply point my desk antenna at the Crystal Palace transmitter and record the 20Mbaud H.264 1080p stream being broadcast in clear. This is the kind of thing I think the BBC should be telling rights holders :-) http://strange.corante.com/archives/2006/05/17/xtech_2006_tom_loosemore_treating_digital_broadcast_as_just_another_api_and_other_such_ruminations.php - 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] First BBC Backstage Podcast: DRM and the BBC
On 14/02/07, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tom! On 14/02/07, Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Indeed, this seems particularly pointless when I can simply point my desk antenna at the Crystal Palace transmitter and record the 20Mbaud H.264 1080p stream being broadcast in clear. This is the kind of thing I think the BBC should be telling rights holders :-) http://strange.corante.com/archives/2006/05/17/xtech_2006_tom_loosemore_treating_digital_broadcast_as_just_another_api_and_other_such_ruminations.php *Very* interesting - thanks for linking this up. Do you mean to imply that rightsholders have been approached with tales of Was fantastic, but had to limit it to a couple of hundred people within the BBC. Was a bit too popular for their own good and they turned it down? not *exactly*... the 'it was too popular for its own good' refers to various local radio stations having their bandwidth soaked up due to people downloading stuff... not good for business, that... haveever, i demo'd it to many people over the past couple of years, from BBC Governors/Directors down, that if I get such a 100% broadcast-powered automatic system knocked together for Not Much Cash, then (almost) anyone can it ran for the first few weeks from a greenhouse in someone's back garden near Ascot. getting this built was fun too... http://gigaom.com/2005/08/16/bbc-builds-a-monster-tivo/ - 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] platform-agnostic approach to the iPlayer
Tom, what kind of ninja lawyers does the Estate of Roy Plumley employ? :-) The same kind that Endemol and every other Independent media company uses to protect formats such as Big Brother? Good summary here: http://www.harbottle.com/hnl/pages/article_view_hnl/2078.php And it's the format rights which drive up the valuations of Independent TV companies http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1788734,00.html And it's not like the BBC isn't in this global game, either: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4375311.stm - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] Does Wikipedia have a cash crisis? Could this be Another h2g2 moment?
jimmy came and worked with us for two or three weeks back in 2004. nothing came of it, much to my shame. we had a good long look at ways of working together, but sadly we don't own our own bandwidth following the sale of BBC Technology to Siemans a couple of years ago. i think wikipedia will be fine... On 12/02/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does Wikipedia have a cash crisis? OK. When h2g2 ran out of money, Auntie bought it up. Perhaps it would be a good use of BBC money to support Wikipedia, given they don't want adverts. All they want is bandwidth - perhaps the BBC could provide it. Wouldn't BBC Wikipedia put the Beeb to the top of the web 2.0 ladder? Brian Butterworth www.ukfree.tv http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/organgrinder/2007/02/does_wikipedia_have_a_cash_ cri.html -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.441 / Virus Database: 268.17.35/680 - Release Date: 10/02/2007 21:15 - 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] platform-agnostic approach to the iPlayer
On 12/02/07, Kirk Northrop [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Loosemore wrote: There's lot of stuff for which the BBC owns *broadcast* rights, because that was the reality of all that was possible at the time. How about news stuff? Let's say a newsflash based on a press release from 10 Downing Street. Library pictures would be used - surely the BBC film these and therefore own them? They employ the newsreader, own the studio in which it was made, commissioned the music and titles. The press release is exactly that, so I can't think they'd be to snotty on the copyright of it in that way. Or am I missing something obvious? tons of pooled footage / bought in footage / freelance cameramen / stills / most library pictures are bought in, or result in some secondary fee to original rights holders - 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] platform-agnostic approach to the iPlayer
On 10/02/07, Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 15:42 + 8/2/07, Dave Crossland wrote: On 06/02/07, Richard P Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We also know that the BBC has content that they own 100% of the copyright. This is, apparently, not the case at all for the majority of existing records. However, moving forward, I see no reason why the BBC cannot be clear that it is owning 100% of the rights in all new contracts for internally produced works. *** Desert Island Discs is one of Radio 4's most popular and enduring programmes. Created by Roy Plomley in 1942, the format is simple: each week a guest is invited by Kirsty Young to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. *** For rights reasons Desert Island Discs is not available as a listen again item. *** http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs.shtml Why no podcast? Gordo Estate of Roy Plumley owns the rights to the format, and isn't keen on on demand... - 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] platform-agnostic approach to the iPlayer
the honest answer is we don't know bear in mind that to know for sure you have to examine *all* the various contracts with *all* the various contributors - and for that, you need to know who the contributors are, and where their contracts are stored... if their contracts are stored. Then you have to hope the contracts we unambiguous. When the creative archive team went hunting for some content for their trial which was demonstrably unambiguously BBC owned, they found nothing that didn't require at least some additional rights clearance... There's lot of stuff for which the BBC owns *broadcast* rights, because that was the reality of all that was possible at the time. And then there's moral rights, but let's no go there for now... On 11/02/07, Richard P Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Tom, Can I ask again then, is there anything that the BBC owns 100% copyright of in an archive? Yes or no would be a start. :-) Regards Richard On 11 Feb 2007, at 11:43, Tom Loosemore wrote: On 10/02/07, Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 15:42 + 8/2/07, Dave Crossland wrote: On 06/02/07, Richard P Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: We also know that the BBC has content that they own 100% of the copyright. This is, apparently, not the case at all for the majority of existing records. However, moving forward, I see no reason why the BBC cannot be clear that it is owning 100% of the rights in all new contracts for internally produced works. *** Desert Island Discs is one of Radio 4's most popular and enduring programmes. Created by Roy Plomley in 1942, the format is simple: each week a guest is invited by Kirsty Young to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island. *** For rights reasons Desert Island Discs is not available as a listen again item. *** http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/desertislanddiscs.shtml Why no podcast? Gordo Estate of Roy Plumley owns the rights to the format, and isn't keen on on demand... - 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: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] £1.2 billion question (or RE: [backstage] BBC Bias??? Click and Torrents)
No it's not cool. However if you don't have rights holders who are happy, you would get nowt. What's better - a moral highground with nothing, or no moral highground but with everything?I'd presume people here would say the former, whilst I suspect the majority of the general public would say the latter. Rubbish, the BBC could have had their cake and eaten it just by threatening to tell the content providers to shove off. The rights holders want their material on the BBC, probably more than the BBC wants any particular piece of content. If the BBC had said we'll do this DRM free, or we won't even broadcast it the BBC would have got DRM free. They wouldn't have ended up with nothing. rights holders = every active and retired actor in the country, every composer in the country, every professional musician in the country, every freelance presenter, every freelance cameraman, every freelance director, every photo stills library, every independent TV company (to whom we're obliged by our charter to commission 25% of tv), every record label, football clubs, the estate of Sir Roy Plumley etc etc etc Telling them all to shove off is not a realistic option right now. See the para from Government's BBC Charter Review Green Paper at the bottom of this post to understand this political reality. Now, in the long term I'm convinced that acquiring the rights to make content available for re-use in perpetuity is a public value maximising strategy for anyone engaged in public media in a wholly networked environment. As does OFCOM, as can be seen by their proposing a commercial, attribution, sharealike Creative Commons licence for their putative 2012 Public Service Publisher (PSP) concept. But it's far from obvious that this is the right approach *now*. 2012 is a generation away. Even ignoring the political reality, implementing such a 'shove off' strategy today isn't necessarily the right thing to do today. Buying all rights, globally, in perpetuity means each unit of stuff would cost (lots) more than we pay for UK broadcast rights. Lots more. So the BBC would have to make far less stuff. And cos it makes less, it'd be harder to make sufficiently diverse range of stuff so that we offer stuff of value to *everyone* in the UK - including, BTW, the 40% of people in the UK who've never been on the internet, and the 97% who've never watched TV on the net. Seriously, the best way to have an impact on this debate is to respond to OFCOM's PSP discussion document A new approach to public service content in the digital media age . http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pspnewapproach/ The consultation on the above discussion doc is open to anyone, and closes on 23rd March. I *highly* recommend those of you who care about this issue read about the Public Service Publisher, and respond in as much detail as you can manage to OFCOM's request for feedback on their ideas. The views of an informed digitally-savvy bunch such as those on the backstage list is utterly vital, and will be hugely welcomed. Welcome to the world of policy. The BBC really has lived these arguments over the past five or six years (ideas for a BBC Public Licence were all over the web and some newspapers back in 2002 http://web.archive.org/web/20021220040855/http://azeem.azhar.co.uk/archives/000178.html ) We didn't follow the DRM'd iPlayer strategy lightly. Today, in Feb 2007, it's DRM or nowt. So please put the 'DRM is evil' placards down for a moment. We know. http://www.lllj.net/blog/archives/2006/01/06/how-can-drm-be-good/#comment-7373 Start working to change UK public policy instead. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/pspnewapproach/ Bests -Tom * Fom http://www.bbccharterreview.org.uk/pdf_documents/bbc_cr_greenpaper.pdf The BBC said in Building Public Value - 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] platform-agnostic approach to the iPlayer
if the BBC did try to use it's muscle, it could just get accused of bully-boy tactics by the industry who could then complain to the government etc - such things have happened in the past) I thought the BBC was answerable to the Board of Trustees, not the Government. Or is it a Government mouthpiece afterall? the people who just decided what the BBC should do over the next 10 years looked very much like a Government to me and the man who decided how much money the BBC should get over the next 6 years looked very much like Gordon Brown and the person currently busy appointing the next Chair of the BBC Trustees looks just like that Tessa Jowell woman who runs the Department of Culture Media Sport the BBC is a construct formed by political will, and exists so long as that political will remains as is only right and proper in a democracy. if you want the BBC to move on from being a broadcaster (which it looks to me like you do!), then engage in the wider political debate about media policy. And IMHO the whole industry is pretty much following music. The music model is a known quantity. Non-DRM is less so. Ergo the industry goes with the known quantity. The BBC is meant to do what 'the industry' doesn't, though. Otherwise, what's the point? Not true. The BBC is not there to do whatever the industry doesn't do. Never has been. What's the point, then? Well, the point of the BBC is that, by informing, educating and entertaining everyone in the UK, the population of the UK gains both individually and collectively to an extent greater than the BBC's negative market impact Read the charter http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/policies/charter/ Bests -tom - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] bbc offline?
excess traffic = a very nice problem to have, obviously! On 08/02/07, Mark Hewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry about that - excess traffic due to people finding out about the weather caused it to run slow for a few hours Service should be back to normal now -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jonathan Chetwynd Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 11:57 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: [backstage] bbc offline? bbc offline? is it just me, but finding bbc pages hard to load today? cheers Jonathan Chetwynd - 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] Joost anyone?
On 28/01/07, Libby Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, Robert Kerry wrote: Email me if you'd like an invite - not sure how many I can give out though. :o) (belatedly) I work for Joost and have a few invites spare. Libby many thanks libby... much appreciated... - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC News instant messages on twitter
On 11/01/07, Mario Menti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 1/11/07, Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Why is the BBC using a (commercial) third party to make a short URL? And then giving them (tinyurl.com) free advertising? That's my fault... but twitter limits messages to 160 characters overall (so alerts work via SMS), and I wanted to provide a URL with the headlines. The original BBC URLs are way too long. If someone can suggest a better alternative I'm all ears :-) Mario. despite all the stuff he does, Mario doesn't work for Auntie! - 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] RSS feeds of the BBC TV subtitles?
On 10/01/07, Frank Wales [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brian Butterworth wrote: Some BBC programs provide their scripts online, but I was wondering if it would be possible to provide ALL the subtitles used by the BBC (and other broadcasters) over the course of the day as RSS feeds? I asked some BBC people about this last year, and the answers generally seemed to be preceded by lots of sucking in of air through teeth. I believe the problem is not technical, but contractual, in that subtitles shown on BBC programmes are often not owned by the BBC. So what seems, on the face of it, to be an obvious thing to do is actually quite fiendishly difficult to make happen. No doubt some actual BBC people will explain further. Or, ideally, say: it's all sorted out now, here they are! contractual... messy, messy, messy (as usual, we only have broadcast rights).. tech messy messy (several sources, depending on whether it's live or prerecorded. One of those cases where I hit a brick wall, I'm afraid, cos you're right it's a lovely feed. It's being dealt with as part of the preparations for iPlayer, but don't hold breath. if you want to play in private, and you're feeling quite hardcore, you *could* extract the subtitles from a DVB-S MPEG2 stream (aka a satellite stream) where they're still in there somewhere as ASCII. On DTT (Freeview) the subtitles are transmitted as bitmaps, so are hard to get-at (a friend tried to OCR them out, and Failed with a capital F) - 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] RSS feeds of the BBC TV subtitles?
On 11/01/07, Matthew Somerville [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Brian Butterworth wrote: Does the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988 cover the subtitles associated with a TV channel? Would implementing a search feed, rather than a complete feed be OK with the Act? I would guess (IANAL) subtitles are part of the work, so would be copyrighted for things like dramas (as it's basically the spoken section of the script, more if it includes noises), and you might have fair use for news broadcasts and the like. Google seems to think storing everything for search is okay, so you might be okay there... I'd guess we could implement a search feed without infringing copyright. But in my experience they don't work too well, since you really need to see the context in which a word was used to judge its relevence - and showing the context in text would infringe. - 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] democracyplayer
Maybe we should try and get more BBC managers here. How do you know there not watching this already? Seriously! Watching, maybe. But are they participating? Not so far as I've seen. i thoroughly resemble that remark - 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] democracyplayer
On 20/12/06, Nic James Ferrier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Maybe we should try and get more BBC managers here. How do you know there not watching this already? Seriously! Watching, maybe. But are they participating? Not so far as I've seen. i thoroughly resemble that remark I *have* seen you participate. But you're a tech manager right? So you already get it. And you've made your mind up (probably, maybe) about whether free content is possible, desirable or likely. Nope, i'm not a tech manager. But yes, safe to say I've made my mind up: http://www.lllj.net/blog/archives/2006/01/06/how-can-drm-be-good/#comment-7373 I am talking specifically asking for non-technical managers to be involved here. At least to some extent. I expect those people to think that they've already made up their minds. But they probably haven't really heard the wealth of different opnions there are on the subject. Trust me, they have. They really, really have. If there's one thing I can point to in my 5 years here, it's that. It's now 3 years since we got Lessig over to present to 100+ senior managers. The debate has been long and intense. And it continues in public, albeit not in places backstage subscribes would hang out! http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/research/iplayer-public-value-test.html We have to remember, this is not a technical issue. It's driven by technology and law. But it's about society. Totally. And the bedrock of society is the rule of law. And the law is *crystal* clear - the BBC doesn't own all rights to its archive; the myriad of underlying rights holders do (and there are 1.2m contributers listed on http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue) No public institution can knowingly break the law, however compelling the 'moral' case. Our job is to make the case to our regulator (The BBC Trust), and to the rights holders, that the societal opportunity cost of *not* releasing our archive outweighs what it would costs and the market impact (aka the Public Value Test ) We have, despite frustrations, been busy on this front: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/research/iplayer-public-value-test.html http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds40870.html http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2006/09/hurry_while_sto.html that does not happen overnight and - frankly - the outcome of any of these isn't obvious either. Oh, and for those of you debating what the BBC is *for* - it's here: http://www.bbccharterreview.org.uk/publications/cr_pubs/pub_royalcharter06.html copypaste relevent bits 4.The Public PurposesThe Public Purposes of the BBC are as follows— (a)sustaining citizenship and civil society; (b)promoting education and learning; (c)stimulating creativity and cultural excellence; (d)representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities; (e)bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK; (f)in promoting its other purposes, helping to deliver to the public the benefit ofemerging communications technologies and services and, in addition, taking aleading role in the switchover to digital television. 5.How the BBC promotes its Public Purposes The BBC's main activities should be the promotion of its Public Purposes through theprovision of output which consists of information, education and entertainment, supplied by means of— (a) television, radio and online services; (b)similar or related services which make output generally available and which may bein forms or by means of technologies which either have not previously been used bythe BBC or which have yet to be developed. /paste The 37 pages of the charter do not mention the word 'programme' once. The BBC does not exist to make programmes (neither does ITV, natch) ; The BBC exists to build public value through media. The very first edition of Wired UK magazine in April 1994 carried a final page column by Douglas Adams which contained exactly this point. http://yoz.com/wired/1.01/adams.html Lots of people are not in the business you think they're in. Television companies are not in the business of delivering television programmes to their audiences, they're in the business of delivering audiences to their advertisers. (This is why the BBC has such a schizophrenic time - it's actually in a different business from all its competitors). bests -tom - 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] BBC Programme Catalogue live again
Apologies for the interruption in service (a mere, ooh, 5 months) But the Programme Catalogue prototype is back: http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue Details of 966,244 BBC programme dating back to 1938, catogorised into 503,193 subject categories, and mapped onto 1,214,797 contributors. Here's me: http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/contributor/138210 Chock full of RSS, RDF and FOAF Go and play. (it's a Matt Biddulph creation - www.hackdiary.com and FWIW it's done on RoR) - 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] Best links of the year
Hello all I'm doing a review of the year's best links, for use inside Auntie. Any suggestions? For 'best' read: Funny/useful/fabulous/bonkers/innovative Dropsend.com is my link of the year, which is a sad reflection on my life. -t - 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] Site statistics
On 11/12/06, Allan Jardine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello all, Thanks for the multitude of replies about web-site statistics. The sources people pointed out are very interesting, particularly the table of what browsers the bbc test on and support. copypaste from a man who'd know... We are currently updating our browser standard, the current one is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/newmedia/technical/browser_support.shtml The new one will replace it by Thursday at the latest. - 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] Site statistics
On 08/12/06, Martin Belam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I know that Martin Belam has done a little work on this ( http://www.currybet.net/articles/user_agents/index.php ) but these results are now a year out of date. Yes, my new report about visitors to Sony's CONNECT store doesn't make such interesting reading - 100% IE Windows lock-in and seemingly little inclination to change i'd see if we can get the latest freshest data out - shouldn't be a problem to publish into the public domain, albeit not as an API (oh, and i totally agree about google analytics...) - 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] Psiphon
I would love to see the BBC reverse its thinking and engage us, as the public, in allowing much more access, even if they have to pressure government to change the law. There is nothing to fear :-) oh we know that - honestly, we really do. we're in the business of maximising the value our programmes offer the public, which in many (but not all) cases equates to maximising access to them this principle is accepted, hell, no, it's embraced by the BBC now. but messy reality swiftly intrudes. Our rights holders (the people who actually own the programmes we broadcast), and our regulators / competitors take a bit more persuading ... which takes time, given there can be dozens of different rights holding bodies, and hundreds of individual rights holders in just one programme. And other commercial broadcasters fear the BBC will set a 'free' price point in the minds of consumers at which point it potentially limits their business models. (personally, i think there's always been free and paid for, but hey, i'm biased) so the BBC's job is to persuade rights holders and competitors whose livelihoods are based on the existing model that a new model is better - better for them, not you... given that sports rights maximise their revenue by selling rights on a region by region basis right now, it's highly improbable that the sports rights model will change any time soon. you simply cannot buy global internet rights to high-profile soccer/cricket/the olympics, and even if you could, i don't think it'd offer most licence fee payers value for money to offer it to the rest of the world for free, given the premium we'd need to pay for global rights.. If it costs us x amount more to buy the rights to allow download of our programmes than it costs us to broadcast them at present, is it good value for money to buy download rights now? When only 10% of internet users are regularly watching video on the web, and only 75% of the population online - so the premium we'd pay would only add value to a small percentage of licence fee payers. Now those numbers are changing all the time, and so is the premium we'd have to pay, and the bbc's job is to drive innovation, but my point is that it's a question of value (and hence timing), not principle. that battle is won. moving at all is decidedly non-trivial given the uncertainty over business models - rights holders are scared about all the uncertainty, and thus are not generally minded to agree to anything that might compromise a future, as yet unidentified revenue stream. fundamentally, it's all about the cost of rights. the tech bit is the easy part - 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] Enquiry about commerical use of BBC News RSS data
Hi James As a first port of call, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] - she'll point you in the right direction. Bests -Tom On 28/11/06, James Brook [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello All, I was wondering if anyone knows a contact at the BBC that I could make enquires about commercial use of the RSS news data. I've noticed one or two commercial products out there that include the BBC's news feeds and wondered how they went about getting approval. Thanks in advance, James Brook - 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] Psiphon
Hi Lee I'm probably one of the top brass to which you refer, and I can assure you there's no selling of soul planned... ;o) Like I say, the tech side is the easy bit, and is getting easier by the month. Aside from the lng process of gaining formal regulatory permission, there are two interrelated really hard ugly issues wrt releasing the archive: Metadata and rights. We'll try to start fix the former using the programme catalogue, once it relaunches (soon... soon... urgh...) http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/ Bests -Tom On 28/11/06, Lee Goddard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Richard, I appreciate the time you took on that, and that you didn't take my early-morning tappings the wrong way. Yes, of course you are right: one of my current nags is the Beeb's concentration on Sky and comparative ignorance of Freeview and Media Centre What it really comes down to, I imagine, is pragmatics forced by financial considerations. The BBC are trying to find a way of releasing the archive, and I know that members of the top brass are consulting with the likes of Google, MSN, big VCs. I imagine the eventual outcome will be that a Blue Chip partnership will provide servers and bandwidth in exchange for ... our very souls. Or the right to incorporate the BBC-branded content into their MCE-friendly services. I hope that those in Beeb involved realise the power the BBC with this content, and don't undersell themselves or do something silly like sell everything off and then lease it back... Whatever happens, there will be a torrent or two -- Lee Goddard Independent Contractor, Software Development/Analysis BBC Radio * Room 718 · Henry Wood Hs · Regents St · London W1 1AA · * 020 776 50849 ? lee(at)server-sidesystems.ltd.uk -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Edwards Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 9:49 AM To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Psiphon Hi Lee, I accept your points, at the same time though, the British are being sold on this idea of privacy with a number, an ID number. Well, as a public Corporation the BBC could reverse that thinking and treat us all as UK residents wherever we are in the world already.. it is still far easier to find people that you can trust, than to be weighed down by the thoughts of people that you cannot. That is pandering to the lowest common denominator. The benefits far out-weigh the negatives for a closer social community. I think it is a shame that all that power goes to support the tiny worse case scenario. As far as I am aware, every song on TOTP up until 1983 was re-recorded so that the BBC owned the rights of broadcast in the charter it clearly states that the BBC must distribute its content to the UK public. so where is all that music that I payed for :-) I am sure that similar can be said for BBC TV. All they would have to do is say publically that such and such a show was going to be aired on the net, in not best quality, and that the original producer would be payed X. If he doesn't agree - fine - but right now is anyone asking that question? If you can see a matrix of good honest people, the vast majority, across the planet, all UK residents if you want, all hosting bits of a show and streaming it, then the BBC doesn't have to host anything. it simply has to control the first issue and the delivery mechanism. Which is exactly what it is trying to do now along with Sky, ITV etc. The first lines do not have political leanings, please excuse me if it comes across that way. I am not interested in negative or political social engineering, but take a look, the fact is that it is happening all around us right now. Richard On Tuesday, November 28, 2006, at 09:52AM, Lee Goddard [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From P Edwards (Monday, November 27, 2006 11:19 PM): I think it is pretty laughable :-) I am very happy to pay for quality and expensive programming, but being censored from the same, just because of a legal precedent, is almost the ultimate insult, especially if one does have a UK TV license. In my hallucination, it should take one person within Auntie's legal department about a month to change the contracts for content production, add some budget for servers and bandwidth, to make the biggest change to how the BBC works since radio gave way to black and white TV. Probably less time, but I guess the problems isn't that the Beeb can't find the time for contract-updating. I imagine every recording has associated contracts and releases, and often after the initial broadcast and an agreed number of re-broadcastings, the artist release evaporates, and the rights revert to the performers. I can hear the voices of resistance still. There is absolutely no reason not to Hosting all that media, not to mention distributing it at a reasonable rate, is not going
Re: [backstage] Psiphon
On 28/11/06, Kim Plowright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I see your 'written by a Torrent site' and raise you a 'written by a broadcaster' http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6168950.stm Some 43% of Britons who watch video from the internet or on a mobile device at least once a week said they watched less normal TV as a result. Sigh. devil in the detail... same article But online video viewers are still in the minority, with just 9% of the population saying they do it regularly. Another 13% said they watched occasionally, while a further 10% said they expected to start in the coming year. and it's claimed data, which is notoriously unreliable when you ask people if they do something they perceive as being aspirational (which is why you get those surveys saying a third of the UK has a blog...) - 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] Psiphon
On 28/11/06, Richard Hyett [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I trust more the evidence of my own eyes, not some survey that I haven't read. The evidence of my own eyes is that the HiFi in family homes is gathering dust, or has become the ocassional play thing of the senior member, the kids use the computer to listen to their music. All of my nephews and nieces, and I have a lot, know what YouTube is. It seems obvious to me that this transition, led by music will mean that they spend more time on the PC, watching than they do on the TV. Its a generational thing not sure i buy this - Youtube is a *new* media experience - it's active, short form, shareable media at 3 feet most TV view is lean back, immersive, long form - it meets a different, more passive need (and i'm personally happy that my kids are much more interested in active media than passive...) now since there are only so many hours in the day, it's pretty certain that TV's dominance in terms of time (and it's *hugely dominant, even for kids) will be challenged - but yotube won't kill TV - it'll change it, just like TV changed radio, but radio listening is more popular than ever. video didn't kill the radio star - the only media form to die has been cave paintings, and that's cos caves are cold, and we're less scared on wild animals now! - 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] Postcoder
best I can do ,... http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?GridConvert?name=529811,189466type=OSGrid On 16/11/06, Dave Cross [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've got a couple of hundred full UK postcodes that I want to convert to lat/long values. And I thought to myself 1/ Postcoder would be the perfect tool to do that with and 2/ when I was working on Postcoder earlier this year there was lots of talk about releasing the API as part of Backstage. But there were licensing problems. So I just thought I'd ask if those licensing problems were any nearer to being solved and whether the Postcoder API was any closer to being made public. Or, failing that, what other tools do people use to convert postcodes to lat/long? It seems to me that the Google Maps GeoCoder object doesn't understand UK postcodes. Cheers, Dave... - 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] AGH! Cruddy BBC website
Nic, you have my utmost sympathy... On 13/11/06, Nic James Ferrier [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am in a bad mood because all the tech I've tried over the last few days has broken. Even my aga is broken and that is very low tech. [sometimes I think there must be days when a low level magnetic field settles over my house and causes mysterious things to go wrong] So I settle down to watch university challenge as a nice breather from fighting kernel builds on 64 bit and... whadya know? It's that ejit john humphries and his over egged ego trip mastermind. When is university challenge on then? I go look at the BBC site. Type univeristy challenge into search... a whole load of press releases. No programme page though. Select A-Z... index U... no mention of university challenge. Select BBC 2, the home of university challenge, select A-Z of programmes... index U... no university challenge page. Apparently university challenge doesn't run on the BBC. A while ago there was a competition to make a new design for the BBC website embracing web 2.0. It seems to me that the BBC should just do what it should be doing and let me have access to the information I need. After all, that is why I pay my licence fee. Agh! I know this isn't the BBC website helpline... but it's pointless complaining there (I've tried it before) because you just get a load of public sector waffle about serving the audience blah blah blah. It makes me angry when commercial sites don't work. Let alone ones I'm paying for with taxes. -- Nic Ferrier http://www.tapsellferrier.co.uk for all your tapsell ferrier needs - 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] Flickr Photo Map...
http://www.flickr.com/map/london/ Nice... Though I don't understand the logic behind the 'pages' approach - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC Touch
personally, I think it's a fabulous experiment in data. from a news angle? vast amounts of news consumption is people who don't click a link or read a single story - they go to the homepage to check if anything 'important' has happened (usually not). That's editorship, which is different from journalism. But then again, that caveat only really applies to the homepage, so I think Chris' ideas could be more appropriate to a particular index (business, politics etc) where (I'd guess...) far fewer users adopt this nothing big happened - great, I can bugger off qick scanning behaviour. one tip: you can get far better term extraction if you run two or more term extractors (I like Yahoo!'s - and it's an API) over the same story copy and then only use those terms with two or more matches. You get far less noise for not much more effort (Chris Sizemore's idea... not mine...) On 01/11/06, Chris Riley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Matthew, Thanks for your feedback. On the Pakistan thing, I'm not sure, it was just when I glanced at it when writing the mail that stuck in my mind. So you're probably right :o) On your second point about the editorial, completely agree that they shouldn't be ordering stories by popularity (I think I mention in the about page that they shouldn't be striving for 100% or something), but I do still think it is fair to say stories they want us to read about, a story is more likely to be read if the editor has chosen to make it a headline on the news homepage wouldn't you say? As for the popular feed and the data it provides being accumulated with a certain degree of lag between new news and what we've been reading over lunch, yeah, of course you're always going to get that issue, and I completely understand where you're coming from. Similarly saying that its the BBC's ability to write a good headline that's being measured is a fair comment, but I don't believe it provides an unfair popular bias to a story. In part that's why I introduced the automatic subject extraction, to try and help get through that issue and delve into the actual subjects we're choosing to click through (and so show some interest in) vs. those we don't. That way even if you don't read the full story, clicking through registers your interest in the subject. You'll never be able to get away from the fact the journalists are going to write captivating headlines, but if they are consistently doing that, with the main subject in the headline, I'm happy with that. Ultimately its an experiment with the data, and if someone can make use of the data in a new way thanks to my efforts, I'm happy with that. Cheers, Chris On 11/1/06, Matthew Somerville [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Chris Riley wrote, reordered slightly: In particular I think its useful for highlighting issues the public care more about. For instance a couple of says ago whilst Pakistan was the headline, most of us were reading the climate change story. Are you sure Pakistan was the headline? The climate change story became a subheading just after midnight on the 29th, became the main headline around 07:50am, and stayed there, as far as I can tell, right through the 29th and 30th October, until 04:05 on the 31st October when the main headline became the Prince Charles/Pakistan story for around 15 minutes (data from my front page archive: http://www.bbc.co.uk/homearchive/ and my news archive). On the web page you'll see subjects they want us to read about vs. what we're actually reading about for the past 24 hours, and past 2 weeks. they want us to read? That's not the point of the editorial (by which I mean the ordering of stories on the front page) at all, in my view. I have BBC news in my RSS reader, so that gives me the latest news. I click on the ones I want to read, but that shouldn't affect in any way which ones the BBC decide are important. They hopefully weight stories by more than popularity, otherwise all the stories would be about celebrities and kittens? :-) What your site measures (presuming the popular feed goes on page views, which seems likely) is which stories have been clicked on, not read. I frequently click a headline if it sounds interesting, read the first paragraph, decide it isn't or I already know the story, and close the page. If lots of people are like that, then that makes that story a popular story even though it isn't at all. So what you're actually measuring is how good BBC headlines are at getting people to click through. Similarly, if a BBC post gets linked to from Slashdot or Boing Boing, it will almost certainly become a most popular link. But that doesn't mean it is most popular in terms of the what we're actually reading about, just that lots of people read those sites and click links, realise the first paragraph tells them all they need to know, and that's it. Most emailed would perhaps be a better XML feed to use than Most popular, as then at least people have gone out of
Re: [backstage] BBC Catalogue
all ready to go, just waiting for signoff from les grandes fromages Any news on this? Oli On Sun, 2006-10-01 at 21:38 +0100, Tom Loosemore wrote: soon... i'll ask tomorrow On 01/10/06, Oliver Cole [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, I was looking at doing something with the Programme Catalogue ( http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax ), but it has now entered a review phase and is therefore currently unavailable. ( http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/contributor/809 ). Given that the contact information appears to have entered the same review+unavailability phase, I wondered if any of the BBC people on here could let me know when it might be back online? Thanks, Oli - 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: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC news ticker in Second Life
cool - got a screengrab handy? On 03/10/06, Mario Menti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In case there's any Second Lifers on this list, I thought I'd mention a little experiment I did last night - created a very simple BBC news ticker that cycles through the latest/newest 10 news items and displays the headlines. For details and teleport/location see http://menti.net/?p=13 It really is incredibly basic, but more features could of course be added (initially thinking of hooks to launch web browser, and the facility to select which flavour of the BBC news feed the screen should display. Cheers, Mario. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC news ticker in Second Life
cool - got a screengrab handy? Hi Tom - there's one linked from the post I mentioned, but here's a direct link: http://menti.net/bbcnewsticker.jpg Doh. I'll get my coat... ta! -t - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC news ticker in Second Life
On 03/10/06, Mario Menti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 10/3/06, Ian Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Nice stuff Mario, I will check it out next time I'm in second life. Can you add some detail how you did it? I've only looked at the scripting language in second life briefly. Just a thought, if you used the AV News RSS feeds, you could link to the stream which would actually stream into Second life? Or maybe not? Hi Ian, as I said, it's very basic... as there is still no way to display HTML as textures on a prim (a Second Life object), I use my own server (outside Second Life) to get the newest 10 headlines and create a .jpg for each headline. The object in Second Life uses the LSL (Linden scripting language) to make the http requests, and replace its texture with the updated media resource. Simple eh? Re. the AV stream, for streaming in Second Life it would have to be a format supported by Quicktime, which (unless I'm mistaken) the BBC feeds aren't? Mario. Only on the multicast trial (recent versions of QT support H264) http://support.bbc.co.uk/multicast/streams.html How does live video streaming work in Second life? Do you need to go via a proxy? There's also the odd news-related mp4 video downloads available as part of the podcast trial http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4977678.stm (not *exactly* Second Life fodder, but you never know.. there's always space for some highbrow amid all the pron and gambling) - 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/
