Wont they learn?

It seems now that BBC can get around the criticisms about being too Microsoft by now jumping in bed with Apple.

When will they learn the crux of the problem wasn't Microsoft but proprietary software and hardware in general. They need to be getting their content in a portable, open form not just another crappy proprietary form.

A lot of people want to watch BBC content but opening it up to the iPhone without opening it up to a format you can play on say a Nokia phone stinks of anti-competitiveness. What right does Apple have to reap the benefits of license payer produced content over other companies?

The BBC really needs to be forced to answer for handing increased profits to specific large companies like this, it's simply not acceptable. I don't like the idea that my license fee is indirectly helping Apple and Microsoft's profits. Frankly, if the BBC want to keep making deals like this they need to get Apple and Microsoft to pay them for the benefit and drop our license fees as a result.

Is the p2p definition open?

Is the spec of iPlayer p2p service open?

No need to keep it secret, they could protect their 'UK only' remit, by only doing p2p tracking for UK IP addresses, and open the spec. to iPlayer itself.

Once they've opened the spec up to iPlayer, then it's a doddle for people to make clients in generic open code for p2p, Mpeg4. All the code is already there to do it, it just needs to be strung together with a few wrappers to make it work with the bbc's service.

That code could be *everywhere*, a lot of those networked set top boxes are nothing but stripped linux distributions, and could run that code.

It wouldn't be long before iPlayer support would be everywhere.

Imagine if you then charged to do p2p tracking on non UK IP addresses via BBC World commercial services.... you'd leave iTunes in the dust. They could get access to every little market worldwide and sell their content direct to customers.

(While of course serving it free to UK IP addresses).

You could serve up free p2p trackers to UK ip addresses, but charge for the non uk tracker access, and that would have a much wider market than they can dream of.

Yes please!

The headline for this article is a bit deceiving as Flash can play H.264 files anyway (as mentioned in the article itself!).

This is starting to look more like the sort of service which people expected in the first place. Something which can operate on a variety of systems, instead of being restricted to the awful first version which restricted you to IE only.

Lost the Plot

It's only now that I've succumbed and bought a Wii (yes, you <i>can</i> make fat, bald, middle-aged, spectacle-wearing 'mii' avatars) that I'm starting to understand what the Reg and others have been saying about the BBC losing the plot on this one.

I don't want to watch telly on my computer, nor full-length programmes on my mobile device (short news bulletins and sports clips maybe). I DO want to watch telly on my telly. How many Wiis, PS3s, and XBoxes are there around the country plugged into tellies? The Wii has the Opera browser, but if you go to the iPlayer site, there isn't a suitable plugin. Instead of concentrating on Microsoft PCs and the half-dozen or so iPhones that have been sold, maybe they should be working with the console manufacturers...?

streams to downloads ratio expected to change - why ?

If I stream somthing then I can watch it immediately, if I download then I hammer my ISPs traffic management quota and have to wait several hours, why do they think people will want to move from streaming to downlaods ?

Linux.

I'm all for higher quality but will it work on my Ubuntu laptop?

EDGE ?

"iPlayer availability on the iPhone will be via Wi-Fi only as O2's EDGE data network is too slow"

What about all the other phone networks ? The iPhone works on them fine, doesn't it ?

Never mind that iPhone is getting the full flash player 'shortly'.

And as to x86_64 linux and Flash, either use the popular plugin wrapper, a 32-bit browser, Konqueror or wait. It's not like there is a 64bit Player for Windows either :-)

Let people download it without DRM

Just let people download it, it's not exactly hard to record the MPEG2 TS stream and get a full quality video file ready to burn to DVD.

If the BBC are so worried about DVD sales then their business model is wrong.

@Andrew West

I get exactly the same on my girlfriend's Mac (10.4) but haven't seen it on my Windows PCs, I haven't used it on Win much, and haven't bothered on linux as I run Linux in a VM.

It seems that you can make the constant buffering 'spinning dots' go away by moving out of full screen mode, pausing, unpausing, waiting for the buffering to complete and back into full screen again. Or something like that at least...

flash iplayer

After a few sessions playing with 4od/sky anytime/bbc iplayer, I've decided not to go anywhere near all that corporate p2p again. However, the flash iplayer is fast and quality is adequate. For something that was tacked on at the last minute, it's probably the thing that's saved the iplayer's reputation.

I don't know how fast the o2 edge actually is, but bored in Birmingham airport, and refusing to pay a fiver for an hours wifi, i found out that my laptop connected to my t-mobile phone as a modem via bluetooth was fast enough to watch the iplayer anyway.

And...

I can't wait to see how quickly the H.264 format flattens the batteries :->

@Neil

Your console is a computer, therefore you do want to watch telly on your computer.

I love watching telly on my computer. Instead of the crap EPGs you get with Freeview boxen, I have a lovely customisable open source EPG, a lovely MCE backlit remote control, I can record from 2 or more channels on the same mux at the same time to a hard drive and can stream telly around the house (or to my phone should I wish) at will. Plus I can watch iPlayer stuff through a browser window built in to the MediaCentre software I'm using, in a way similar to using a browser on a Wii....What's not to love about watching telly on a computer???

BBC are considering other platforms

I have a Neuros OSD, which has support for YouTube and, according to Neuros' website, is being considered by the BBC as an iPlayer platform. I would have thought that the principle is relatively simple where the Flash player is concerned as if the platform can run one, it should be able to run any Flash based viewer, so the BBC are at least looking at other platforms.

NO complaints here

So i'll be able to watch Beeb stuff almost anywhere now on my iTouch?

Fantastic!

@David Webb

If there's only 8 of them, you should be able to name them, yes?

HD DVD had a LOT more protection against pirates than the BBC can afford to have delivered to UK citizens. It is still cracked.

DRM doesn't stop pirates and once there's ONE copy out there without DRM, there are an indefinite number out there without DRM.

DRM does make implementation, reception and legitimate use more difficult and/or expensive and/or error prone.

Dirac

The Dirac codec is impressive, although it still requires optimisation.

It's open source GPL too.

BBC B?

Will it soon work on my BBC B? I can run in mode 0 (HD) while I'm watching TV, if it helps.

@ Giles Jones and @ Craig

Giles: "If the BBC are so worried about DVD sales then their business model is wrong."

It is not the BBC who are worried, it's the rights owners. Don't conflate the two.

Craig: "For something that was tacked on at the last minute"

Wrong, it was on the plan way back in 2007, don't believe everything you read, here or elsewhere. But don't take it from me.

Video Recorders, DVD recorders, HDD Recorders,.....

Who needs 7 day prayback when I have What's on TV, a Sky+ box and DVD Recorder.

I can happly play back in any room in the house with a DVD Player and even rip them down to my PC in any format I like for playback on my PSP/Phone/iThang*

Plus I don't have to worry about buffering, ISP data caps, or waiting hours for programmes to download.

Get with the programme people, plan ahead.

* delete as appropriate

@Neil Hoskins

It's because the version of Opera on the Wii only has support for Flash 7

http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2007/04/13/wii-browser-out-but-why-flash-7-and-not-8-or-9

So, it's more of an issue with Adobe, rather than the BBC, I'd say.

Re: Dirac

It will probably be LGPL.

You can include the Dirac codec library dynamically and keep your player closed if you want. If you make your player work only with your specific (or one specific) then you've made a derivative so you'd have to open it up (which means for the user, they can upgrade to the latest version of Dirac whether the manufacturer wants to make them pay for the upgrade or not).

It probably won't be BSD'd because the BSD doesn't address patents, either ones placed in code you the patent owner own under BSD or patents someone else takes out after the fact on your code. Either one making BSDing the code worthless under any modern "IP" regime. For that reason, it probably won't be LGPL2 either. It doesn't cover all the patent issues either, and is less compliant with other licenses than LGPL3.

And if it were GPL, you'd not be able to use it with any other program that was incompatible with the version of GPL used for the library, so that's a non-starter (Trolltech do this so that there's a market for their commercial closed license code that is the *exact same* as their GPL'd code).

I can't wait to watch it in bed without overheating the laptop!

A story which has finally made me register!

When it comes to any of these public services I always do the 'could my mother do it' and I think this is a great step forward! I've loved the iPlayer from the start but the streaming service really marked the beginning of what could truly revolutionise the way some people watch telly. Allowing even more people to access the service in as simple a way as possible is undoubtedly a wonderful thing. To be honest I've never found a mobile device that I can imagine enjoying watching video on more that the iPhone/Touch (except maybe the PSP) so I think opening the iPlayer up to users of these devices is a great thing. I'm sure I read that the majority of mobile browsing was done using mobile Safari - surely it makes sense to open up a mobile version of the iPlayer to this market first?

The vast vast vast majority of people (so I'll respectfully ignore the Linux fanboys) don't really need to care what format the service is delivered in anyway as long as its relatively simple to use.

Marcus

H.264 MPEG4s also play fine on the PS3, many telephones and free media players like VLC. H.264 is, of course, also heavily used in Blu-Ray and AVC devices like modern HD and flash-based camcorders.