Interesting Stuff 02.05.2008
Post categories: round up
| 01:06 UK time, Friday, 2 May 2008
from SecurityRatty [Correction 1243 - the comes from Stuart King at Computer Weekly].
"The 91Èȱ¬'s Digital Media Initiative is perhaps the biggest change project on Little's agenda." From in IT Week about the 91Èȱ¬'s Chief Information Officer, Keith Little.
"One in seven visits to online radio websites are to 91Èȱ¬ Radio One" .
from .
The 91Èȱ¬'s Dan Taylor tv character blogs. Dan's also created .
And finally, some people are passionately opposed to the 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer's use of Microsoft Windows on its download service. So I was intrigued by this thread on the iPlayer message board. "smppms"'s anti-Windows arguments are comprehensively scrutinised by "The_Phazer".
Nick Reynolds is editor, 91Èȱ¬ Internet Blog.
Comment number 1.
At 2nd May 2008, _Ewan_ wrote:'smppms' certainly made some errors of fact, but his core point is still good; the Windows iPlayer is a waste of money (what percentage of iPlayer usage was it again? About 10?), it does lock users into a proprietary platform, and it does support a convicted monopolist. The 'most people have Windows' argument completely misses the point - it's the fact that most people have to have it that makes it a monopoly in the first place.
There's also the more basic principle that we now know that the underlying motivation for using Windows DRM was a mistake; the case made was that the rights holders wouldn't stand for the 91Èȱ¬ making programmes available in a DRM free standard format. Now, thanks to the Flash iPlayer and the iPhone iPlayer, we know that actually, they will.
The 91Èȱ¬ has a responsibility to make it's services as widely accessible as possible, and a single, open, standard format would enable that by allowing players to be created for every platform. Windows included.
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Comment number 2.
At 2nd May 2008, Sam Jacobs wrote:It's interesting that rather than trying to further prevent the use of tools like xbmc-iplayer, the 91Èȱ¬ instead invite its creator, David Johnson, to speak to staff.
Obviously the 91Èȱ¬ aren't going to be supporting this sort of thing, but this sends out the signal that it *is* acceptable. I for one would love to see an iPlayer plugin for MythTV or Front Row, for example.
Sam
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Comment number 3.
At 6th May 2008, The Phazer wrote:"'smppms' certainly made some errors of fact, but his core point is still good;"
No, it isn't.
"the Windows iPlayer is a waste of money (what percentage of iPlayer usage was it again? About 10?),"
So, used by a bigger percentage of the using population than all the non-Windows operating systems put together then. Are they a waste of money too?
"it does lock users into a proprietary platform,"
I think it's safe to say that "locking" users into a proprietary platform for all of the remainder of their seven days isn't very significant.
"and it does support a convicted monopolist."
Who cares?
"The 'most people have Windows' argument completely misses the point - it's the fact that most people have to have it that makes it a monopoly in the first place."
That's not really a point, more a whinge.
"There's also the more basic principle that we now know that the underlying motivation for using Windows DRM was a mistake; the case made was that the rights holders wouldn't stand for the 91Èȱ¬ making programmes available in a DRM free standard format. Now, thanks to the Flash iPlayer and the iPhone iPlayer, we know that actually, they will."
No, they won't - that's rubbish. Streaming already has the best DRM in the world - it's streaming, and thus it expires the second the 91Èȱ¬ takes it down. That IS DRM. No one has to the best of my knowledge managed to capture the Flash content yet. The 91Èȱ¬ have take all the actions it can to stop the iPhone player being downloaded (as it is illegal to do so and puts the 91Èȱ¬ in breach of it's licence conditions). The only reason the iPhone player streams in mp4 is because, used legitimately, there's no way on an iPhone to capture the stream.
"The 91Èȱ¬ has a responsibility to make it's services as widely accessible as possible, and a single, open, standard format would enable that by allowing players to be created for every platform. Windows included."
No, it wouldn’t - because it's impossible rights wise. An open, standard format allows it to be captured, and if it can be captured easily the service gets a court injunction from rights holders that day shutting it down. That simple.
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