On 6/11/07 18:29, "vijay chopra" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I notice Ashley's misleading people again. From his blog-post: > "We do maximise the reach of our services by distributing our content via > closed or prioprietary networks (Virgin Media, Sky, Tiscali TV/HomeChoice, > mobile platforms, etc.)" > > The BBC doesn't distribute programs via Sky, it distributes them via the Astra > Satalite using the DRM free DVB-S standard; I don't have to get a sky > subscription to view the BBCs digital satalite content, just a satalite dish > and a decoder box. > Similarly with Virgin Media IIRC the BBC signal can be picked up using any > old DVB-C decoder. It's not encrypted in either case. I can't comment on the > other platforms he lists, but if he's wrong about the first two why should I > believe him about the others? > Virgin Media and Sky are proprietary networks because a user requires a Sky or Virgin proprietary receiver to take full benefit of all of all of their services, not just video/audio. For example, EPG, channel list, interactive services, pay-per-view content etc.. The DVB parts of the network are open but a significant amount of the rest of the platform is closed. For the average user, this extra network data is important as, for example, they don¹t want to be typing in a transponder frequency just to change channel. In the case of the Sky network, Sky network-specific data is carried in the BBC transport stream that is up-linked via Astra alongside the open video and audio streams. The BBC distributes EPG data and interactive services to both Sky and Virgin according to the network¹s proprietary formats. To contrast this with an entirely open and non-proprietary network, look at the differences between Sky and Freeview (DVB-T). I believe Ashley Highfield is correct here because he uses the word ³network². Richard -- Dr Richard Cartwright media systems architect portability4media.com
