I'd be curious what folks in Open Knowledge circles think about: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/977a1954-658f-4fb2-a23c-71680c49882f
Should public broadcasters be more open with their streams?? You have to look at the comments: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/977a1954-658f-4fb2-a23c-71680c49882f?sortBy=HighestRating&sortOrder=Descending&filter=none#comments The highest rated one: 80. Posted byCJ_Epping <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/977a1954-658f-4fb2-a23c-71680c49882f?sortBy=HighestRating&sortOrder=Descending&filter=none#> on10 Feb 2015 22:52 Firstly thankyou for your open approach to discussion via this blog. Often these are faceless decisions. Being accountable results in a lot of personal grief! I’m afraid however that I won’t help on that count as I must tackle some of the arguments put forward to justify this strategy. Quoting from an email from Audience Services received earlier: ‘… we had to make choices around standardisation. We have decided to use the http streaming formats HLS, HDS and DASH.’ HDS and HLS are proprietary protocols restricting usage to certain applications (discredited and insecure Adobe Flash & Apple for mobile OS). DASH is a similarly complex future solution that is not supported by current equipment. You are standardising yes, but on formats that can’t be used by hardware internet radio steaming devices because you are forging your own path, and seemingly focussing on desktop & mobile devices which aren’t designed to reproduce the high quality streams you are making available to them (and waste power!). ‘We began communicating our plans to internet radio manufacturers over 12 months ago. HLS streams are now available to internet radios and aggregators that wish to use them.’ As above, was it realistic to expect manufacturers to invest money on new formats just because the BBC decides to go its own way? Pushing blame onto manufacturers for lack of adoption does not absolve you of responsibility to your listeners. You didn’t need to choose these protocols. The BBC can modify its stance. ‘We have kept a single shoutcast stream of every live service to support devices that will never be able to play HLS, HDS or DASH streams. Whist we cannot promise to support shoutcast for more than 1 to 2 years, we will monitor the number of users and the quality of our service and base our decision making on the impact to the audience.’ People are upset that you have removed the main reason many of them bought internet radios – to listen to the highest quality source for BBC Radio. I would respectfully suggest that even basic internet radios bought within the last 3 years have AAC-LC support at 320kbps. A reduction from 320kbps AAC to 128kbps MP3 for Radio 3 (sub-DAB quality) must be acknowledged as a significant reduction for people who may have invested hundreds of pounds in HiFi streamers. The need to give listeners what they pay for has to trump your need to track the platform they are using surely? And you are further threatening them with being cut off from the remaining MP3 lifeline in 1 years time. The argument that you have to use 128kbps only because the streams are also there for international usage doesn’t provide comfort to UK based licence fee payers. And apparently these streams are already having breakup problems. Absolute Radio manage to broadcast 7 stations of AAC+ @ 128kbps on (dareisay) a fraction of your budget. Is it really that hard to publish the AAC URLs? ‘I hope that manufacturers will be able to support our new streams or upgrade existing devices as time goes on’ Unfortunately this sums up this decision – keep our fingers crossed and hope the fuss blows over. AND this one caught my eye: 297. Posted byPrisca <http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/entries/977a1954-658f-4fb2-a23c-71680c49882f?sortBy=HighestRating&sortOrder=Descending&filter=none#> on12 Feb 2015 14:38 Just registered to comment on this issue. I feel the pain of all the Squeezebox/internet radio fans, but please spare a thought for those of the blind community. My husband uses a suite of applications written and provided free for the blind by Dr Alistair King at Manchester university. These include a radio tuner, which was used daily by my husband. This no longer works. He also had radio access via his Android phone provided by a company called Telorion, who provide a modified Android OS specifically for the blind. The radio function no longer works. He could also receive radio via his book reader, Victor Stream. Surprise, surprise, this also no longer works. He is now unable to access radio at all. He cannot use the main radio site as the link to play live radio is based on Flash, which his screen reader cannot read. Great, thanks BBC. The blind community rely on radio. There are a lot of very unhappy people around today. Thanks, Steve
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