Re: [backstage] Mail archives
On 25 Jan 2010, at 14:27, Mo McRoberts wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 12:43, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I agree but there was no clear idea what we should do except maybe move the whole thing to Mailman? There was a consensus for Mailman, although I don't think anybody hates Majordomo enough to stamp feet over it! I hate Majordomo enough to stamp feet over it. ;-) 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/
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 25 Jan 2010, at 18:59, Barry Carlyon wrote: (have they finished the HTML 5 Spec yet?) The definitive answer to this common question is here: http://www.w3.org/html/wg/#sched The short answer is no. But that doesn't stop people from implementing bits of it in browsers of course, despite the associated issues for web developers and end users. 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/
Re: [backstage] Mail archives
IMHO Majordomo is the IE6 of discussion software. Or perhaps it should be the MS-DOS 3.3? 2010/1/26 Stephen Jolly st...@jollys.org On 25 Jan 2010, at 14:27, Mo McRoberts wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 12:43, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I agree but there was no clear idea what we should do except maybe move the whole thing to Mailman? There was a consensus for Mailman, although I don't think anybody hates Majordomo enough to stamp feet over it! I hate Majordomo enough to stamp feet over it. ;-) 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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] Mail archives
Alright Steve and Brian I get the message :) Secret[] Private[] Public[x] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 26 January 2010 09:35 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Mail archives IMHO Majordomo is the IE6 of discussion software. Or perhaps it should be the MS-DOS 3.3? 2010/1/26 Stephen Jolly st...@jollys.org On 25 Jan 2010, at 14:27, Mo McRoberts wrote: On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 12:43, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I agree but there was no clear idea what we should do except maybe move the whole thing to Mailman? There was a consensus for Mailman, although I don't think anybody hates Majordomo enough to stamp feet over it! I hate Majordomo enough to stamp feet over it. ;-) 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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Open source H.264 isn't pursued by MPEG-LA anyway. The issue of encoders is fine, you just use x264 (which is the project I work on), which is the best H.264 encoder in the world in the majority of use-cases. - You work on the x.264 project? Tell us more... I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? - 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] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/is-the-world-ready-for-the-successor-of-the-mp3/ This is meant to make music piricay less tempting, so they say. I just can't understand why someone hasn't made a decent XML format to describe related items to a local or even remote tune/media. Yes I've looked at itunesLP and came away feeling a bit dirty (http://ituneslp.net/tutorials/). Maybe I should Lazyweb this one? :) Cheers, Secret[] Private[] Public[x] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ - 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] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. M. - 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] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
OH I see :) hummm, for reason I thought there was also a codec based on H.264 call x.264 Secret[] Private[x] Public[] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 26 January 2010 12:55 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists? On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. M. - 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] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 13:01, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/is-the-world-ready-for-the-successor-of-the-mp3/ This is meant to make music piricay less tempting, so they say. Yes, cut off your remaining source of revenue for people who don't buy the stuff by making it harder for them to get up-to-date gig listings and such. I just can't understand why someone hasn't made a decent XML format to describe related items to a local or even remote tune/media. Yes I've looked at itunesLP and came away feeling a bit dirty (http://ituneslp.net/tutorials/). iTunes LP is really just a variant of iTunes Extras, whose aim was to bring DVD-like content to iTunes movies - LP was a convenient re-purposing of it... The answer is probably 'what's the point?' -- the number of people who need to support it in order for it to be in any way successful is staggering, which is what's likely to kill MusicDNA. I'm not really sure why they're calling it the successor the MP3. AFAICT, it's a bit of metadata tacked onto an otherwise normal MP3, not dissimilar to an ID3 tag. Last I looked, AAC was the successor to MP3 :) M. - 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] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
It seemed like one of those next generation internet stories that appear from time to time, viz http://ow.ly/10zCj User benefits = zero, adoption likelihood = zero 2010/1/26 Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 13:01, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/is-the-world-ready-for-the-successor-of-the-mp3/ This is meant to make music piricay less tempting, so they say. Yes, cut off your remaining source of revenue for people who don't buy the stuff by making it harder for them to get up-to-date gig listings and such. I just can't understand why someone hasn't made a decent XML format to describe related items to a local or even remote tune/media. Yes I've looked at itunesLP and came away feeling a bit dirty ( http://ituneslp.net/tutorials/). iTunes LP is really just a variant of iTunes Extras, whose aim was to bring DVD-like content to iTunes movies - LP was a convenient re-purposing of it... The answer is probably 'what's the point?' -- the number of people who need to support it in order for it to be in any way successful is staggering, which is what's likely to kill MusicDNA. I'm not really sure why they're calling it the successor the MP3. AFAICT, it's a bit of metadata tacked onto an otherwise normal MP3, not dissimilar to an ID3 tag. Last I looked, AAC was the successor to MP3 :) M. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
The H comes from the CCITT (now ITU-T) subcommittee that defined the standard. The H committee was for multimedia, as I recall. They also had the X standards (X400, X500), Q standards like ISDN, E for telephone plans, the PSTN cloud is Signalling System number 7, named after the Q.7 committees, JPEG was from the T committee and so on. Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. 2010/1/26 Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk OH I see :) hummm, for reason I thought there was also a codec based on H.264 call x.264 Secret[] Private[x] Public[] Ian Forrester Senior Backstage Producer BBC RD North Lab, 1st Floor Office, OB Base, New Broadcasting House, Oxford Road, Manchester, M60 1SJ -Original Message- From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Mo McRoberts Sent: 26 January 2010 12:55 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists? On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 12:48, Ian Forrester ian.forres...@bbc.co.uk wrote: I've always been interested how x.264 and h.264 related to each other and co-exist. Is its simply a case like how Divx and Xvid work together or is there more ? [the question wasn't directed at me, but...] I'm not sure I follow? x264 is an encoder, H.264 is the specification. Just like Schroedinger/Dirac, or LAME/MP3. M. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
Ian Forrester wrote: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/01/is-the-world-ready-for-the-successor-of-the-mp3/ This is meant to make music piricay less tempting, so they say. There's an off-putting quote in this report about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8478310.stm We can deliver a file that is extremely searchable and can carry up to 32GB of extra information in the file itself. And it will be dynamically updatable so that every time the user is connected, his file will be updated. Uh-oh. There goes my bandwidth if I start iTunes and it decides to check and update my 12,000 tracks. Never mind the potential for more Kindle-1984 scenarios. -- Frank Wales [fr...@limov.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] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
On 26 Jan 2010, at 13:15, Mo McRoberts wrote: Last I looked, AAC was the successor to MP3 :) Yeah, or MP3Pro. There are no shortage of wannabe successors... 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/
Re: [backstage] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
Storage and bandwidth is almost getting to the point where we could use raw PCM... 2010/1/26 Stephen Jolly st...@jollys.org On 26 Jan 2010, at 13:15, Mo McRoberts wrote: Last I looked, AAC was the successor to MP3 :) Yeah, or MP3Pro. There are no shortage of wannabe successors... 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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 15:41, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Storage and bandwidth is almost getting to the point where we could use raw PCM... Well, there's not a lot of point when there's lossless compression which can contain metadata (FLAC[0], ALAC, etc) :) M. [0] I *think* FLAC supports embedded metadata? haven't used it in years, to be honest. - 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] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:17:34 +, Brian wrote: snip Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. Re DivX and Xvid ... while it is true that the spelling is reversed ... my recollection is that this is not because decoding is the reverse of encoding. I thought it was a joke name because of the open source community unhappiness with DivX Inc (used to be DivXNetworks Inc) withdrawing source code from the OpenDivX project that they started. Paul - 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] Freeview HD Content Management
People might be interested that in the ORG perspective: Original Message Subject: Re: [ORG-discuss] ofcom drm bbc consultation - redux Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:14:47 + From: Jim Killock j...@openrightsgroup.org Reply-To: Open Rights Group open discussion list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org To: Open Rights Group open discussion list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org References: 117182.75425...@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com Just to say, Cory, myself and others met with Ofcom to discuss this. I don't think they had a full idea of the likely impacts, or the game playing that is going on. What is needed now is a wide coalition including potentially affected device manufacturers and software engineers to show the impacts on them. If anyone has contacts like these, please let me know. On 22 Jan 2010, at 12:19, Glyn Wintle wrote: Ofcom, following the great idea of asking the same question enough times till you get the answer you want, have published a new consultation. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/content_mngt/condoc.pdf http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/01/freeview_hd_content_management.html ___ ORG-discuss mailing list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org http://lists.openrightsgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/org-discuss To unsubscribe, send a blank email to org-discuss-le...@lists.openrightsgroup.org Jim Killock Executive Director Open Rights Group +44 (0) 7894 498 127 Skype: jimkillock http://twitter.com/jimkillock http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ ___ ORG-discuss mailing list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org http://lists.openrightsgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/org-discuss To unsubscribe, send a blank email to org-discuss-le...@lists.openrightsgroup.org Nick Reynolds-FMT wrote: People on the list may be interested in this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/01/freeview_hd_content_manag ement.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] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
Surely there is a point, because Moore's Law is exponential where it just becomes too much hassle to do the encoding and decoding because storing and carrying the data raw will have reached free. 2010/1/26 Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 15:41, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Storage and bandwidth is almost getting to the point where we could use raw PCM... Well, there's not a lot of point when there's lossless compression which can contain metadata (FLAC[0], ALAC, etc) :) M. [0] I *think* FLAC supports embedded metadata? haven't used it in years, to be honest. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 15:58, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net wrote: People might be interested that in the ORG perspective: For what it's worth, I was in discussions with Jim prior to that meeting, and put together a document for him outlining the situation and the issues that I'd turned up (obviously quite a bit of it had come up discussions here and on the bbcinternet blog). I hope it went some way in helping. If I remember later, I'll dig it out and post it to this thread. It made for a reasonable semi-executive summary, even if it wasn't quite as diplomatic as it might be if it were addressed to BBC senior management, for example ;) M. - 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] Freeview HD Content Management
Out of interest, has anyone done a proper legal search on the proposals? I'm under the impression that the mandate that puts all public service content out without any form of proection is in primary legislation, various Broadcasting Acts and Wireless Telegraphy Acts. Ofcom's powers are limited to those provided to it under the Communications Act 2003 and the set-up act Office of *Communications Act* 2002. Ofcom only has power to issue licences that are legal, it does not have the power to change the primary legislation. Or have I missed something obvious here? 2010/1/26 Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net People might be interested that in the ORG perspective: Original Message Subject: Re: [ORG-discuss] ofcom drm bbc consultation - redux Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:14:47 + From: Jim Killock j...@openrightsgroup.org Reply-To: Open Rights Group open discussion list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org To: Open Rights Group open discussion list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org References: 117182.75425...@web52707.mail.re2.yahoo.com Just to say, Cory, myself and others met with Ofcom to discuss this. I don't think they had a full idea of the likely impacts, or the game playing that is going on. What is needed now is a wide coalition including potentially affected device manufacturers and software engineers to show the impacts on them. If anyone has contacts like these, please let me know. On 22 Jan 2010, at 12:19, Glyn Wintle wrote: Ofcom, following the great idea of asking the same question enough times till you get the answer you want, have published a new consultation. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/content_mngt/condoc.pdf http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/01/freeview_hd_content_management.html ___ ORG-discuss mailing list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org http://lists.openrightsgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/org-discuss To unsubscribe, send a blank email to org-discuss-le...@lists.openrightsgroup.org Jim Killock Executive Director Open Rights Group +44 (0) 7894 498 127 Skype: jimkillock http://twitter.com/jimkillock http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ ___ ORG-discuss mailing list org-disc...@lists.openrightsgroup.org http://lists.openrightsgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/org-discuss To unsubscribe, send a blank email to org-discuss-le...@lists.openrightsgroup.org Nick Reynolds-FMT wrote: People on the list may be interested in this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2010/01/freeview_hd_content_manag ement.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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
There should have been another sentence in my post, sorry. Yes, xvid being divx backwards is a geeky joke. 2010/1/26 Paul Webster p...@dabdig.com On Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:17:34 +, Brian wrote: snip Aside from this XVID is DIVX backwards. This is because all the ITU-T standards are DECODING standards, not encoding ones. This is to allow commercial operators to create their own encoders, with the decoding being in the public domain. Re DivX and Xvid ... while it is true that the spelling is reversed ... my recollection is that this is not because decoding is the reverse of encoding. I thought it was a joke name because of the open source community unhappiness with DivX Inc (used to be DivXNetworks Inc) withdrawing source code from the OpenDivX project that they started. Paul - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
On 26 Jan 2010, at 16:22, Brian Butterworth wrote: Surely there is a point, because Moore's Law is exponential where it just becomes too much hassle to do the encoding and decoding because storing and carrying the data raw will have reached free. Yeah, but OTOH the processing power to do the encoding and decoding is also free. 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/
Re: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management
On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 16:26, Brian Butterworth briant...@freeview.tv wrote: Out of interest, has anyone done a proper legal search on the proposals? I'm under the impression that the mandate that puts all public service content out without any form of proection is in primary legislation, various Broadcasting Acts and Wireless Telegraphy Acts. Ofcom's powers are limited to those provided to it under the Communications Act 2003 and the set-up act Office of Communications Act 2002. Ofcom only has power to issue licences that are legal, it does not have the power to change the primary legislation. Or have I missed something obvious here? I did do some digging, though IANAL and it was only a cursory high-level search (and it was a while ago) From memory, though, and this is just my skim-understanding: primary legislation covers EPG services as well as TV channels themselves and in much the same way to one another. Ofcom issues licenses for both, and both are bound by similar (and in many cases identical) rules. So, even if you accept that the programmes will be broadcast in the clear, this doesn't change the fact that EPG data isn't unregulated. Now, what I don't know is: a) whether the fact that the EPG data is broadcast by a wholly-owned subsidiary rather than the Corporation makes any difference b) whether the PSB obligation applies to the EPG data in the first place (I'd guess yes, but would prefer confirmation of this) c) whether you'd need to mount a legal challenge in court to prove any of it if it turned out that Ofcom didn't, in fact, have the authority M. - 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] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
There should have been another sentence in my post, sorry. Yes, xvid being divx backwards is a geeky joke. Of course DivX ;-) in itself was a sly homage to a doomed-to-fail industry attempt :D And before XviD, once upon a time its parent was called Project Mayo... Remember that heady time of multiple competing codecs, MS-MPEG4 ASP, DivX ;-), XviD, 3ivX... How did we all manage before ffdshow? ;)
Re: [backstage] MusicDNA and ItunesLP
True. However it would remove any legal problems with the file format, as it is not covered by any patent. There must be some point in the not-distant future that raw-WAV would just emerge again for simplicity. 2010/1/26 Stephen Jolly st...@jollys.org On 26 Jan 2010, at 16:22, Brian Butterworth wrote: Surely there is a point, because Moore's Law is exponential where it just becomes too much hassle to do the encoding and decoding because storing and carrying the data raw will have reached free. Yeah, but OTOH the processing power to do the encoding and decoding is also free. 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/ -- Brian Butterworth follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management
Interesting. 2010/1/26 Mo McRoberts m...@nevali.net I did do some digging, though IANAL and it was only a cursory high-level search (and it was a while ago) From memory, though, and this is just my skim-understanding: primary legislation covers EPG services as well as TV channels themselves and in much the same way to one another. Ofcom issues licenses for both, and both are bound by similar (and in many cases identical) rules. So, even if you accept that the programmes will be broadcast in the clear, this doesn't change the fact that EPG data isn't unregulated. The Ofcom document states: 5.9.2 A commitment to establishing an “appeals” process whereby viewers who believe their lawful usage is being impinged by the BBC’s use of content management can raise their concerns to the BBC, rather than having to write to the Secretary of State, which is the current legal requirement; 10.1 These raised a number of potentially significant questions regarding compliance with copyright law and competition issues that were not addressed in our original letter. 3.16.1 An undertaking to respect current user protections enshrined in copyright law and any future extension of these protections, such as those recommended by the Gower’s Review of Intellectual Property; 5.9.1 An undertaking that the BBC will respect current usage protections under copyright law and any future extension of these protections, such as thoserecommended by the Gower’s Review of Intellectual Property18 and A.2.3 The signalling of content management states by broadcasters in respect of any programme does not indicate any form of entitlement to copy or distribute this content.The responsibility resides with citizens and consumers to respect all rights associated with video and audio works. It should be noted that the content management approach implemented for Freeview HD will frequently enable far more extensive copying and distribution of broadcast content than is likely to be considered acceptable to the majority of rights-holders or is legitimate under current UK law. Now, what I don't know is: a) whether the fact that the EPG data is broadcast by a wholly-owned subsidiary rather than the Corporation makes any difference I'm quite sure that's not the case as the company is wholly owned by the BBC. b) whether the PSB obligation applies to the EPG data in the first place (I'd guess yes, but would prefer confirmation of this) Both the BBC and Ofcom would think so, because they would not have had to consult. The BBC could have just done it if the corporation's lawyers had said it was just OK. c) whether you'd need to mount a legal challenge in court to prove any of it if it turned out that Ofcom didn't, in fact, have the authority I'm sure at the very least you would need a proper solicitor's letter, rather than the word of a blogger. But the BBC seems to be arguing that the BBC *must* have the ability to protect the output of Freeview HD devices to comply with the law. I have a Rumpole voice in my head asking the Director General ...but you have run the Freeview service for over a decade without this protection, are you telling the court that you were not complying with the law then, sir? M. - 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 follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/briantist web: http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
Re: [backstage] Freeview HD Content Management
On 26-Jan-2010, at 17:20, Brian Butterworth wrote: It should be noted that the content management approach implemented for Freeview HD will frequently enable far more extensive copying and distribution of broadcast content than is likely to be considered acceptable to the majority of rights-holders or is legitimate under current UK law. That’s a slightly dubious interpretation (well, apart from the “considered acceptable to the majority of rights-holders”). Time-shifting (which is only permitted for HD content under a relatively narrow set of circumstances, including you having purchased the “right” kit) is specifically “not an offence”. While there aren’t specific exemptions written into law allowing for space-shifting, its practice is so widespread for other media that it would be impossible to enforce now without there being massive backlash from both consumers and CE manufacturers alike: to do so would outlaw ripping of [non-DRM’d] CDs, for a start, and theoretically mean you’d have to purchase a separate copy of each media item for each device you wanted it on, even if you never consumed them simultaneously (e.g., one copy for your laptop, one for your iPod…). Given the above, and Ofcom’s wording, it still doesn’t open things up any (§A.2.3); according to commonplace and to date uncontested practice, on the other hand, it’s far more restrictive, and it certainly doesn't give anybody any *rights* to distribute. Of course, all of that’s aside from the things unrelated to the content itself, such as the licensing regime and non-disclosure terms attached to it all. One thing I have noticed about the official position is that it always talks about what the system would _permit_ you to do in glowing terms and skims over what it prevents you from doing. The reality is, we’re permitted (insofar as the hardware and broadcast chain is concerned) to do all of those things if the BBC does nothing at all. I noted with interest the publications which repeated Graham Plumb’s list of things we’d [still] be able to do if it went ahead. M. - 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] Freeview HD Content Management
On 26-Jan-2010, at 16:20, Mo McRoberts wrote: If I remember later, I'll dig it out and post it to this thread. It made for a reasonable semi-executive summary, even if it wasn't quite as diplomatic as it might be if it were addressed to BBC senior management, for example ;) And without further ado, here it is. Bear in mind this was written in December, so a few things have come to light since (and some more questions raised!). No idea if this is at all helpful to anybody, but enjoy :) Nick:— you get a namecheck in this, though I just want to state, for the record, that I do very much appreciate your efforts in trying to be the middle-man on a fairly complex technical issue! M. Background -- On the 27th August, Alix Pryde, controller of BBC Distribution, wrote to Greg Bensberg at Ofcom outlining two alternative mechanisms of implementing “Content management” for high-definition content broadcast on BBC HD (and, presumably, other HD channels, though this is unspecified) as carried by the then-upcoming Freeview HD service, designed to be the ultimate successor to both the analogue terrestrial and standard-definition Freeview television services. Of the two proposals, the first was centred around a licensing regime that would be adhered to by consumer electronics manufacturers: those wishing to brand their equipment as being Freeview HD-compliant would sign a non-disclosure agreement and implement certain decoding routines for scrambled EPG data. As part of the agreement, manufacturers would restrict the ability of their consumer electronics to interface along so-called “untrusted paths”. In effect, a simplistic digital rights management (DRM) system would be created, albeit one maintained solely by licensing agreements, rather than technical challenge. The key facets of this first proposal are that: * The actual high definition audio, video, subtitle and “Red Button” application content streams would be broadcast “in the clear” (unencrypted) * Some metadata carried with the HD signal (the Event Information Table, or EIT) would be compressed, with decoding tables “The Huffman Look-Up Tables” required for decompression * Although these decoding tables are trivial to reverse-engineer, doing so could fall afoul of the provisions of the European Copyright Directive (EUCD), and would also run counter to the Freeview HD licensing regime Thus, although a skilled individual—whatever their intent—would be able to bypass the restrictions, a CE manufacturer would have no option but to enter into the licensing agreement with the BBC in order to legitimately obtain a copy of the decoding table, and in doing so commit to implementing copy-restrictions in their device. The second proposal was to implement a much stronger form of Digital Rights Management whereby ostensibly “free to air” content would itself be encrypted, rather than simply the EIT. This clearly runs counter to the BBC’s public service principles, as indicated by original inquiry letter which includes the phrase “…a move from free-to-air to free-to-view…” in relation to this proposal. It has been made reasonably clear that the BBC has no desire to attempt to seek implementation of this second proposal, and it’s relatively apparent that it would have little success in doing so (especially given that the Freeview HD service has now launched, aside from public policy concerns). Publicity on the proposals -- On the 3rd September, Greg Bensberg issued a letter to “Stakeholders in the UK DTT industry”, published on Ofcom’s website. This was not issued in the form of a public consultation, nor clearly announced on the high-traffic areas of the site. After the letters were published, both Tom Watson MP and Cory Doctorow published blog articles online and in the MediaGuardian regarding the issue. The articles contained some factual inaccuracies, brought about largely thanks to the lack of a proper consultation including an explanation of the issues and the proposed remedies. Despite this, the publicity which resulted from Tom and Cory’s posts was sufficient to cause the BBC to begin dialogue with the public on the issue. In a BBC Internet Blog post, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/09/freeview_hd_copy_protection_up.html, Graham Plumb responded initially to Tom Watson’s piece (followed up later by http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/10/freeview_hd_copy_protection_a.html in response to Cory’s MediaGuardian article). It became clear after these posts were published that the Graham Plumb, although author of the text of the posts, was not directly engaging those asking questions and submitting other comments. For the most part, Nick Reynolds (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile/?userid=11648404) co-editor of the BBC Internet Blog, did a reasonable job of fielding the questions, but was limited in his ability to gain answers from Graham Plumb (or anybody else with the ability to give them).
Re: [backstage] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
What I don't understand is that of the three main desktop platforms Firefox gets installed on - Windows and Mac - both have H.264 decoders *on the machine already* in the form of Windows Media and QuickTime APIs. Microsoft and Apple have presumably solved whatever licensing problems exist for H.264 decoding. Only Windows 7 has native H.264 (which isn't actually compliant in a few places last time I checked). XP/Vista don't however. Older macs without H.264 hardware acceleration also have a very basic version of the spec through Quicktime because Apple don't seem to fix any bugs with it. - 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] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
On 26-Jan-2010, at 20:19, Kieran Kunhya wrote: Older macs without H.264 hardware acceleration also have a very basic version of the spec through Quicktime because Apple don't seem to fix any bugs with it. It’s not just older Macs. Basically, if you don’t restrict yourself to Baseline you’re asking for trouble at the moment. Now, for a lot of web video, Baseline is absolutely fine, though for higher-resolution stuff a different profile would probably be preferable. QuickTime X, shipping with Snow Leopard, and providing the accelerated H.264 abstraction and video / support works well in all of my tests. That’s the easy part. iTunes links against QuickTime 7, which is what Leopard and Tiger users (anybody on a PPC Mac, or the rapidly shrinking proportion of people who *won’t* upgrade anyway), and this has noticeable issues with Main content. The Apple TV, which technically runs Tiger, also has problems, to the point that I can reproducibly cause mine to reboot by feeding it iPlayer content retrieved via RTMP and swapped out from its FLV container to ISO media (and I’ve jumped through enough transcoding runs to be pretty sure that it’s Main which trips it up, rather than some container oddities). That said, most PPC Macs will struggle with HD content whatever the profile and decoder, so there’s a limit to the woes in a roundabout way. I haven’t experimented with Win7’s decoder yet, but I suspect that for the time being the answer is to stick with Baseline. [For what it’s worth, all of my encoding tests have been with ffmpeg+x264]. Having said all that, my entirely subjective conclusions at the moment are that the 720p video I get out of ffmpeg+x264 when encoded as Baseline at around 3Mbps[0] compares extremely favourably to the iPlayer HD content (which is High profile, if memory serves) at the same bitrate. I don’t know whether this is down to me not being able to spot the difference from 10 inches away from the screen, whether it’s that x264 is a better encoder than whatever Red Bee uses, or whether it’s simply the case that High Profile is used because Flash can decode it more efficiently[1] than if it were Baseline. Also, noting that at 720p25, 3Mbps ought to be enough! M. [0] Combined audio+video. 160Kbps audio in my tests. Can’t recall what iPlayer HD uses. [1] I’d dread to see Flash decoding that video less efficiently… - 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] Users just want video to work. You Mozilla people are such idealists?
Having said all that, my entirely subjective conclusions at the moment are that the 720p video I get out of ffmpeg+x264 when encoded as Baseline at around 3Mbps[0] compares extremely favourably to the iPlayer HD content (which is High profile, if memory serves) at the same bitrate. I don’t know whether this is down to me not being able to spot the difference from 10 inches away from the screen, whether it’s that x264 is a better encoder than whatever Red Bee uses, or whether it’s simply the case that High Profile is used because Flash can decode it more efficiently[1] than if it were Baseline. Also, noting that at 720p25, 3Mbps ought to be enough! x264 is almost certainly better than whatever Red Bee use though I think the keyframe interval in iPlayer is lower than the x264 defaults. (and the ffmpeg presets aren't very good) In theory High and Baseline should have approximately the same decode complexity since the High Profile features should reduce bitrate. The overhead of High Profile should then be cancelled out by this lower bitrate. iPlayer does disable CABAC which is an easy way of reducing Flash performance. For 720p25 you might need more than 3.5Mbps for more demanding scenes. (Except increasing the bitrate or using a better encoder will make iPlayer look better than the broadcast...) - 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/
