RE: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel?
Inferior to Sky HD / Freesat / Virgin V+ then (broadcast at 1080i25), or is the compression lower? From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 11 July 2008 11:10 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel? I guess 720p24 *is* technically a true, actual high definition standard, although I would be very sad to see it widely adopted... :-) (I think that for most *video* material, of actual moving subjects, you'd be better off picking a lower spatial resolution and a higher frame rate. Except for material where the director has deliberately chosen a low frame rate for effect, of course.) 25fps, 1280x720, 16:9 (0.87 megapixels) is what is going to be in Freeview HD, the DVB-T2 service. -- Brian Butterworth http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel?
Does anyone know of any study results or resources on perceived quality comparisons between various resolutions (e.g. 1080i25 vs 720p50) encodings? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Jolly Sent: 11 July 2008 12:49 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel? Brian Butterworth wrote: 25fps, 1280x720, 16:9 (0.87 megapixels) is what is going to be in Freeview HD, the DVB-T2 service. I'm not aware that anyone has ever suggested a 720p25 HD service in the UK. Ofcom have proposed putting four *720p50* services into a DVB-T2 multiplex. 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/ - 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] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel?
Very interesting - many thanks! Hans Hoffman has done some research in this area for the EBU: http://www.ebu.ch/en/technical/trev/trev_308-hdtv.pdf has some early qualitative opinions in, and there's a presentation of his more recent, quantitative work at http://hdmasters2007.com/pdf/Presentations/HDM2007_Hoffmann-EBU.pdf Personally I found his results intriguingly counter-intuitive (in a good way). :-) Rainer Schaefer reports on the work done by the EBU D/HDC group in section 2.5 of http://www.ebu.ch/CMSimages/en/PMC08%20Report-FINAL_tcm6-58345.pdf - 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] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel?
It claims to be true 1280x720 @24fps... http://vimeo.com/help/hd ... But wait, it can't really be HD... can it? Yes! It's real, true, actual high definition. No tricks. Some other sites (we won't name names) and even a few major media producers have been offering low resolution video as HD just because it's slightly higher than the quality typically seen on video sharing web sites, hoping you won't notice. Don't be fooled, Vimeo HD is true 1280×720, up to 24fps. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Steve Jolly Sent: 09 July 2008 21:20 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel? Tom Hannen wrote: The iPlayer is great, but in terms of HD, Vimeo now seems to be the place to look at. Their HD channel is amazing, but unfortunately relegates the BBC's iPlayer into looking like yesterday's technology... Their HD channel is here: http://vimeo.com/channel778e An example: http://vimeo.com/775442 At 360 vertical lines, that's barely more resolution than the old quarter-screen BBC Parliament service on Freeview - it's not even SD quality. The video quality is better than the streaming iPlayer service (I don't have a Windows PC handy to try the iPlayer download service, which is higher quality), but calling it HD is a bit of a cheek. 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/ - 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] UNSUBSCRIBE ME PLEAS£!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Lockwood Sent: 04 July 2008 10:24 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:40:58 +0100 Have you ever considered your freedom, or do you thrive off being facetious? Yes. I regular consider my freedom. My freedom to consider, carefully think about and, where appropriate amend my views. My rights to not be hectored, badgered and lectured at, at every possible opportunity, by people who consider their views (or rather, views that they've taken verbatim from a third party) the only possible moral stance, and by people who use inflammatory and emotive words such as evil in entirely inappropriate circumstances. How about you? Rich.
RE: [backstage] Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:40:58 +0100
I wish I could be excluded from this banal tit-for-tat kids game! -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Fred Phillips Sent: 04 July 2008 15:33 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 16:40:58 +0100 On Fri Jul 4 15:16:03 2008, Richard Lockwood wrote: On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Fred Phillips [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Fri Jul 4 11:59:45 2008, Richard Lockwood wrote: If you don't want to use non-free software, then don't. Don't go trying to impose your restrictions on the rest of us. You don't want to code with AIR, then don't. Simple solution. But it is suggested that this competition be _only_ provided to people who use non‐free software. It's not a simple solution, if people choose not use Adobe AIR they cannot enter the competition. Mummy, the big boys won't let me play!!! You've made your bed - now lie in it. R. So it’s okay to exlude people because of their beliefs? - 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] New Government APIs (plus win 20k to develop your mashup idea)
On the subject of open maps (or not so in the case of the OS), you might be interested in this project: http://openstreetmap.org/ (the idea being to create open free to use street map data) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth Sent: 02 July 2008 12:02 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] New Government APIs (plus win 20k to develop your mashup idea) This looks quite interesting... http://openspace.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/openspace/ 2008/7/2 Tom Loosemore [EMAIL PROTECTED]: The Cabinet Office's Power of Information Task Force just launched a competition for mash up ideas using public data. See www.ShowUsABetterway.com Some new government APIsand data dumps too: http://www.showusabetterway.co.uk/call/data.html Neighbourhood Statistics API from the ONS, Health care information API from NHS Choices, a list of all UK schools from the DCSF and the zip of Official Notices from the London Gazette. - 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 http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002
RE: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
Brian,
For example, you can't use the class operator to format items. I
have used this rather basic function to translate my class items to
the
more basic style items:
Actually, CSS stylesheets are fully supported by Outlook, Outlook
Express, and Thunderbird at least, and I am using CSS to generate
size-efficient HTML emails that use the stylesheets from the website
(though obviously, the path to the css file needs to be a full absolute
URL) - do you still have an email client that doesn't support CSS, if
so, what is it?
Adam
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth
Sent: 05 June 2008 07:55
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
Matt,
I sorted an automatic email notification system just recently on
ukfree.tv and I think I might be able to give you a few pointers. The
site uses PHP, so my examples will be in that. If you can't follow it,
then let me know.
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe by visiting http://www.ukfree.tv/ and
using the box in the 'my settings' item at the top left.
To send an HTML email, as you have already found out I guess, you need
to ensure you have the right headers:
function sendHTMLemail($strEmail, $strHTML, $strSubject)
{
// To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set
$strHeaders = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . \r\n;
$strHeaders .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . \r\n;
// Additional headers
$strHeaders .= To: $strEmail $strEmail\r\n;
$strHeaders .= From: --- updates [EMAIL PROTECTED]\r\n;
// Mail it
mail($strEmail, $strSubject, $strHTML, $strHeaders);
}
As you have found out, the level of CSS support in HTML email message is
limited. For example, you can't use the class operator to format
items. I have used this rather basic function to translate my class
items to the more basic style items:
function translaterhsbox($strTitle, $strContent, $strDummy1, $strDummy2)
{
return h2 style=\font-size: 12pt\$strTitle/h2 .
strtr($strContent,array(class=\lyrOffsite\=style=\font-size:
8pt;\)) . hr color=#ffde5a;
}
Basically you need to ensure that you format everything with styles, for
example:
div style='width:516px; font-size: 9pt'
But you can still use graphics from your web-site. However many email
programmes will block the graphics until you agree to download them.
img
src=\http://www.ukfree.tv/2k8_graphic.php?a=a2t=UK%20Free%20TV%20email
%20update\
If you have written your document in using CSS, someone can probably
write a bit of code to automatically expand the raw HTML to convert
all the 'class'es to 'styles'.
You might like to know that the other constraints (java, scripting,
flash) are to protect email users from viral abuse, not a lack of will
to implement it.
Hope this helps
2008/6/4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Hello there,
I'm a journalist working for BBC East in Norwich and I've joined this
mailing list to get advice and guidance - and possibly some ideas -
about a project I've been working on for the last 6 months.
With the backing of my bosses at Look East and BBC English regions, I've
designed, developed and launched a new graphics-rich e-mail newsletter
which we now send out each day to about 2000 or so subscribers.
This newsletter is hard to describe, but what it does is to aggregate
links - complete with headlines and thumbnail images - to the latest
video news items which appear on the main Look East website, a 'blog'
section promoting that evening's programmes with nested links expanding
on the stories being discussed, drop down menus featuring linking to BBC
East regional weather, news and sport sites and an occasional text
ticker which promotes whatever we fancy - often our local radio
stations.
It's conceived primarily as a content delivery vehicle first, then a
promotional tool, a way of combining all the services offered by the BBC
in my region into one tidy package and also a way of elaborating on the
stories we're working on.
To subscribe -temporarily if you want, I won't mind :-) - go here :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/lookeast/newsletter/subscription.shtml
Now the thing is, is that I'm a relative novice who is learning as I go
along. What I've learned is that e-mail can only support very basic
html and that there are limits to what features we can incorporate into
this newsletter. However, I'm determined to max out the potential and
capacity of this rather unusual way of delivering BBC content. Any html
tricks, ideas, criticisms, improvements, widgets or whatever anyone on
this mailing list can offer in the way of developing this newsletter
concept, I'd be hugely grateful. Several other English regions are
toying with the idea of adopting it, so I'm keen on adding new features,
but my technical knowledge is still quite limited.
this whole experience has been really positive for me and I've become
quite an evangelist for e-mail broadcasting, which I want to develop,
RE: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
Anyone wishing to understand fully the extent of CSS support in all the
commonly used email clients might like to read this:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2007/04/a_guide_to_css_supp
ort_in_emai_2.html - it's an invaluable resource!
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth
Sent: 05 June 2008 09:07
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
Adam,
However many mail clients don't support the automatic (or even manual)
loading for CSS files. As you cannot know the client being used, you
have to go for the common set of features.
It's a common error to assume that everyone uses a particular client.
2008/6/5 Adam Hatia [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Brian,
For example, you can't use the class operator to format items. I
have used this rather basic function to translate my class items to
the
more basic style items:
Actually, CSS stylesheets are fully supported by Outlook, Outlook
Express, and Thunderbird at least, and I am using CSS to generate
size-efficient HTML emails that use the stylesheets from the website
(though obviously, the path to the css file needs to be a full absolute
URL) - do you still have an email client that doesn't support CSS, if
so, what is it?
Adam
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth
Sent: 05 June 2008 07:55
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
Matt,
I sorted an automatic email notification system just recently on
ukfree.tv and I think I might be able to give you a few pointers. The
site uses PHP, so my examples will be in that. If you can't follow it,
then let me know.
(You can subscribe/unsubscribe by visiting http://www.ukfree.tv/ and
using the box in the 'my settings' item at the top left.
To send an HTML email, as you have already found out I guess, you need
to ensure you have the right headers:
function sendHTMLemail($strEmail, $strHTML, $strSubject)
{
// To send HTML mail, the Content-type header must be set
$strHeaders = 'MIME-Version: 1.0' . \r\n;
$strHeaders .= 'Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1' . \r\n;
// Additional headers
$strHeaders .= To: $strEmail $strEmail\r\n;
$strHeaders .= From: --- updates [EMAIL PROTECTED]\r\n;
// Mail it
mail($strEmail, $strSubject, $strHTML, $strHeaders);
}
As you have found out, the level of CSS support in HTML email message is
limited. For example, you can't use the class operator to format
items. I have used this rather basic function to translate my class
items to the more basic style items:
function translaterhsbox($strTitle, $strContent, $strDummy1, $strDummy2)
{
return h2 style=\font-size: 12pt\$strTitle/h2 .
strtr($strContent,array(class=\lyrOffsite\=style=\font-size:
8pt;\)) . hr color=#ffde5a;
}
Basically you need to ensure that you format everything with styles, for
example:
div style='width:516px; font-size: 9pt'
But you can still use graphics from your web-site. However many email
programmes will block the graphics until you agree to download them.
img
src=\http://www.ukfree.tv/2k8_graphic.php?a=a2t=UK%20Free%20TV%20email
%20update\
http://www.ukfree.tv/2k8_graphic.php?a=a2t=UK%20Free%20TV%20email%20up
date%5C
If you have written your document in using CSS, someone can probably
write a bit of code to automatically expand the raw HTML to convert
all the 'class'es to 'styles'.
You might like to know that the other constraints (java, scripting,
flash) are to protect email users from viral abuse, not a lack of will
to implement it.
Hope this helps
2008/6/4 [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
Hello there,
I'm a journalist working for BBC East in Norwich and I've joined this
mailing list to get advice and guidance - and possibly some ideas -
about a project I've been working on for the last 6 months.
With the backing of my bosses at Look East and BBC English regions, I've
designed, developed and launched a new graphics-rich e-mail newsletter
which we now send out each day to about 2000 or so subscribers.
This newsletter is hard to describe, but what it does is to aggregate
links - complete with headlines and thumbnail images - to the latest
video news items which appear on the main Look East website, a 'blog'
section promoting that evening's programmes with nested links expanding
on the stories being discussed, drop down menus featuring linking to BBC
East regional weather, news and sport sites and an occasional text
ticker which promotes whatever we fancy - often our local radio
stations.
It's conceived primarily as a content delivery vehicle first, then a
promotional tool, a way of combining all the services offered by the BBC
in my region into one tidy package and also a way of elaborating on the
stories we're working on.
To subscribe -temporarily if you want, I won't mind :-) - go here :
http://www.bbc.co.uk
RE: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter
I agree that offering your audience the option of viewing either a text-only or html version is ideal. This can partly be achieved (email client support permitting) by including both the HTML version and the text-only version as alternate MIME parts. At least that way anyone who actually prefers to view the rich content (as I do simply because I find it quicker to see what an email is about than read the entire text) can do so... From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Matt Barber Sent: 05 June 2008 10:01 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Look East HTML rich newsletter On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 9:39 AM, Sean DALY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If I may add my 2 cents, I think e-mail newsletters should always have a text-only option with a link to the graphics-rich version. I am subscribed to fairly vast number of newsletters and I generally don't read them, I search them for keywords (filters or manually). Plain text are ideal as a lowest common denominator for portable gadgets; easy to forward plain text newsletters to my work or personal e-mail accounts and read the graphics-rich versions on comfortable screens. And, for the security-conscious (I am thinking of my aging personal Windows box but also Google mail which scrubs images by default), plain text offers a far more secure way to receive a flood of mail with the rich version just an extra click away. Sean, I agree with this because I too like to read over quick information and then go further if a story interests me, usually to the website directly. But also it's important in my opinion to consider pushing this forward a little to take advantage of the faster connections and computers around now, to enhance experience and to provide newer, if not more effective - at least more interesting and engaging - content. Maybe the newsletter format isn't for this, as you say, text works really well on portables, they're cross compatible with everyone and importantly more secure. For me, newsletters offer a decent bridge between the inbox (where I pay a lot of attention) and the site's content. There's a fine line between interesting (click and visit the site), and slow, irrelevant and cumbersome (ignore and delete). Too much rich content can cross this line - but a little well used rich content can also work in favour too. This is why criticism is important I reckon especially in the early stages. - 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] Zattoo - live streaming BBC channels
FWIW, I think not everyone is the same in this regard. Personally, I also prefer to watch a clear picture with picture sound breaking up occasionally than every programme behind a snow scene, no matter how perfect the audio might be. I'd rather just listen to the radio if the latter was the case! -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christopher Woods Sent: 20 May 2008 02:20 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk Subject: RE: [backstage] Zattoo - live streaming BBC channels You'd think... But then my first flat in London barely managed to get analogue... I actually got a digital box in the first place because it offered a better picture! A clear picture that broke up once every 90 seconds was preferable to watching fuzz and snow. Interesting you should say that, I was thinking about this whilst watching the footie on the TV the other day - our analogue reception is awful (and we don't have a roof aerial where we are at the moment, so it's bunny ears all round) and whilst the picture is awful, bar a few moments of static the audio is quite fine. The contiguousness of the audio also helps with tolerance - I can quite happily tolerate a poor quality video feed if the audio's fine. Same goes for cinema - people seem to put up with awful quality video so long as the sound's good (odd really, a strange psychological thing which must have some link with the way our brains interpret natural sound, and the way it introduces its aural coping mechanisms when our eyes are starved of sufficient input). Personally I'd rather have naff analogue with continuous audio where I can gist the few words I miss, rather than have a lossy (moreso than analogue, arguably) digital signal with squelchy audio and dropouts every so often. I put up with it on my PC's freeview receiver, but I still find myself wandering into the kitchen to tune in on the analogue set. I think I'm a bit strange. - 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/
