Re: [backstage] Converting between easting/northing and long/lat

[Dogsbody]

On the subject of maps, I was wondering if anyone has any php code to 
convert between OS grid references or GB OS easting / northings and 
longitude and lattitudes?


It's not php code but I have scraped streetmap.co.uk [1] in the past for quick 
scripts and one-off's.  I can also confirm that the conversion is very accurate 
having converted points back and forth.


Dan

[1] 
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?GridConvert?name=488199,160389&type=OSGrid

Re: [backstage] IPs for news feeds?

[Dogsbody]

Yes, it's all load balanced - in fact for news.bbc RSS your request
could be served from London or New York, depending on the location of
your server.  In times of high-load (ie breaking news), we may also
switch over to our content delivery network (CDN) partners for
edge-serving.  See below for an example of this:


More info if anyone wants it...
http://support.bbc.co.uk/support/network/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4606719.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4663423.stm

Dan
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Re: [backstage] backstage.bbc.co.uk TV Schedule competition

[Dogsbody]

I'm writing to let you know that the inaugural backstage.bbc.co.uk 
competition hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped.  In fact, at the time of 
sending this we haven’t received any entries at all.


Ouch!  Much as others have said, time is a factor.  A number of the 
forums/websites that I use tend to go very quiet over this time of year as 
everyone is on holiday or out getting fresh air (strange people) ;-)


* The TV schedule data we provided over-complicated and in an alien 
format that was difficult to parse, or


Alien, yes, complicated, yes BUT please don't let that stop you! We need much 
much more raw data from sites such as the BBC, perhaps writing a simple parser 
on the TV-Anytime feeds into a straight XML feed would have solved that.  People 
could then choose between how much data/complexity they wanted.  Right now I 
would much rather see too much data than too little!


* The idea of developing around a BBC-led theme, even for a prize, isn’t 
an approach that is of interest to the backstage.bbc.co.uk community.


This was one of the factors for me.  It was BBC only :-\  I know you can't 
really do anything about this but if I were to develop a TV schedule app then I 
would at least want to have the 5 terrestrial channels and not just the BBC ones 
:-\  TV schedule data for all the common channels are on the net elsewhere and I 
would probably use them :-\


I’m keen to gather whether either/both of these reasons are the case, or 
maybe there’s something else I’ve completely missed?


The "Non-profit" tag also hit with me.  I toyed with partnering up the TV 
listings with Amazon data give "if you liked that then try this" type links but 
that may link to Amazon products that you could buy and I would be making money! 
 So what's in it for me to write this app??


I also wasn't sure if this data would be staying around as there are warnings 
all over the place about the feeds only being around for three months.  I have 
written some modules for CMS systems so that Joe Bloggs user can easily embed 
data into their website and thought about using the BBC feeds to allow people to 
add TV listings to their sites.  As the feeds include URL's for the programme 
site on bbc.co.uk I thought this would be great for you to pull in hits to your 
site.  In the end I didn't write these modules because I didn't know if the data 
would be staying around and while it would have pulled lots of links to the BBC 
site I didn't think the coding would have been fancy/clever enough to win any 
prizes :-)


I hope that helped answer your questions :-)

Dan
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Re: [backstage] A request

[Dogsbody]

As an aside, 
legal arguments always puzzle me, as I don't see how accessing a direct 
sports scores feed is any different from viewing the information on the 
BBC website, or listening to the results on the radio, TV etc.


In which case, why are you asking for the direct data as opposed to 
getting the information "BBC website, or listening to the results on the 
radio"  that's why there is a rights issue :-)


Regards, Dan
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Re: [backstage] Weather feeds

[Dogsbody]

Is there any word on when the weather feeds are being released?
I went to OpenTech 05, and I seem to recall it was happening 
"next week"!


Oh, it's a long story - but I'm sorry it's been delayed and I'm hoping
we can get this out in the next 14 days or so.


Sorry for sending a chase but I'm very interested in this feed and it's almost a 
month later! :-\  Any news??


Thank you

Dan
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Re: [backstage] Weather feeds

[Dogsbody]

According to my mole in weather, the feeds are ready, but awaiting Ben's
return to be launched. This is assuming there aren't any HPIs (horrible
policy issues) that neither of us know about...

This is, of course, the unofficial answer!


*Does his happy dance* ... sorry about that!  :-)

Do you know what will be included in the feeds?  Forecast data?  Current 
conditions? etc.


Dan
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[backstage] Video articles feed (Was: TV-Anytime regional opt-out files)

[Dogsbody]

I've got sky, and sometimes watch different regional news programmes
or versions of the politics show - some of the regional news
programmes are excellent, but 
as they're all simulcast I tend to miss out on stuff.

Would it be feasible to have a channel that recycled features from
these programmes, linking them with national bulletins ?



News 24 now has a programme called News 24 Today at 7pm which is
hourlong, and apparently takes the best stuff from the One, the Six,
Breakfast, BBC World and the regional news rooms - not quite what you
were after I suppose, but near perhaps?


This sounds like an fantastic idea!

Kinda like a podcast [1] for video with just the articles from 
programmes instead of the whole program.


You almost do this now with the news videos on the site but currently 
the only way to get to it is via the website.


Please add this to the list of something we (I) would like to see from 
the BBC :-)


Dan

[1] I'm not a fan of the term podcast but you know what I mean!
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Re: [backstage] Prototype: BBCBOT

[Dogsbody]

Now, what I'd *really* want is this hooked up to a networked MythTV /
Topsfield PVR at home, so I could set it to record stuff while I'm at
work... I know some of the UK MythTV hackers have got an irc interface
that works similarly...


I have that now with my TiVo :-D  and I do love it ;-)

Dan
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Re: [backstage] More feeds - BBC News AV RSS!

[Dogsbody]

At this point in time these RSS feeds link through to an HTML page 
containing an embedded media asset.


We're in the process of negotiating a special backstage.bbc.co.uk feed 
that links to the media assets directly within the RSS,


I don't mind the links to the HTML pages especially as you have the nice 
choice screen that asks if you want WMV or Real content however once you 
have then picked would it be possible to have a link direct to the media 
underneath the embedded video.


Where I work I can view Real content but not when it is embedded in a page.

To be honest I would like to see this all over your site!  It used to be 
tit or miss as to weather the link was their on the on-line Radio Player.


Thank you

Dan
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Re: [backstage] More feeds - BBC News AV RSS!

[Dogsbody]

if you use firefox and greasemonkey see my script here:

http://www.blueghost.co.uk/bbc_vp.html

it should show a link to the media file, see the screenshots on the website


Unfortunately we use Mozilla at work!  :-(

Still, I'll use your plug-in at home :-)  Thanks

Dan
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Re: [backstage] Auto-tivo...

[Dogsbody]

I wrote up some thoughts. Any corrections, additions and comments are 
welcome.

   http://blog.dave.org.uk/archives/000840.html


TiVo is actually great fun in the UK at the moment (if your a techie).

TiVo are still producing the EPG data it's just that you can't buy the 
boxes any more.  TiVo are also still adding quite a lot of data to the 
standard EPG data that comes from the channel which links together 
shows, episodes, repeats, directors, actors, writers etc. etc. to allow 
you to record any combination of these things.  Saying that, I am 
starting to see the public feeds from channels having this sort of data 
slowly added.  TiVo HQ used to do all this manually.


There is a very large hacker community for the UK TiVo.  After buying 
mine off e-bay I have replaced the 40GB HD with a 300GB one and added an 
after market network card.  People have now written web interfaces for 
it (which means that I can now control my TiVo from anywhere in the 
world) as well as WAP interfaces, e-mail reminders and of course being 
able to rip the recordings off or watch them streamed over the Internet.


Dan (currently stuck in the USA and living off TiVo)  :-)
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Re: [backstage] Weather feeds

[Dogsbody]

Is there any word on when the weather feeds are being released?
I went to OpenTech 05, and I seem to recall it was happening "next 
week"!


Oh, it's a long story - but I'm sorry it's been delayed and I'm hoping
we can get this out in the next 14 days or so.


Sorry for sending a chase but I'm very interested in this feed and it's 
almost a month later! :-\  Any news??


And now almost another month!   Please can I submit this as feedback on 
the Backstage service.  I would rather you say that something is a year 
away than say it is 14 days or so away when it isn't :-\


Regards, Dan
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Re: [backstage] Next competition, when would be best?

[Dogsbody]

So, I'm writing to you guys to find out when would be a good time to do
the next competition. 


Essentially, it boils down to whether you would still be interested in
participating in a competition if Christmas and New Years occurred
during the entry window?


Personally I do a lot of my best programming over the winter holidays as 
unlike the summer holidays your trapped inside (well I am).  Saying 
that, this is just me and I'm probably unlikely to enter the competition :-\


Dan
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Re: [backstage] New Web Feeds for press, jobs, homepage, blogs

[Dogsbody]

We're also interested in compiling a top 10 list of web feeds the BBC *should* 
make available have so nominations for that are gratefully received.


Weather forecast feeds please :-)

Regards, Dan

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Re: [backstage] BBC Programme Catalogue

[Dogsbody]

Live now
http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue  


This is awesome!!!  It would have been so easy for the BBC to have 
opened it up as a chargeable service and is fantastic that it's open.


My 0.02p, XML XML XML :-)  Either it can be RSS feeds, custom XML output 
 or just a XHTML output that can be displayed in a browser and used in 
feeds :-)  I can't wait to see the sort of mash-ups this will produce.


Dan
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Re: [backstage] BBC Programme Catalogue

[Dogsbody]

My 0.02p, XML XML XML :-)  Either it can be RSS feeds, custom XML
output  or just a XHTML output that can be displayed in a browser and
used in feeds :-)  I can't wait to see the sort of mash-ups this will
produce.



There is. Look at the "sidebar". There's Atom/RSS for the listing  
views, and there's RDF for every single individual entry.


Doh!!  It wasn't on the pages I was looking at!... :-)
http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/on_this_day/1977/2/7
http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/tag/cookery_programmes_genre
http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/tag_cloud/cookery_programmes_genre

*screams*  TOO MUCH DATA *goes and has a lie down*

Dan
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Re: [backstage] New backstage.bbc.co.uk website

[Dogsbody]

* Mailing list management (links to archive etc)


Some people love mailing lists and some love forums.  Peoples reasons are many 
and varied but I have seen a few really good implementations that use both and 
tie them together.  With a good implementation this works REALLY well, you can 
have two people talking on a thread, one on mail and one of forum and neither 
realise.


It's certainly better than having both a list and forums separately and the same 
issues discussed on both!


Just my 0.02 GBP

Dan

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Re: [backstage] data streaming into video

[Dogsbody]

what do you think? i'm not much up on these things apart from what i
read here, so if it's already done/unworkable/crazy/annoying then
apologies!


Check out SMIL a fantastically underused mark up language that allows 
you to create layers of video/images/text.  And supported by most of the 
standard media players.


Just my 0.02 GBP

Dan
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Re: [backstage] PVR Fragmentation

[Dogsbody]

With all the recording, deleting, pause functionality today’s PVRs have, 
and the large volume of data I’d imagine its shifting around, doesn’t 
the hard disk get really fragmented? Does the software deal with this, 
or does it not bother because streaming the content off the disk even 
when its fragmented not a very intensive task?


FWIW, TiVo uses a different and specifically designed filesystem that 
has very large data blocks (compared to a home computer).  This means 
that programs are written across relatively few data blocks (a 30 min 
program uses around 4 blocks) and fragmentation isn't really an issue as 
it is with home machines.


Dan
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Re: [backstage] Tags du jour

[Dogsbody]

Soon we're going to have more social bookmarking icons than
actual content...


I want to add this to MediaWiki. Anyone know how, or has done it?


Create a template and add it to each page...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template

or add it to the navigation sidebar...
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Navigation_bar

Dan
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Re: [backstage] Tags du jour

[Dogsbody]

I want to add this to MediaWiki. Anyone know how, or has done it?


Create a template and add it to each page...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template

or add it to the navigation sidebar...
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Navigation_bar


Answering my own post!!  Here's the MediaWiki code for this

* 
[http://del.icio.us/post?v=4;url={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE;title={{PAGENAMEE}} 
del.icio.us]
* 
[http://reddit.com/submit?url={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE&title={{PAGENAMEE}} 
reddit]
* [http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE 
facebook]
* 
[http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE&title={{PAGENAMEE}} 
stumbleupon]
* 
[http://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark?op=edit&bkmk={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE&title={{PAGENAMEE}} 
Google]

* [http://technorati.com/faves?add={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE Technorati]
* 
[http://slashdot.org/bookmark.pl?url={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE&title={{PAGENAMEE}} 
Slashdot]
* 
[http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url={{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAMEE&title={{PAGENAMEE}}&bodytext=& 
Digg]


... I'm sure someone can make it look prettier!

Dan

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Re: [backstage] Tags du jour

[Dogsbody]

I want to add this to MediaWiki. Anyone know how, or has done it?


Create a template and add it to each page...
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Template

or add it to the navigation sidebar...
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Navigation_bar


Answering my own post!!  Here's the MediaWiki code for this
... I'm sure someone can make it look prettier!


Thanks, I am familiar with MediaWiki and resources on Meta :) but I
can't just dump the PHP code into a template, that will do nothing :)
I tried putting it into /skins/MonoBook.php which did nothing.

I could put that in MediaWiki:Sidebar but it would be better in the
toolbox or even below it. Any ideas?


If you read the links above (that you know all about!) you will see that 
certainly for the Monobook skin nothing can be placed below the search box by 
default and "the toolbox contains a selection of links which change depending on 
what type of page you are viewing".


If you want to hack around /skins/MonoBook.php then do but IMHO the simple role 
of creating dynamic links is what a wiki is all about and is very easily done in 
 the sidebar or template :-)


Dan
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[backstage] Free .tk domains with nice API

[Dogsbody]

I just bumped into this while looking at all the domains that Google 
owned! :-p  I didn't recognise .tk (belongs to three small islands off 
New Zealand, 12 square miles of land!).


Is seems they are giving away free domains (forwarding) to anyone that 
wants them!  Not only that but a few days ago they released an API that 
allows programmers to create accounts for their users!


More details at:
  http://www.dottkapi.tk/
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tk

Not sure what actual real world use is but thought I would post it!

Dan
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[backstage] A question about BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe

[Dogsbody]

Unlike the questions about the the iplayer itself I have a question regarding 
the exe that Windows users can use to download iplayer.


I am trying to write a tool to monitor/filter web traffic and so I need to 
identify the media type of all files it see and unpack all archive files.


I'm having difficulty with BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe, I can identify it as a 
self-extracting Microsoft CAB file, but when I try to unpack it, it fails.


I guess my questions are...
- Is it a self-extracting CAB file?
- If it is not a CAB file what is it please?
- And, if possible, what tool was used to create it and package it up?

Thank you :-)

I'll go back to lurking now :-)

Dan
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Re: [backstage] A question about BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe

[Dogsbody]

Hi All,

Can anyone help me with this please?

Thank you very much

Dan


On 13/01/2008 13:01, Dogsbody was seen to type:


Unlike the questions about the the iplayer itself I have a question 
regarding the exe that Windows users can use to download iplayer.


I am trying to write a tool to monitor/filter web traffic and so I need 
to identify the media type of all files it see and unpack all archive 
files.


I'm having difficulty with BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe, I can identify it as a 
self-extracting Microsoft CAB file, but when I try to unpack it, it fails.


I guess my questions are...
- Is it a self-extracting CAB file?
- If it is not a CAB file what is it please?
- And, if possible, what tool was used to create it and package it up?

Thank you :-)

I'll go back to lurking now :-)

Dan


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[backstage] Open source video streaming & browser based video client

[Dogsbody]

Apologies if this is slightly off topic but I have been googling on and off 
since last year, found nothing and you lot are the best people I know to ask!


I'm looking for an open source video streaming server & browser based video 
client for the video finish of a charity marathon I run.


I'm already using Helix Server for streaming the video although I could change 
that if required.  I'm using Real video for the stream and I guess it's the 
having to ask users to download and install Real Player that's harsh. While Real 
is very good at simultaneous multi-bitrate streaming it's anything but open and 
I know plenty of people that refuse to install Real Player not to mention to 
vulnerabilities!


It would be great to have the video window in the browser so the user didn't 
have to download anything (e.g. VLC) but I think that just leaves Flash(!?) 
which is also not open (although people are at least used to video in Flash).


The BIG requirement though is that the client can understand/replicate SMIL 
information as the video is stored on the server as a single 1GB file and 
different users are streamed different 20 second clips based on the time they 
went over the finish line. Can Flash even do that?


Any help appreciated.

Dan

P.S. I'm using the term Open Source as a indication of the ideal, I'm a fan of 
open source so I would like to use it with free software being the next choice 
but as this is a charity marathon we have no money to throw at commercial software.

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Re: [backstage] Open source video streaming & browser based video client

[Dogsbody]

Thank you for the replies.

Flash and MPG4 seem like a good combination.  I'm pretty sure I can already 
stream MPEG4 from my Helix server too.


The trouble now is that I know server side tech very well but have no idea when 
it comes to client side (Flash)!  Browsing around it seems there are a number of 
flash player scripts (are they called scripts?) already out there.  Does anyone 
know one that will do MPEG4 & SMIL without me having to learn Flash and 
re-invent the wheel?  :-)


Thanks again

Dan


On 17/02/2008 22:55, simon was seen to type:

Hello,

Flash appears to say yes to SMIL:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=0589.html 
<http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=0589.html>


though flash has caused me problems by only implementing limited subsets 
of other standard formats  (eg limited html tags in flash textareas) so 
I wouldn't like to say for sure the flash's understanding of SMIL would 
do what you want. I've never used SMIL + flash.


And the best bet I think for an open source flash streaming server for 
flv video format is still currently Red5 which hasn't made a 1.0 version 
yet: http://osflash.org/red5


If you use MP4 container with h264/aac as your flash video format (from 
memory: player 9,0,115,0 onwards), you may have more options for your 
server, it's on my list to check this but so far I haven't had time.


S.







On Feb 17, 2008 10:18 PM, Dogsbody <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:



Apologies if this is slightly off topic but I have been googling on
and off
since last year, found nothing and you lot are the best people I
know to ask!

I'm looking for an open source video streaming server & browser
based video
client for the video finish of a charity marathon I run.

I'm already using Helix Server for streaming the video although I
could change
that if required.  I'm using Real video for the stream and I guess
it's the
having to ask users to download and install Real Player that's
harsh. While Real
is very good at simultaneous multi-bitrate streaming it's anything
but open and
I know plenty of people that refuse to install Real Player not to
mention to
vulnerabilities!

It would be great to have the video window in the browser so the
user didn't
have to download anything (e.g. VLC) but I think that just leaves
Flash(!?)
which is also not open (although people are at least used to video
in Flash).

The BIG requirement though is that the client can
understand/replicate SMIL
information as the video is stored on the server as a single 1GB
file and
different users are streamed different 20 second clips based on the
time they
went over the finish line. Can Flash even do that?

Any help appreciated.

Dan

P.S. I'm using the term Open Source as a indication of the ideal,
I'm a fan of
open source so I would like to use it with free software being the
next choice
but as this is a charity marathon we have no money to throw at
commercial software.
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Re: [backstage] Open source video streaming & browser based video client

[Dogsbody]

If you know javascript, how about this one? Seems to do what you need: 
http://flowplayer.org/player/index.html


This definitely looks interesting!  Thanks

Dan
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Re: [backstage] A question about BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe

[Dogsbody]

Hi All,

I'm still trying for find out more (you know when you get a challenge 
but just can't leave it until you have worked it out!) but I have some 
more info if anyone is interested or can help? :-)


My findings indicate that this file is a Windows Installer Internet 
Download Bootstrap with a built in msi file, it looks a lot like a self 
extracting cab file so it can be mistaken for one.


It would be really useful if someone at the BBC could provide the 
details of what tool was used to construct the file so that I can have a 
go at reproducing the format.


Thanks again

Dan


On 13/01/2008 13:01, Dogsbody was seen to type:


Unlike the questions about the the iplayer itself I have a question 
regarding the exe that Windows users can use to download iplayer.


I am trying to write a tool to monitor/filter web traffic and so I need 
to identify the media type of all files it see and unpack all archive 
files.


I'm having difficulty with BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe, I can identify it as a 
self-extracting Microsoft CAB file, but when I try to unpack it, it fails.


I guess my questions are...
- Is it a self-extracting CAB file?
- If it is not a CAB file what is it please?
- And, if possible, what tool was used to create it and package it up?

Thank you :-)

I'll go back to lurking now :-)

Dan
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Re: [backstage] A question about BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe

[Dogsbody]

Unfortunately it turned out to not be a cab file after all, that's why 
I'm still trying to find out more (see below) :-/


Thanks though

Dan


On 11/03/2008 15:07, Sean DALY was seen to type:

Dan - have you tried Stuart Caie's cabextract?

I have used it on OSX to extract a single file from a .CAB package.


On Tue, Mar 11, 2008 at 3:27 PM, Dogsbody <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Hi All,

 I'm still trying for find out more (you know when you get a challenge
 but just can't leave it until you have worked it out!) but I have some
 more info if anyone is interested or can help? :-)

 My findings indicate that this file is a Windows Installer Internet
 Download Bootstrap with a built in msi file, it looks a lot like a self
 extracting cab file so it can be mistaken for one.

 It would be really useful if someone at the BBC could provide the
 details of what tool was used to construct the file so that I can have a
 go at reproducing the format.

 Thanks again

 Dan



Dogsbody <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Unlike the questions about the the iplayer itself I have a question
regarding the exe that Windows users can use to download iplayer.

I am trying to write a tool to monitor/filter web traffic and so I need
to identify the media type of all files it see and unpack all archive
files.

I'm having difficulty with BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe, I can identify it as a
self-extracting Microsoft CAB file, but when I try to unpack it, it fails.

I guess my questions are...
- Is it a self-extracting CAB file?
- If it is not a CAB file what is it please?
- And, if possible, what tool was used to create it and package it up?

Thank you :-)

I'll go back to lurking now :-)

Dan


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Re: [backstage] A question about BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe

[Dogsbody]

Thank you, I'll check it out


On 12/03/2008 12:49, Sean DALY was seen to type:

On the cabextract homepage there is info about InstallShield packages too.

Microsoft's MSDN might be helpful, e.g.:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa446531.aspx



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Re: [backstage] Web Semantics - Slicing The Cake

[Dogsbody]

Really?  I assume that Fearghas was talking about stuff like the Asus
EEE (and the new Elonex One) rather than mobile phone like content.
The EEE/Elonex/Cloudbook group of machines have fully functional OSes
and fully functional browsers.  They are far more like a PC than a
mobile phone.


Correct - I was specifically thinking of those devices.

Things like the Nokia N800/810 and iPhone have hardware zoom buttons or
fancy hand movements to zoom. The Asus doesn't have that feature and
requires scrolling which is painful. I haven't had time to check the new
site propertly with the Asus as it is off being borrowed again -
this time
on a trip to India, (last time it got to go to Cuba - all because a mate
hasn't been able to source one so just 'borrows mine').
 
I can't say I'm impressed.

http://www.ukfree.tv/styles/images/misc/eeepc_newbbcnews.jpg


And yet it fits perfectly on my much smaller screen ;-)

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q166/dogsbodyorg/IMGP1621.jpg

You can never please everyone all of the time :-)

Dan
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Re: [backstage] iPlayer in Wii

[Dogsbody]

In case anyone hasn't seen the news:



LOL, my GF sent this to me almost as soon as the news release came 
out! she wants this so badly!


It says... "Early versions of the service will be available from 9 
April but more polished software will be released as the service is 
developed." ... anyone know how to get hold of an early version??


Dan
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Re: [backstage] iPlayer in Wii

[Dogsbody]

am on wii now and can confirm that iplayer works. ish.


I gave it a try earlier and I think it works rather well :-)

Zoom in once with the "+" button and press "1" to get rid of the menu 
bar means that it fits my TV screen perfectly!


Yeah the image isn't HD or anything but I watch an episode of Top Gear 
with fast moving cars and it coped more that adequately which will 
certainly keep SWMBO happy!


As I understand it the Wii isn't a very powerful box at all so if 
iplayer runs well on this I can see it running well on a lot of things.


I would love to try running this Flash 7 version of the player on my 
Nokia N800 to see if it's any smoother Wanders off to Google the 
Wii User-Agent string...


Dan
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Re: [backstage] iPlayer in Wii

[Dogsbody]

LOL, my GF sent this to me almost as soon as the news release came out! 
she wants this so badly!


And now she is complaining to me that programs seem to be missing or 
broken on the Wii version.  :-(


We went to watch Dr Who Confidential last night, the show stopped 
after 10mins... the flash video just ended.  Today she went to watch 
the I'd do anything results show and it comes up with an error message 
on the Wii but works fine on the PC :-/


I realise the Wii version is in Beta but I said I would let you know :-)

Dan
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Re: [backstage] RealPlayer banished Toady!

[Dogsbody]

Glad to see you don't need RealPlayer any more to listen again, it uses
Flash instead.


Um, thanks for making internet radio _completely_ unavailable to me.


Ditto!  I can no longer listen to my favourite shows at all now!  :-(

Dan
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Re: [backstage] RealPlayer banished Toady!

[Dogsbody]

Ditto!  I can no longer listen to my favourite shows at all now!  :-(

Why?  This change effects only *listen again* for one show.  This 
suggests to me that you are comlaining about something you don't use.


Sorry, I worded that badly, I meant if this was rolled out site wide.


What strange install allows RealPlaer but not Flash?


Most of my Nokia mobile phones past and present.

Dan
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Re: [backstage] Google Chrome

[Dogsbody]

Well that's certainly better than it crashing the entire browser!


Slightly impressed, less than 24 hours after Google Chrome is released 
there is a crash exploit for it!

  http://evilfingers.com/advisory/google_chrome_poc.php

Dan
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Re: [backstage] I've woken up to a new world

[Dogsbody]

Proud to be living in California. It's time for change! :)


Shame you passed Prop 8 though!  :-/

Dan
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Re: [backstage] Iplayer the best video experience online?

[Dogsbody]

Allowing embedding of user-specified clips (ie marking an in- and 
out-point) could be a nice way of allowing 'water cooler' moments to be 
easily shared, 


Even without embedding I would love to see this.  Other video services 
allow you to jump to a specific start point and it would save all those 
e-mails asking you to jump to 40 mins in on a video.


Dan
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Re: [backstage] If you had a ton of content to freely distribute

[Dogsbody]

I didn't know Tar was just a way to pack together files with no compression. 
Now tar.gz makes sense to me :)


You know that zip has an option to not compress which would make it work 
in the same way as a tar file.


While I prefer tar (and agree with other comments that tar/zip'ing stops 
you picking files to download) I believe zip is a bit more supported in 
Windows environments :-p


Dan


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[backstage] Mozilla to support open video natively

[Dogsbody]

Mozilla Firefox 3.1 will include native support for video in the browser 
and they have chosen Theora as the format of choice.


Short post: http://shaver.off.net/diary/2009/01/26/advancing-open-video/

Long description: http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=977

So does that mean we can have iplayer in as a Theora stream now ;-)

I am really looking forward to this for a few projects I have been 
working on that still don't really have a true open source solution:

http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/msg07487.html

Dan
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Re: [backstage] What's the calendar app?

[Dogsbody]

Like the calendar at http://ideas.welcomebackstage.com/node/11
What's the calendar app? I'm wanting to tie a calendar to a database of 
people, events and places using Drupal. The timeline is from 1950 to the 
present time so it needs flexibility and range.


It's just a Google Calendar embedded in with an iframe... 
http://www.google.com/calendar/


Dan
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[backstage] Ian Forrester ok?

[Dogsbody]

Doe anyone know if Ian Forrester is OK?

Twitter is awash with info about him being in a coma!?

My thoughts are with friends and family.

Dan


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