[backstage] Hello

2011-08-02 Thread James Holden
Hello,

I was clearing up my site other day and came across over 8,000 samples
of the BBC News site which I captured using my BBC Archive tool which
was running at that time.  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcbackstage/2010/04/prototype-bbc-archiver.s
html


Here's the combined  video of the BBC News site over a few months in
mid-2010 during which time they changed to the new design.  Includes Ash
cloud, moat, election and so on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BfxExdXVmk

Sad I couldn't keep it running but the disk use was huge.

Best
Jim.

-
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] iPad iplayer app issue

2011-06-20 Thread James Holden
I would say this issue is well known and well talked about:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbiplayer/NF13735683?thread=7951758skip=50

The problem still seems to exist up to end of May and there seems to be
sporadic feedback from the BBC in this specific thread.

Jim

-Original Message-
From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Alan Pope
Sent: 20 June 2011 10:59
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: [backstage] iPad iplayer app issue

Hullo!

Sorry if this is not the right place for this, I have mailed
mobileapps@, but thought other clever people here might have some
suggestions/experience to share.

Over the last few weeks I've been having right trouble with the iPad
iplayer app on a 1st gen iPad. I'm on 30Mb/s Virgin connection which is
working fine. Frequently I'll be watching programmes and they cut out
after about 5-6 minutes. I have had this with various programmes over an
extended period so it's not limited to one night or one programme.

I got a bit desperate and moved my wireless access point to the bedroom,
connected to the router via devolo ethernet over power things. Other
devices like phones and laptops doing basic browsing, and a server doing
sustained rsyncs seem okay over the connection, I only get an issue with
the iplayer app on ipad.

One person today suggested rebooting the iPad which (surprisingly
perhaps) I haven't actually tried, but will tonight if it happens. I
usually just get narked and listen to a podcast instead, or go to sleep
:)

Other suggestions welcome?

Cheers,
Al.
-
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] Backstage Ticker

2010-11-16 Thread James Holden
I know good ol'backstage is taking its last few gasps but I thought I'd
add my beeb inspired rss desktop ticker for Windows whilst people are
still here!

 

http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/bbc_ticker_2010/

 

supported by BBC Backstage and all that blurb.



[backstage] Top 40 XML

2010-10-29 Thread James Holden
Hey,

 

Someone asked me to update my Top 40 page so the XML version worked
again.  I took the opportunity to slightly extend the feed to include a
bit more information and add direct links to track via Spotify's
Metadata API.

 

Feeds are here:

http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/top40.xml

http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/top40albums.xml

 

Example application written in C#:

http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/spotify/

Cheers.

Jim.



RE: [backstage] Top 40 XML

2010-10-29 Thread James Holden
Scrape and shape 

-Original Message-
From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Patrick Sinclair
Sent: 29 October 2010 18:42
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] Top 40 XML

That looks great! How are you getting the Top 40 data?

Patrick

On 29 October 2010 18:01, James Holden
james_hol...@londonmarketing.com wrote:
 Hey,



 Someone asked me to update my Top 40 page so the XML version worked
again.
 I took the opportunity to slightly extend the feed to include a bit 
 more information and add direct links to track via Spotify's Metadata
API.



 Feeds are here:

 http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/top40.xml

 http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/top40albums.xml



 Example application written in C#:

 http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/spotify/

 Cheers.

 Jim.

-
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 Archiver

2010-07-15 Thread James Holden
Hi Jakob,

Thanks for the comments.  I wrote the screenshot tool in C# and it sits on a PC 
chugging away once every 30 minutes.  

Screen shot of the app here: http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/uploader.png

It's a bit of a work-in-progress so .. :)

Jim

-Original Message-
From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk [mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] 
On Behalf Of Jakob Fix
Sent: 14 July 2010 22:59
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Archiver

James, cool stuff! What tool are you using to take the automated
screen shots from the websites?

cheers,
Jakob.



On Wed, Jul 14, 2010 at 13:34, James Holden
james_hol...@londonmarketing.com wrote:
 Hi,



 Just a quick update about the BBC Archiver:



 The system which captured the screen shots was turned off by mistake for the
 last few days.  Sorry about this and the new news site is now being
 archived. (Looks good, well done).



 http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/BBCArchive/calendar.php



 Jim.

-
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 Archiver

2010-07-15 Thread James Holden
I do like it, it's cleaner than before and probably better from a
content management point of view but there are some odd bits about it.

 

I'd move up (on homepage)  More from the BBC News and get rid of the
overly dark UK News  Weather block which doesn't fit for me.

 

One of the strangest choices is the inconsistent methods of navigation.
Given the recent BBC Homepage alterations I'd of thought news would
follow the home design but even the top line main sections don't match.
The primary news areas with subset options is nice but again doesn't
exist anywhere else on the site.  Also, BBC Home has a pretty nice 5-6
pixel housing around the page body and the news loses this too.

 

But hey, I'm not a designer or UI expert so what do i know?

 

Jim J

 

 

From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Davy Mitchell
Sent: 15 July 2010 17:07
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] BBC Archiver

 

 

I can't stand the new News page design - maybe it will grow on me? It's
all cluttered with a weird empty column in the middle of the page for
stories. 

 

Sorry,

Davy



[backstage] BBC Archiver

2010-07-14 Thread James Holden
Hi,

 

Just a quick update about the BBC Archiver:

 

The system which captured the screen shots was turned off by mistake for
the last few days.  Sorry about this and the new news site is now being
archived. (Looks good, well done).

 

http://server-2.webcoding.co.uk/BBCArchive/calendar.php

 

Jim.



RE: [backstage] iPad and iPlayer

2010-05-20 Thread James Holden
It's actually incredibly easy  to get the iPlayer working on the iPad
via safari.  Additionally the video source is fully compatible with
HTML5 video containers.

So long as you ensure that requests come from iphone marked devices
you can get Safari to work with it perfectly and indeed present HTML5
video containers with iPlayer video streams.

The problem for a legit version is that they will 

a) have to buy some iPads then 
b) write a larger screen mobile version 
c) test it, make change and release

I wouldn't bank on anything coming soon, corporate oil tanker :)

Additionally, AFAIK not all videos are available for the iPhone so it's
not a question of making a small shift to the main iPlayer website.

http://img31.imageshack.us/i/ipadkg.jpg/





-Original Message-
From: owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk
[mailto:owner-backst...@lists.bbc.co.uk] On Behalf Of Paul Webster
Sent: 20 May 2010 10:23
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Cc: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] iPad and iPlayer

Can someone from BBC persuade someone else in BBC with the right powers
to make a statement on this?

FYI Apple have now enabled access to UK AppStore for iPad users

Paul

On Tue, 11 May 2010 08:33:03 +0100, you wrote:

While the method below is still working fine - it remains a bit of a
pain to use.
Any chance that someone in BBC could make the change that I suggested 
nearly a month ago - namely to add the iPad as an alias for the iPhone
(user-agent strings below).
If BBC makes special format for iPad in the future then fine ... simply
remove the alias at that point.

Paul Webster

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 18:34:42 +0100, you wrote:

Ah - good idea.
I guess that means that the Apple webkit is statically linked - so it
picks up the iPhone version.
Just tried it by using the iPhone Facebook app - and became a fan of

one of the BBC iPlayer pages ... which has a link in the info section.
Worked well.


Paul

On Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:11:26 +0100, you wrote:

If you use an iPhone app with a built in browser (Files works well
for me), you can access the iPhone iPlayer on the iPad.  It looks
reasonably good in pixel-doubled mode.

Jamie.

On 15 Apr 2010, at 12:33, Paul Webster paul-at-dabdig.com |BBC
Lists/Example Allow| wrote:

 Ok - I admit it ... I have one.
 Any chance of adding iPad Safari user-agent to the list of things
that look like an iPhone so that iPlayer works?
 
 Here are examples:
 iPad:
 Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) 
 AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4
 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10
 
 iPhone:
 Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) 
 AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0
 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16
 
 I realise that it could be optimised for the display 
 characteristics - but right now it is useless because BBC site asks
for Flash.
 
 Paul Webster
 
 -
 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/

-
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/

-
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] iPad and iPlayer

2010-04-15 Thread James Montgomerie
If you use an iPhone app with a built in browser (Files works well for me), 
you can access the iPhone iPlayer on the iPad.  It looks reasonably good in 
pixel-doubled mode.

Jamie.

On 15 Apr 2010, at 12:33, Paul Webster paul-at-dabdig.com |BBC Lists/Example 
Allow| wrote:

 Ok - I admit it ... I have one.
 Any chance of adding iPad Safari user-agent to the list of things that look 
 like an iPhone so that iPlayer works?
 
 Here are examples:
 iPad:
 Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 
 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4
 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10
 
 iPhone:
 Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) 
 AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0
 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16
 
 I realise that it could be optimised for the display characteristics - but 
 right now it is useless because BBC site asks
 for Flash.
 
 Paul Webster
 
 -
 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] iplayer css broken in chrome?

2009-11-29 Thread James Crowley
Don't know if it's just me, but the CSS files seem to be broken for the iPlayer 
in Google Chrome for the last day or two? (works fine in Firefox).

Had a look and the stylesheet reference off to 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/r18179/style/style.css comes back as something 
that's definitely not a stylesheet!

Thanks

James

---
James Crowley
CEO, developerFusion - the global developer community
web: http://www.developerfusion.com/
twitter: http://twitter.com/developerfusion
tel: 0207 291 0783 mob: 07986624128
---
Developer Fusion Ltd is registered in England No. 04905407
Registered office 58 Sandringham Close, Enfield, Middx, EN1 3JH



[backstage] Grand Prix on iPlayer not available on all devices?

2009-06-22 Thread James Montgomerie

I hope someone here can answer my iPlayer question:

It seems that I can only access the main Grand Prix coverage from  
yesterday (b00l8s2q and b00lllnf) on the iPlayer site on my  
desktop, not from my iPhone or Wii. On the non-desktop devices, only  
the qualifying and the highlights are available, not the main race  
coverage. It's unfortunate, because I usually use the iPhone connected  
to my TV to watch iPlayer on the big screen (which works great!).  Is  
the omission intentional?


Thanks,
Jamie.
-
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] RDTV launched

2009-04-10 Thread James Montgomerie


On 9 Apr 2009, at 22:57, Mr I Forrester mailbox-at-cubicgarden.com | 
BBC Lists| wrote:
I hope you find the project useful as some of the footage is well  
worth
looking through if you have the time. We are planning to have even  
more

formats supported in the next week or so. So if Mpeg4 isn't to your
taste, you should hold out for the Ogg Theora, Xvid and WMV versions
once I crank up my Quad Processor PIII Xeon box :)


The 30-minute .mov version seems not to be there?

Also, count me in for wanting an RSS feed too.  I'm interested, but  
lazy; I'll be much more likely to watch if I can just subscribe to it  
as a podcast with iTunes.


Jamie.
-
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] Clay Shirky: Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable

2009-03-29 Thread James Ockenden
 I think this is a false dilemma. Guys in my office have phones with
 8MP cameras. My 18-month old phone has a 5MP camera. I suspect a good
 lens and skill with photoshop is vastly more important than the
 photographer being professional.

Sure, some kid with a 10MP phone can take a 300dpi front-page-sized
picture of a UFO crashing down into the village green – but when the
alien crawls out and asks to speak to Gordon Brown for the first time,
do you, as a news editor, send the kid with the phone, or perhaps
someone who has a bagfull of experience, a ladder, good elbows, and a
record of never ever fg up?

-
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] Competition Commission bounces Project Kangeroo

2009-02-04 Thread Jeremy James
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7869181.stm

A victory or a loss for consumer choice?

-jeremy


P.S. Also; opportunities for a marsupial pun thread.
-
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] Your ideas are now finally welcomed

2008-12-31 Thread James Cridland
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 1:11 PM, Gareth Davis gareth.da...@bbc.co.ukwrote:

  It still still being made, just not for the tellybox :)
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/top_of_the_pops.shtml


So, why doesn't it appear in
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00704hg/upcoming

Surely it should - it's the same brand (owned by BBC ONE, but you still
broadcast a radio version)

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage] not quite in the Backstage spirit?

2008-12-22 Thread James Cridland
On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Martin Deutsch martin.deut...@gmail.comwrote:

 Just spotted this in the newest Private Eye (dated 26th Dec)...


Being fair... use of the logo means official. No use of the logo means
unofficial. That's what the Backstage licence basically says.

Do a quick iTunes search for BBCReader - that app really concerns me, since
it's rubbish and people think it's the BBC's.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage] Media Selector query

2008-12-09 Thread James Cridland
I'll look at what the media selector is doing: we'll be adding Windows Media
files in there shortly (for wifi radios). It's not my team that does it, but
I need to work on making it easier to understand!

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:48 PM,
[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

  You never know how technical to go before people start falling asleep at
 their desks..

 The latter idea (a separate feed) would probably be easier to implement in
 the short term - perhaps an international version of the mediaselector with
 a similar URL pattern to the current one (hypothetical example :
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/international/stream/p001hlts ) that
 just has media items that are available overseas?

 Longer term an attribute on the media item would make sense and would
 probably be a good move for future-proofing, as I'm sure long term much more
 audio and video content will end up being available internationally and it's
 bound to be useful in the future to distinguish between UK and overseas
 availability.

 Out of curiousity how is it done at the moment on bbc.co.uk/iplayer ? I
 presume there must be some code that chooses which media item to use,
 based on the geolocation data and preferred player settings?

 Andrew

  --
 *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Ian Forrester
 *Sent:* 08 December 2008 17:06
 *To:* backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
 *Subject:* RE: [backstage] Media Selector query

  never feel sorry for being too geeky!

 Ah see what you mean, so some kind of attribute would be useful but
 currently the spec doesn't support it. Or maybe we should be producing two
 different types of feeds? One international and the other UK?






-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


re: [backstage] Newstime on BanterTV

2008-10-28 Thread James Crowley
(first post to this list - hello everyone!)

Previously known as the Live Mesh platform (Microsoft loves changing names 
every 30 seconds to keep us on our toes).

You can find out more at http://dev.live.com/ . There's a whole load of 
services around online/offline synchronization, alert services, sharing data 
(such as contacts, calendars, photos  etc)... and it all ties into the Windows 
Azure platform too, but still getting my head around it!

---
James Crowley
CEO, developerFusion - the global developer community

Developer Fusion Ltd | 58 Sandringham Close | Enfield, EN1 3JH
mob: 07986 624128 web: http://www.developerfusion.com/

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Stefan Richter
Sent: 28 October 2008 19:20
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] Newstime on BanterTV

sounds interesting. What exactly is the Live Service or Framework?

Stefan

On 28 Oct 2008, at 18:08, Brian Butterworth wrote:


Hi Stefan,

Have you seen this?

http://www.betanews.com/article/PDC_2008_Live_blog_of_the_Windows_7_keynote/1225207963

10:44am PT: The BBC is doing a demonstration of integrating the Live Framework 
with the BBC iPlayer. Users can see what their friends are watching, and see 
the most popular programs.
2008/10/28 Stefan Richter [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi all,
today I'd like to draw your attention to a site which I have recently launched.

www.bantertv.comhttp://www.bantertv.com pulls in the currently available BBC 
simulcast streams and adds a chat interface. Sounds simple - and it is. However 
noone seems to have done it yet, and I think combining live TV with a channel 
for interaction between viewers is hugely attractive.
So if you have nothing better to do at 1pm then head over and watch the one 
o'clock news there.

If you like the idea - and the BBC is not too miffed about the project - then 
I'd like you to help spread the word. I have a few more 'social' features 
waiting to be switched on but quite frankly there's not much point in doing 
that until there's a core group of visitors bringing some traffic. Once that 
happens though I am sure that the conversations will be interesting to watch - 
imagine Eastenders (once the main BBC channels go simulstream), or Strictly 
come Dancing.

A bit of background about myself (since this is my first real contribution to 
the list):
I'm a Flash Platform developer specialising in Flash video, Flash Media Server 
and real-time capabilities in Flash. My company is 
www.muchosmedia.comhttp://www.muchosmedia.com and my personal blog is at 
www.flashcomguru.comhttp://www.flashcomguru.com
I'm currently bootstrapping the development of some Flash based services, the 
first one being www.scribblar.comhttp://www.scribblar.com, an online 
collaboration tool. As you can see on BanterTV, I also build a lot of chat 
applications, some of which include live audio and video (via webcam/mic).

I'm looking forward to getting more involved in this group (and I think I have 
something ping.fmhttp://ping.fm related to post soon).

Best wishes,

Stefan



-
Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.ukhttp://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] ping.fm

2008-10-27 Thread Bruce James

IMHO Ping.fm is good, but not great.

Would be nice to see a bit of a preview of what a post looks like in  
various services.


Some of mine have been truncated by twitter and facebook and look  
odd.  And links sometimes come out all wrong for me, so tinyurl before  
submission?


B


On 27 Oct 2008, at 17:19, Stefan Richter wrote:


Hi Ian,
in your opinion, what would be a critical feature set for a ping.fm  
desktop app?
Obviously you'd need to be able to post updates to the ping.fm  
service, but what outside the core functionality would you like to  
see?


Regards,

Stefan



On 27 Oct 2008, at 16:29, Ian Forrester wrote:

Yeah this is the thing I'm really worried about happening. Ping.fm  
currently is my preferred way to do microblogging. Without it, geez  
it would be bad news. Surprised no ones created a ping.fm type  
thing for the desktop.


-
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] HD Videocamera advice please...

2008-10-01 Thread Jeremy James
Simon Thompson wrote:
 The GOP length is the number of frames between successive I-Frames.  A
 long GOP length will, for example, cause a delay on video appearing on
 changing channels on a STB or, as editing cuts can only start from an
 I-Frame will mean you can't do frame accurate editing.

I disagree with can't - the Sony XDCAM EX1 is a serious camera
intended for broadcast use that uses long-GOP MPEG2. However, editing is
indeed harder since the software needs to be clever about how it handles
the content. You potentially have to decode a fair number of frames to
show the one you want, and (unless re-rendering) you need to keep up to
the previous I-frame before any edits made in your source material
throughout the editing process.

Final transcoding is awkward too. If you intend to output to another
MPEG-2 then you either have to totally re-render the content to have new
I-frames (but with associated quality losses) or attempt to piece
together the original GOPs for the edit, only generating new sections
around edit points.

The majority of production houses [1] are still using I-frame based
systems - DV/Digibeta/HDCAM - but with the current trends towards
MPEG2-based formats - HDV/P2 - it is going to be interesting to see how
different types cope with the issues of non-I-frame editing. Some
long-timeframe productions will have the opportunity to re-render to a
I-frame format at ingest (typically MJPEG), others (current affairs /
sports) will have to deal with the formats throughout their workflows as
they are.

-jeremy

[1] Televisual Aug '08 Production Survey (Current usage: 70% Digibeta,
68% DV, 49% HDV, 45% HDCAM)
-
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 Internet Radio

2008-08-21 Thread James Cridland
Pure are making a new DAB and Internet Radio.

I have one of these (in a box just there, look). Next tonight, I'll be
opening it and blogging the results on http://james.cridland.net/blog/

And this interesting bit:
  Crawford also said that there would be additional services coming
  online by the end of the year such as the ability to purchase a track
  direct from the radio as it was being played, and 'tagging', whereby
  additional information about an artist or track could be pushed to
  the online portal.


Tagging is, in fact, part of the project that I and GCap Media are working
on. I'll circulate the complete spec once it's updated in the next week or
so. Eager Googlers might find an earlier version available on the web, but
I'd like to keep my powder dry 'till the new version; it's changed quite a
lot.


 Oh and this may keep Dave happy:
  We may later choose to expose the Linux platform fully, enabling
  others to add widgets and other extras. We didn't want to go with a
  closed, proprietary system.


In fact, I spoke to someone from Pure during the launch. The processor is
dual-threaded (at least); one thread runs the Linux platform (kernel 2.6 by
the way), one thread runs a Pure proprietary OS. The Linux portion will be
open source (i.e. you can download the source code). I've no idea how to do
a firmware upgrade yourself, mind; it gets its firmware upgrades via wifi,
so the opportunity for fiddling might be limited. But it's not quite as open
as you might think; and I'm unclear which bit does what. (Apparently the
interesting bit is proprietary).

My little team in the BBC will shortly publish a recipe for making your own
internet radio, by the way, which is totally open source; watch the Radio
Labs blog. It's considerably more expensive than the Pure one though, at
over £350.

Now, let me open the box and start playing. ;)

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/

Media UK - http://www.mediauk.com/ - the UK's independent media directory
http://www.mediauk.com/advertise | http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


[backstage] BBC News iGoogle gadget

2008-08-04 Thread James Cridland
If you like iGoogle gadgets, then there's the rather nice BBC Weather
unofficial gadget, which you can add by going to
http://bit.ly/bbcweather_ig (and I've summarily broken the old one, since
you can't simply forward it on).

There's also now a nice new BBC News unofficial iGoogle gadget, which you
can add by going to
http://bit.ly/bbcnews_ig

You can use edit this gadget to change from the UK news to the World news
if you so wish.

All feedback gratefully received.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/

Media UK - http://www.mediauk.com/ - the UK's independent media directory
http://www.mediauk.com/advertise | http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage] Radio now playing feeds

2008-08-01 Thread James Cridland
On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 2:48 PM, Chris Riley [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 So, I guess question number 1 is how supported is the publishing of now
 playing data to last.fm?  Is it something that the BBC will provide their
 own supported feed for as part of the new music site (especially as you are
 showing playcount data as part of artist pages now?) or is it to remain
 something you push to last.fm only.


Hi, Chris,

last.fm (and hackday) are not supported services, simply best endeavours
(i.e. if it falls over, sorry). However, this is a good bug report, and I'll
make enquiries.

Both /music and /programmes are/will-be replete with feeds. You may have
spotted that tracklistings appeared then disappeared in /programmes this
week - we aim to get them back there shortly, within a few weeks, once a few
niggles have been sorted out.

I might point you to www.getsatisfaction.com/bbc to give us further ideas
about the feeds you might want. While getsatisfaction.com isn't an official
BBC support channel (a few of us are just playing with it), it might be a
good way to suggest new features and feeds you'd like to see.

j


[backstage] BBC weather iGoogle gadget - v2

2008-07-30 Thread James Cridland
So, I did a BBC Weather iGoogle gadget last year. It was kind of nice, but
sadly people are actually, um, using it - with over 20,000 impressions a
day. Yikes. Think of the bandwidth and hassle that's causing my little
server.

So I've totally rewritten it, to sit on Google's own servers and work
entirely through JavaScript. So, I'd appreciate feedback on...

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/114911897911800307567/bbc-weather.xml

(add this to your iGoogle by hitting add gadgets (top right), then Add
feed or gadget at the bottom of the left-hand menu, and finally pasting
that in). Use the change settings button to choose a town near you.

If people don't see any hideous bugs (I can't test this in MSIE yet), then
I'll do some redirection shortly to the many users of my current gadget. And
add a BBC News one. And possibly even a BBC Music one! ;)

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/

Media UK - http://www.mediauk.com/ - the UK's independent media directory
Advertise on Media UK in ten minutes: http://www.mediauk.com/advertise

A Not At All Bad Ltd production - http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage] So was *this* what Mr. Cridland was referring to recently?

2008-07-30 Thread James Cridland
On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 4:52 PM, Christopher Woods [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:

  Christopher Woods wrote:
   Tech question - what encoder(s) are you using? If it's software in
   realtime or close-to-realtime, please (please please) say it's Lame
   3.97. If the backend is using the Fraunhofer FhG codec, I think I
   might contemplate going and banging my head against a wall
  for a little while.


Currently we're using old servers held together by string and sealing wax,
run on our behalf by Siemens, and being waited on hand and foot by trained
engineers to eke the very last amount of life out of their tired
motherboards. They use software from Digital Rapids:
http://www.digital-rapids.com/

Coyopa goes live shortly (actually, shhh, it's live now, we're just not
publishing the files yet) and it will be using software from twofour:
http://www.twofourgroup.com/ - I don't know the actual codec we're using;
it's a choice for our contractor. MP3 is not our longterm codec choice.

I think many are of the opinion that Lame is a higher quality and more
 efficient software codec than the FhG codec. It certainly excels at VBR
 encoding and quality at lower bitrates (circa 128kbps, which is where the
 BBC is initially encoding their stuff).


In fact, it's (from memory) 80k for 5live and 5livese, 128k for everything
else, except 192k for Radio 3. Again, this is not our longterm bitrate
choice neither. I refuse to be drawn! ;)

A question / request to BBC techies who have sorted this out: VBR is widely
 supported across PC, portable and handheld devices. Is VBR encoding on the
 cards for the future / could it be?


No, it's not; VBR is not a good solution for streaming files, which requires
CBR to work effectively as I recall.

While Coyopa will be creating files to download, given those same files will
be used for streaming, we'll be using CBR for those.

We're currently prohibited from using, say, progressive download techniques
for our streams, due to rights reasons. The BBC Embedded Media Player
buffers approx five seconds of audio as a result (which also enables us to
offer full navigation throughout audio and video files).

Hope all that's interesting to people.


Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer - why the missing TV channel?

2008-07-30 Thread James Cridland
On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 10:09 AM, Brian Butterworth
[EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote:


 I'm still wondering why you can't download the radio podcasts from the new
 iPlayer...


Coming soon.

Some tech challenges, but also a UI challenge of how on earth do we signal
that yes, you CAN download The Now Show, but no you CAN'T download the Chris
Moyles Breakfast Show though you CAN download a highlights package.

Rest assured, we're on it.


[backstage] BBC Music Beta launches

2008-07-28 Thread James Cridland
My team have produced another corker...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/beta is a lovely looking site, and contains lots
and lots of lovely APIs... more details at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/developers#RESTful

How splendid. Well done, chaps and chapesses.

j


Re: [backstage] iPlayer 2 - wow!

2008-07-04 Thread James Cridland
On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 The new iPlayer looks great and seems to work exceptionally well
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta/


...and it's now at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer too. With one important addition:
RSS FEEDS. Yes. Mmm. They auto-detect too, and there are lots of them.

Links from BBC Radio will link to the older player (shortly to be renamed
the 'BBC player' - catchy, huh?) for the weekend, and we're shifting them
over gradually next week for reasons too boring to go into now.

So. Good. Let's play.

j


Re: [backstage] RealPlayer banished Toady!

2008-06-16 Thread James Cridland
On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 4:28 PM, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 2008/6/13 James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
  As the man in charge of the Coyopa project, which'll be fiddling with a
 lot
  of our streams,
 You mean this: 
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/03/coyopa_takes_shape.shtml
 ?


Yep. It's in BH now. I saw it last week, warming up one of the apparatus
rooms. And it's even working. Hopefully we'll switch stuff on within the
next month. Some niggles to sort out still though.


  2. Flash streaming just works for most people, and as the TV iPlayer
 has
  shown, a tremendously popular way of consuming content.
 Not on mobiles. How about an Ogg stream with Cortado[1] for mobiles
 (or other people who dislike Flash).


Agreed. We have plans on mobile also, though any solution must just work.
Yes, we're providing a ton of extra streams in different formats for wifi
radios and the like to use; no, Ogg Vorbis is not one of them. I refer the
gentleman to the answers I gave here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/03/streaming_radio_online_your_co_1.shtml

Not sure whether our streaming will work on Gnash or not, incidentally. I'd
think, for a while at least, it will.

 3. HTTP downloads are not possible
 I think the idea was to stream over HTTP. (or something that is
 similar enough to streaming that no one notices).


RTMP or RTSP is streaming. Nobody (using Flash) will notice it's any
different to any other experience they have. Again, it must just work.
HTTP streaming is less good for Content Restriction And Protection. (Again,
sorry we have to put crp in our streams in this way, but we do.) (Yes, the
abbreviation is intentional).


  I'm sorry we have to use it. But we have to use it.
 Is there no a more open streaming protocol one could use?


Again, back to the Content Restriction And Protection issue; but also
coupled with the knowledge that a typical user wants something that just
works.

 5. A pop-up player will continue to be available in iPlayer when radio
  moves in.
 Unfortunately there is not much the BBC can really do about stay on
 top however. If the OS/Browser don't provide it then you're out of
 luck. Some OSes let any window stay on top.


Yep, agreed. We can't provide stay on top with anything internet, without
a software product, which people don't, generally, download. (Sweeping
generalisation, but my experience).


 If only browsers supported video[2] and audio tags, and if there
 was actually some base codecs defined that would work on any browser.
 (chicken/egg?)


Ye... to a point. There are some base codecs defined that work on any
browser with Flash installed (ie virtually all of them); and that's the way
that the world is going.


  Beer, anyone?
 Are you buying? ;)


Nope. You? Mine's the guest ale.

//j


Re: [backstage] More good news .. BBC to build web page for every TV show, says Jana Bennett

2008-06-14 Thread James Cridland
On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes (a page for every programme, tv or radio)

 The bit I was really interested in is a page for every programme already
 shown.  What a brilliant idea that is.  Shame so many will have the word
 wiped on them.


Agree. Of course, /programmes contains this info back to August-ish last
year.

Does much (or all or some) of this information already exist in a database
 already?


It does, in a different structure. Wouldn't it be nice to import it into
/programmes, though?

j


[backstage] BBC blog RSS feeds go... full text! Yay!

2008-06-13 Thread James Cridland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/06/full_articletext_feeds_for_bbc.html

I've been asking for months. No, years.

Finally. Hurray!

Well done Jem, Aaron, and the others.


Re: [backstage] RealPlayer banished Toady!

2008-06-13 Thread James Cridland
Enjoying this thread so far.

As the man in charge of the Coyopa project, which'll be fiddling with a lot
of our streams, could I pop in and make the following points (given you know
we're making changes later this year)...

1. We are not removing internet-radio-compatible streams. Panic not.
2. Flash streaming just works for most people, and as the TV iPlayer has
shown, a tremendously popular way of consuming content.
3. HTTP downloads are not possible: we don't own most of the content. That's
why you've spotted RTMP being used - it's a form of non-invasive Content
Restriction And Protection. I'm sorry we have to use it. But we have to use
it.
4. In the minority of cases where HTTP downloads are possible, I would like
to make those available for more programmes than just the podcasts.
5. A pop-up player will continue to be available in iPlayer when radio
moves in.

I love the idea of segmenting stories within the Today programme, and I've
ensured that the right people see that idea.

Good.

(grin)

Beer, anyone?


Re: [backstage] More good news .. BBC to build web page for every TV show, says Jana Bennett

2008-06-13 Thread James Cridland
On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 3:18 PM, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/10/bbc.digitalmedia
BBC to build web page for every TV show, says Jana Bennett
A brilliant idea by the sounds of things.


Cough
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes (a page for every programme, tv or radio)


On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 3:28 PM, Matt Barber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 Yeh, this way it will also be easier (if they implement it, which I hope
 they do) to find iPlayer episodes via the programme page rather than iplayer
 interface.


Cough

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/genres/childrens/entertainmentandcomedy/player(a
page showing, for example, all childrens entertainment on the iPlayer,
tv
or radio)


I must get this cough seen to


Re: [backstage] Re: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] RE: [backstage] Re: Is it OK for BT Vision to charge £3 per month for the iPlayer?

2008-06-09 Thread James Ockenden
I would pay £6 a month for pre-selected iplayer content delivered to
me on a DVD here in Hong Kong.

Could any of the the three Bs - BT, BBC or Brian - offer that service, legally?

-
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] Radio 4 on Realplayer

2008-06-04 Thread James Cridland
@christopher:

 Ooo ooo oo oo oo oo oo oo, *FLAC streaming*? Lossless WMA?

If you'd be happy trebling your licence fee, and explaining why everyone
else has to... (grin)... but I've plenty of experience adding odd formats to
radio stations which don't have many listeners, thanks.

@briantist:

Obviously I'm hoping that everything that's on the iPlayer Radio will come
 as MP3s and the existing podcasts will be better quality (I would personally
 prefer a VBR stereo In Our Time than the current mono one).


VBR is something we've not actually looked at, as far as I'm aware. That's a
good and interesting thought - I'll consult with the clever people to see if
there are benefits for downloads. We are, though, not encoding everything
that the same rate; it depends on what the content is; there are four
different encoding profiles that we've identified. More though will need to
wait for the blog - and don't read this into saying that we're making
everything available as MP3 downloads; naturally, we're not. We can't.

It's probably way, way too late to ask for this, but how about having
 pre-compression (audio compression that is) versions of BBC Radio 3 and
 1Xtra as, at least, an option.  I can listen to my classical and drum n bass
 at home with their piano to forte range, would be great to have the same
 range from BBC radio.  I understand why DAB and FM need to have the analogue
 audio compression, but a clear version online would be cheap and satisfy
 the audiophiles.


In fact, there are separate audio-processing techniques for all outputs - so
FM is treated differently to DAB and to DTV. But, as you ask, we'll use the
least-processed output for our higher bitrate streams. And honestly, you
wouldn't want studio levels; they're a very unpleasant listen (says an ex
radio presenter who used to monitor levels by ensuring that the red light
didn't flash too much). Radio programmes are produced with the
audio-processing in mind; indeed, that's what the presenters hear in their
headphones.


 Also I'm pleased to hear that the word open is being used in BBC circles
 - and without being an expletive (I presume).


I discussed part of the FMT (future media and technology) core values a
few times with different colleagues - and always, without fail, open has
been the most well-received word.

j


Re: [backstage] An alternative iPlayer interface for the Wii

2008-06-03 Thread James Cridland
Possibly worth mentioning that the reason why iPlayer (and  
RadioPlayer) are not great on other platforms is that both product  
infrastructures currently force us to produce static pages rather than  
sensibly database-derived products.


iPlayer v2.0 is less than a month away; the backend redesign means  
dynamically-generated niceness for Wii, iPhone, and other platforms  
will be much easier.


J



On 30 May 2008, at 10:20, Matt Barber [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

I don't have a Wii so can't test, but great seeing this stuff  
happen, when platforms grow around 'open' content. (Not starting an  
open content thread here, you know what I mean) - I have a 360, and  
I wonder how difficult it would be to stream to that. It supports  
UPnP servers, so you'd need a PC with a server app and transcoder,  
not as efficient as the Wii.

If they opened a web browser up on it, then that would be something.

On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Now that is awesome!

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 7:48 PM, Chris Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:
 I've been using the iPlayer on the Wii quite a lot recently and  
felt the
 interface could be improved to make navigation easier on the Wii's  
low
 resolution. Because of this, I've created an alternative interface  
that

 integrates better with the Wii UI and hopefully improves usability.

 To use it just point your Wii browser at:
 http://defaced.co.uk/wiiplayer/

 More information and screenshots can be found here:
 
http://defaced.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/05/28/wiiplayer-the-better-way-to-view-the-bbc-iplayer/

 There are still a few rough edges here and there but I think it  
works well

 overall. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 Cheers,

 Chris


-
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] Film Reviews

2008-06-03 Thread James Cridland

I have forwarded this good idea on.

I've also commented that associated RSS feeds should return a 404 for  
sites we no longer maintain.


On 30 May 2008, at 08:22, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:


Just a quick idea.  How about a page on bbc.co.uk noting sections  
that have closed?


2008/5/29 Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED]:
 I see the film reviews are nolonger being updated on the BBC
 site.  Does anyone know why and will this mean that the film
 reviews xml feeds will no longer be updated.

The Movies site (and it's associated section on BBCi) formally  
closed on
6 May 2008 - they've left the archive online, however there won't be  
any

new reviews.  As such, the feeds won't get updated.

-
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/




--
Please email me back if you need any more help.

Brian Butterworth

http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover  
advice, since 2002


Re: [backstage] Radio 4 on Realplayer

2008-06-03 Thread James Cridland
And to feed back to you (it's your BBC)...

The issue here was a peculiar glitch in the signal received by the satellite
receiving units at Maidenhead. (At present, all our national network online
streams are re-encoded from satellite receivers by our technology partner
Siemens).

For a while, we switched over to DAB as a backup source of audio, which
cured the issue on most stations. (I say 'most' - one of the DAB receivers
developed a fault, but that was soon overpatched. Marvel at the detail I'm
giving you here). This was successful, though made BBC Radio 1 slightly
distorted (since DAB processing is slightly 'louder' than that via
satellite); Radio 1 was switched back to satellite delivery on Monday
morning and others have since followed suit.

Currently scheduled for next month, we'll switch to encoding national radio
(live, and on-demand) straight from the transmission chain within
Broadcasting House (using the same processing as the digital satellite feed,
which is the best-suited for the internet environment). You'll notice a slew
of changes to our audio online over the next few months - and, we hope, a
set of new, developer-friendly, formats. (I can reveal that our choices of
audio codec does not include Ogg Vorbis. Yes, I was the man who installed it
at another national station. No, it is not good value for money to attempt
the same at the BBC.)

The BBC's FMT team are committed to being as open as we can - indeed,
earlier today I escaped from an exciting conference which used the word
Open more times than is healthy - so I hope this is interesting to some.
However, I'd reiterate that our web form, as linked to by my friend and
colleague Alan Ogilvie, is the quickest way to alert us to an issue and get
it fixed - little mutes in audio may not get picked up by automated checking
systems, and we don't generally sit and watch Backstage (indeed, as you've
spotted, I rarely pop in here but am very vocal once I do).

j (on behalf of his employer just this once)





On Fri, May 30, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Alan Ogilvie [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

 Brian - I have alerted our teams. Thank you. We are experiencing
 on-going problems with a few of our streams, you may notice issues on
 some listen again programmes (although I think we are down to the last
 few with a problem at the moment).

 In future the best way to contact us about streaming issues is via the
 contact pages: http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/

 (there is a direct email address, but it's worth going through the web
 form as it will capture useful things like your IP address and things)

 Alan

 --
 Alan Ogilvie

 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (IP) Interactive Platforms Producer
 Distribution Technologies | Audio  Music Interactive
 Room 818, BBC Henry Wood House, 3-6 Langham Place, London, W1B 3DF


 

 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Butterworth
 Sent: 30 May 2008 18:26
 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
 Subject: [backstage] Radio 4 on Realplayer


 Is it just me getting audio mutes every few seconds on the Real Audio
 stream of BBC Radio 4 FM.  The LW feed is OK though...

 Who do you tell these days?

 --

 Brian Butterworth

 http://www.ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover
 advice, since 2002

 -
 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/




-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://www.mediauk.com/

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production.
http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage] Zattoo - live streaming BBC channels

2008-05-14 Thread Jeremy James
Gareth Davis wrote:
 Why would it be? SDI is the usual way we send SD digital audio and video
 round the studios. The bitrate may be high, but it is still interlaced
 SD resolution video. I can't remember the various different bandwidth
 figures for HD SDI, and I can't be bothered digging through my training
 notes from Wood Norton now - But I think they are measured in Gbps.

Most HD-SDI (ie. 1080i50 or 720p50) is up to a nominal 1.5Gbps. Anything
higher resolution (eg. 1080p50) needs cables capable of 3Gbps or
dual-link existing cables.

Note the rather nifty Dirac Pro solutions to avoiding having to upgrade
cables - able to compress 1.5Gbps into 270Mbps to run over SD links with
fairly low quality loss, and to compress 1080p or 1200p (up to 3Gbps) to
run over a single 1.5Gbps link losslessly. Great work, Tim  Co!

-jeremy
-
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] iPlayer (unoffically) on the PS3

2008-05-01 Thread Bruce James


On 1 May 2008, at 11:15, David Woodhouse wrote:


On Thu, 2008-05-01 at 10:39 +0100, David Johnston wrote:

That's all very good - SWF is essentially the platform and FLV the
format - but RTMP (the streaming delivery mechanism used by the
flash-based iPlayer) is proprietary with no mature open-source
alternative.


Yeah, but we're getting there.

http://cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewvc/gnash/libnet/rtmp.cpp? 
root=gnashview=log


--
dwmw2

-
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/


This is interesting work. A couple of months go I was talking to a  
colleague about trying to get something like this working in MythTV.

I'm going to take a look at this.

B

-
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] Ashley Highfield leaves BBC (almost)

2008-04-16 Thread James Ockenden
[totally off off-topic]
Ertugrul defends BBC kettle plan
Kent Ertugrul says there is no privacy issue with his concept of
monitoring BBC kettles to target beverage advertisments to the kettle
user.
With a Phorm-BBC-PAT-approved kettle, the request for electricity is
first sent to several switching stations and analysed by our
state-of-the-art beverage hisotry algorithms, said Ertugrul. We can
then determine the exact round of beverages the user is about to
prepare, and offer our advertisers the chance to offer them something
more suitable, he said.
The technology was in its infancy, he said, because only four users
had the talking kettles required to pass on the advertising message.
But it's only a matter of time before we have a worldwide BBC kettle
which says 'wouldn't you really prefer a strong smooth nescafe gold'
just before the user tips the device onto a bland green tea bag, said
Ertugrul.
Or, if we've deteced a heavier usage pattern around management
meeting times, we can kick in with the 'gold blend cafetiere' pitch.
Sort of like those Lemsip adverts which threaten your career if you
don't buy the product.
Once we can link this up to our Phorm Urinal package, we'll have a
pretty good idea of what goes in and out of the BBC, he said. When
asked about accuracy of urinal data, Ertugrul said Most of the data
gets aggregated into very very few hands.

[Thank-you and goodnight :-) ]



On 17/04/2008, Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 It has been properly PAT tested, etc yes :-D



  Michael.

 -
  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] iPlayer and the ISPs - a solution

2008-04-15 Thread Jeremy James
Brian Butterworth wrote:
 * ISPs provide rack space for BBC servers inside their network

* Who pays for servers?
* Who maintains servers? ISP? Siemens?
* Who pays for power usage?

 * ISPs provide list of IP addresses to directed to said servers

* How is this done? Manually? How many ISPs? Or as fun as those
automatic emails to/from Nominet?
* ISPs sometimes move users from one end of the country to the other on
the same IPs, but via different (effective) POPs. How much information
needs to be transmitted to allow closer proxies?
* Is the mapping of IPs to logical network layout confidential?

 * BBC copies each new file (and deletes) to these servers

* How much disk space required?
* Standard protocols to copy files? (rsync? HTTP?) New ones?
* How can you be sure ISPs delete the content when they are meant to?

 * iPlayer software detect and redirects to BBC servers inside ISP network

* Big list of IPs to scan on a regular basis. Performance issues?
* What if ISP proxy is dead?
* What if it dies during playback?
* What if it doesn't have the content yet/already deleted it?

 * Interim solution until fatter pipes purchased, say 2-3 years.

* Agreed. Fibre FTW, as they say.
* But who pays?

-jeremy
-
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] Is Freesat going to be HD only?

2008-04-12 Thread James Cridland
Further to all the discussion in this thread about HD, it would occur to me
that what would be really cool is to see an 'Also in HD' overlay on an SD
channel when the programme is being simulcast in HD. Hitting that colour
(hey, use blue) and it'll pop over to the BBC HD channel. Neat.

I don't think Sky allow you to switch TV channels using MHEG, which is a
shame, so I guess I'll never get to see that on my box...

J


Re: [backstage] 502 error

2008-04-12 Thread James Cridland
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:24 AM, Andrew Bowden [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

Hi guys,
does anyone else get a 502 error when trying to post to Justin
 Web's
  blog:
 
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2008/04/letting_it_al
 l_out.html#commentsanchorhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2008/04/letting_it_all_out.html#commentsanchor

 There's a known issue with the BBC blog comments where this
 unfortunately happens sometimes.

 There's more about it here - including what is being done to solve the
 problem
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/02/leaving_comments_on_bbc_b
 logs.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/02/leaving_comments_on_bbc_blogs.html


Without breaking too many confidences, as a man who posts to BBC blogs
occasionally, I saw an exciting looking email recently with details in the
next few weeks of a short period of don't post anything while we work on
things, after which we'll see a new commenting system.

So, that's good.

j


Re: [backstage] Embracing the torrent of online video

2008-03-27 Thread James Cridland
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 3:17 PM, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Anyone else find it odd *ALL* the BBC rights holders are demanding
 exactly the same thing? Sounds a lot like a Cartel to me. (I Am Not a
 Lawyer)


They're not; we have a complicated rights situation which make things rather
more difficult. Just in radio, there are different rules with live versus
pre-recorded music as an example, which makes getting the rights correct for
the Radio Player quite difficult. Indeed, we normally try to attempt to get
all the rights holders to accept the same thing, to offer as uniform a
service as we can (both how it looks to the user and how we do it
internally). Normally this means compromise on both sides.




  2. For those larger files that we do have rights to (like podcasts), the
  leading podcatchers, like iTunes, don't come with Torrent support

 That's iTunes problem isn't it. People with a lot less money than the
 BBC seem to have grasped how to provide multiple formats, it's not
 that difficult. What you need is some kind of script (you could even
 use make, apt-get build-essential on your eeePC should do the trick).


People with a lot less content, yes. But we're not talking about formats
here; we're talking about server infrastructure; and there is nobody with
more content than the BBC. (Yes, Youtube, but that's different).

Thanks for the info on tracking stuff; interesting.

  5. We'd really not want to push people through hoops to download new
  software just to consume our content*, especially given that we've a lot
 of
  less tech-savvy users than an average site

 iPlayer, Kontiki, RealPlayer, Flash, WMP?


iPlayer is not a download.
Kontiki is, and yes, I don't understand that one.
RealPlayer - agreed
Flash is almost universally installed by every user; I think we're happy
with that.
Windows Media Player is pre-installed on every Windows machine (nearly).

The future is something that just works with as few downloads as possible;
which is what I'm aiming for. Visit virginradio.co.uk/listen, and the player
will use Windows (if you're using MSIE and Windows) or Flash otherwise, just
as an example - for most users it just works. It won't come as a surprise
that I want something similar here. Give me time, I've got more content to
deal with, and systems and processes that are a tad slower.


Re: [backstage] DVB-H finally gets formal adoption by the EC (oh and vista SP1!)

2008-03-25 Thread James Cridland
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 9:49 PM, Christopher Woods [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

  If you're interested in this stuff, then November should bring a really
 interesting day from The Radio Academy, called 'Radio at the Edge'. I'll be
 mentioning it ad nauseam later in the year, but thought I'd not turn down
 this opportunity.

 Is that going to be a lecture or something at a particular venue? What's
 the cost going to be? Could only find scant information about last year's
 event (I'd be very interested in attending that but the cost for these
 things is usually prohibitive for students).

 It'll be a day's conference. It's a paid-for event (but normally a couple
of hundred instead of the more usual couple of thousand), but I like the
idea of doing something special for students.

More details on its blog - yes, it's got one (currently with one post!) -
shortly.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://www.mediauk.com/


Re: [backstage] DVB-H finally gets formal adoption by the EC (oh and vista SP1!)

2008-03-22 Thread James Cridland
Don't confuse the DAB IP telly stuff from BT Movio with proper telly  
over DAB. That standard is called T-DMB and it's excellent quality.  
It's in use in various places, including South Korea.  The cold, dead  
hand of Microsoft goes nowhere near T-DMB.


DVB-H is fine, as long as you don't mind waiting ten seconds to change  
channels (!!!) or waiting until 2011 for the frequencies to be freed  
up in the UK.


Given that DAB is not dying (don't confuse one radio group's short- 
sighted business problems with a death of the medium), it would make  
rather more sense to continue investing in its infrastructure.


--
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://mediauk.com/

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. 
http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info

On 20 Mar 2008, at 10:26, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]  
wrote:



On 19/03/2008, Sean DALY [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Here's the firsthand info:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/451format=HTMLaged=0language=ENguiLanguage=en

Thanks for the links.

The speech made me think ... if DVB-H gets adopted and used, which  
seems likely, it would probably be better to dump the whole DAB (and  
even DAB+) idea and use DVB-H instead.


DVB-H's design has the datastream formatted with information that  
allows the reciever to turn off for those moments where the data is  
not required for a particular channel.  Computed by the broadcast  
end, the design allows for the receiver to be powered off for over  
95% of the time.  This certainly would extend the life of any device  
that uses it.


Comparing the quality of the DVB-H system I saw in London in June  
2006 to the awful service on Virgin DAB-TV (why oh why did the BBC  
take part?), DVB-H seems like a proper service.


http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051125

http://www.ukfree.tv/fullstory.php?storyid=1107051279

So, can we pull another Freeview style rescue here?  BBC+DVB- 
H=future relevance !


Also, would be a perfect fill-in for people who can't get Freeview  
after switchover because they have to use a portable set or aerial...



Also Commissioner Reding's speech I alluded to in the DRM thread the
other day discusses this:

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/144format=HTMLaged=0language=ENguiLanguage=en
-
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/




--
Please email me back if you need any more help.

Brian Butterworth
http://www.ukfree.tv


Re: [backstage] BBC Home Page broken

2008-03-15 Thread James Cridland
Those pages are as designed, incidentally: nobody will link to them that way
(unlike a relocation).

On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 6:16 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  Also, www.bbcnews.co.uk



 Chris



 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Fox Tucker
 Sent: 14 March 2008 13:01
 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
 Subject: RE: [backstage] BBC Home Page broken



 Seems fine now, but they should sort http://www.bbciplayer.co.uk



 -Original Message-

 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Lockwood

 Sent: 13 March 2008 12:06

 To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk

 Subject: [backstage] BBC Home Page broken





 12.05 GMT - it's looking a little, shall we say, untidy.



 :-)



 http://www.bbc.co.uk/



 Cheers,



 Rich.

 -

 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/




-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://www.mediauk.com/

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production.
http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage] iPlayer DRM is over?

2008-03-14 Thread James Cridland
On Thu, Mar 13, 2008 at 9:41 PM, Iain Wallace [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 You basically have to send the exact same headers that an iPhone does,
 along with the BBC-UID. Fortunately someone emailed me a plain-text
 log of successful requests sniffed from his iPhone.
 I've used curl instead of wget this time as it gives you finer
 granularity of control over headers.
 [snip]


Hello.

I'm a BBC senior manager; but posting personally as a fan of Backstage.

It puts us (those that care about Backstage) in a really difficult position
if it's used to share information on ways to get around content-restrictions
on a BBC service.

I don't want to see the end of the Backstage unmoderated mailing list.
Posting this type of information threatens its future.

Please don't. Anywhere else. Just not here.

Thanks.


[backstage] Fun with your mobile

2008-03-14 Thread James Cridland
Here's a quick exclusive for the Backstage list.

If you own a Nokia N95, or a Playstation PSP, you might wish to visit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts on your device.

This is in addition to our initial support for the iPhone/iPod Touch. And
don't forget, access via The Cloud (in many rail stations) is entirely free.

Now, I need to go and write a blog post.

-- 
James Cridland | Head of Future Media  Technology, BBC Audio  Music
Interactive
Room 718 | Henry Wood House | 3-6 Langham Place | London W1B 3DF
MSN/GTalk:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio | http://www.bbc.co.uk/music |
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/


Re: [backstage] Fun with your mobile

2008-03-14 Thread James Day

It's very nice on Opera Mini running on a Nokia E65 also.

It would be really great if mobile offerings were designed to be less 
device specific though.


I think it's probably time for the BBC to review the existing browser 
support standards and extend these to include mobile devices, as they 
specifically exclude these currently.


See 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/newmedia/technical/browser_support.shtml  for 
those interested in the current browser support standards.



Quoting Owen Griffin [EMAIL PROTECTED]:


It's a very nice site. Is it possible to get the podcasts added to the Nokia
Podcast application, instead of to the web feeds?


On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 12:55 PM, Matt Barber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:


Just had a go on my N95 and it works very well. Downloading a podcast as
we speak.


On Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Phil Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

  Here's a quick exclusive for the Backstage list.
 
  If you own a Nokia N95, or a Playstation PSP, you might wish to visit
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts on your device.

 Very nice!
 -
 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/






--
Owen Griffin






-
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 Podcasts Programme Guide...

2008-03-02 Thread James Cridland
On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 4:12 PM, Carlos Roman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:


 Sorry, I don't work on iPlayer team so don't know if there is one or
 not. Maybe someone else on the list could.


It's the desire of the iPlayer team to have an RSS feed on every page of the
new UI, which is due end April and which will include both TV and radio
programmes.

It's all coming together... (grin)

j


[backstage] A day in the life of a BBC Backstage widget

2008-03-02 Thread James Cridland
I posted here in September, talking about a BBC Weather widget I'd written
using BBC Backstage data.

If you're interested how it's done, I've just dropped a blog about it. (I
believe dropping a blog is the new vernacular.)

http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/03/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-widget/

Hope some here find this useful. Geeks may like to see the picture which
accompanies it, which shows my Asus Eee desktop. Comments (here or on the
blog) are welcome. About the widget, not really about the Asus. (Which is
very good, by the way).

-- 
http://james.cridland.net/ | http://www.mediauk.com/

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production.
http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info/


Re: [backstage-developer] random-human algorithm?

2008-02-15 Thread James Montgomerie
On 15 Feb 2008, at 17:57, ~:'' ありがとうございました。  
j.chetwynd-at-btinternet.com wrote:

random-human algorithm?

does anyone have a - simple algorithm - for tessellating the window
with images randomly?
it's well known that human concept of random differs from the
mathematical...
for this instance:
http://peepo.getmyip.com/~JonathanChetwynd/pets-svg.php
about 30% is whitespace, whereas the average user would probably
prefer something nearer 5%


I've had success in the past when I've wanted to /cover/ a surface  
randomly by splitting it into a grid of 1/2 the size (on each  
dimension, so 1/4 of the area) of the smallest image, then putting one  
image at a random position in each cell.  It does seem like there  
might be an algorithm that is less prone to almost-entire-overlap  
though.


Jamie.
-
Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk developer discussion group.  To unsubscribe, 
please send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with  unsubscribe backstage-developer 
[your email] as the message.


Re: [backstage-developer] RSS Sliders

2008-01-09 Thread James Cridland
On Jan 8, 2008 3:16 PM, neil [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 Questions include: Is this intuitive? Does the data shift as you might
 expect? Are two sliders too complex? Is a slider appropriate here, or should
 something else be used? Is the sorting algorithm right? What should we do
 about duplicate entries?


A little bit of feedback from my previous team (with their permission):

There were nice sliders on some of the pages on Virgin Radio's website (on
http://www.virginradio.co.uk/vip/lounge/ , which you need to be logged in
for) - allowing you to see something akin to Facebook's river of news, but
enable you to tweak it. Similar to this, in fact.

All usage of these sliders were logged (my team logged everything, I made a
point of it). After monitoring it, only 2% of people actually ever bothered
to use them. They've since been removed.

So: very pretty and all, but I'm not sure they'll be used. Please go ahead
and prove me wrong! :)

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production.
http://notatallbad.ltd.uk/legal_info


Re: [backstage] Fwd: [Gnash] Adobe EULA

2008-01-08 Thread James Cridland

 On 08/01/2008, Martin Belam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  I think 10% or 20% time is a great thing to allow not just developers,
  but many areas of the BBC, and I wished it had happened whilst I was
  there. Just a shame that if people get to know more widely about it
  you can be sure that the press will be asking that everyone gets a 10%
  or 20% rebate on their licence fee!


http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/01/ten_percent_time.shtml might be
worth a read...

//j


Re: [backstage] Fwd: [Gnash] Adobe EULA

2008-01-07 Thread James Cridland
On Jan 7, 2008 1:50 PM, Michael Sparks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 Responding to just one point in this:

  like a BBC
  software engineer spending his 20% time (supposing engineers at the
  BBC get that, I'm speculating there) on

 No, we don't get that, or any other fraction for that matter.


All my team get 10% time.

It's not taken up by everyone, but the iPhone podcast service is just one of
the outputs of this so far (and the attendant framework to enable other
devices to also have a similar decent podcast experience on a small screen).

My own 10% time will be revealed shortly; it's something to help my team who
work on podcasts.

-- 
James Cridland | Head of Future Media  Technology, BBC Audio  Music
Interactive
Room 718 | Henry Wood House | 3-6 Langham Place | London W1B 3DF

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio | http://www.bbc.co.uk/music |
http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalradio


Re: [backstage] BBC iplayer on exotic devices

2008-01-05 Thread James Cridland
On Jan 4, 2008 4:59 PM, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On 04/01/2008, Ian Forrester [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  So if your building a iplayer for an exotic device platform, do get in
 touch.

 Quick questions:
 Adobe Flash is prohibited on non-PC systems, is the BBC suggesting we
 violate Adobe's EULA or just not use the streaming version?


Andy, I'm awfully confused. Flash plays on a Wii (albeit not the iPlayer
video content, since the codec used isn't in that version), on mobile phones
(from Nokia to Windoze phones but not the iPhone yet), I think it's also on
the PSP as well. (Oh, and naturally it's available on the Mac and Linux).

Apart form the BBCs we hate people knowing how this works attitude I
 see no reason why it can't be done.


Although others have also said this: this list (and this thread in
particular) is precisely because we -do- want people knowing how as much of
this works as possible: the Backstage team battle through some quite
difficult beaurocracy to enable this to happen.

I admire your negativity towards everything posted here, but do cut us some
slack: we're trying to help as much as we can. If you want to bash the BBC,
please do just drop me an email and let's keep that stuff off-list.

j


Re: [backstage] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service

2008-01-01 Thread James Cridland
On Dec 30, 2007 2:37 PM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Here's the full comment:

 It's sad to see that Linus Torvalds, one of the leading figures in
 the Free Software movement, doesn't really care for freedom. And it's
 even sadder that he resorts to insults, saying that those who *do*
 care about freedom are frothing-at-the-mouth.

I suspect this poster is conflating two things: ideology, and the way
it's promoted.

This sentence of Linus's quote:
 I dislike the frothing-at-the-mouth ideology (to me, ideology should
 be something personal, not something you push on other people)
... is quite valid.

To me, this chapter of the revered sayings of Linus says that people
shoudn't push the freedom idea onto others in a frothing-at-the-mouth
way - not that people shouldn't care about freedom, nor that it's not
a valid point.

But then, you can read his scriptures in a number of different ways...
-
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] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service

2008-01-01 Thread James Cridland
On Jan 2, 2008 12:07 AM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 01/01/2008, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  To me, this ... says that people
  shoudn't push the freedom idea onto others in a frothing-at-the-mouth
  way - not that people shouldn't care about freedom, nor that it's not
  a valid point.

 Should people care about software freedom? Is the issue of software
 freedom a valid one?

I think you're being deliberately argumentative now.

I shall desist from feeding the troll further.
-
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] Broadcasters to launch joint VoD service

2007-12-29 Thread James Cridland
  And more importantly, why did you just send a suspicious file in
  you email?
  What are you doing sending .dat files anyway?

For the record, Google Mail (or Gmail, if you're in the US)
automatically threads every message in Backstage correctly; you can
also use its excellent filters to sort mails into a particular folder;
and you can hit the m button, which mutes any conversation, whenever
the conversation descends into DRM (rights) and open source licences.
Highly recommended - it's what I use all the time.

The thing that reminded me to have a quick read through Backstage was
this interesting quote from Linus Torvalds, held within
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/12/linus-torvalds.html ...

I dislike the frothing-at-the-mouth ideology (to me, ideology should
be something personal, not something you push on other people) and I
think it's much more interesting to see how Open Source actually
generates a better process for doing complex technology, than push the
freedom angle and push an ideology.

An excellent quote which I will endeavour to use in 2008 every time
the zealots start drowning out the conversation. (Curiously, it's also
applicable, with a few word changes, to religion too).

//j
-
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] Random idea - On-demand Radio via TV

2007-12-24 Thread James Brook

Hello All,

I'm doubtful this is the right forum for posting an idea for the BBC, but 
I'll give it ago.


Currently I make extensive use of the Radio4 listen again service via their 
website. I also use the watch again via Virgin media (telewest cable) on 
demand service. What I'm wondering is why do they only offer the TV on 
demand material via the TV. I would really like to be able to stream the 
Radio programs as well - there is a wealth of great stuff on the BBC's radio 
side of things.


Am I missing some minor technical problem or is it simply that listening to 
Radio via the TV is a bad idea?


Cheers,

James

ps - Happy Christmas/New Year. 



-
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 BBC customisable homepage

2007-12-18 Thread Jeremy James
Christopher Woods wrote:
 I'm glad to see that the clock has finally made a comeback
 (...)

I'm a bit disappointed by the clock - or more generally, any web clock
that simply uses the local clock time when it should really be getting a
sync from the server (at the best it duplicates information that is
likely to already be on the screen, at the worst it is misleading for
users trying to check what programmes are currently on, if their clock
is misset). The date being returned (to the nearest second) by the web
server looks synced, so the flash could do a dummy GET or HEAD without
needing any additional server-side support, then continue with a delta
from the current time. Is it open source? :)

Other clock points:
 * As a technical person, I preferred the smooth version second hand. :)
 * The rendering of the hour markers looks a little grizzly/inconsistent
- see http://jeremy.publication.org.uk/bbcbeta_clock.png - is it not
worth rendering if it always going to be shown at 65x65?

Amusingly, just looking at the news headlines now I managed to get a
slight Private Eye moment - showing the wrong picture for a mouseover
the particular story headline, as per
http://jeremy.publication.org.uk/bbcbeta_missingpicture.png - I'm
assuming the alt text is appearing since the intended image failed to load.

Browser is Firefox 2.0 running on Linux. There are some other slight
rendering issues on this browser, but this may be due to other factors
such as setting a minimum font size.

-jeremy
-
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] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software

2007-12-06 Thread James Bridle



Oh my word this is all so tiresome - rehashed, insoluble debate points
surrounded in prose which is itself quite retentively picked apart to
needlessly point score - in a discussion I'm sure 90% of the list would
prefer not to be cluttering their inboxes. I can visit Slashdot for this
no ?

Please... please more signal; less noise.
  


Seconded.




  

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dave Crossland

Sent: 06 December 2007 11:30
To: backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
Subject: Re: [backstage] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software

On 06/12/2007, vijay chopra [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

Personally I believe (as you seemed to agree) that code is 
  

an art form

I disagree totally. Code functions; it does stuff. There is a 
craft to making code, and that can be compared to the craft 
of making artwork, but artworks themselves do not function.



My position offers freedom without taking it away from others as 
people are free to not to buy Private-Eye, rap music or 
  
weaponry, just 


as people were free not to buy a TIVO.
  
But its illegal (software idea patent and dmca-style laws) to 
make your own TiVO, and to make one and sell one. So you can 
not buy a tivo, but you can't buy a free alternative.



To be blunt, I disagree that what TIVO did took any freedom 
  
away from 


anyone, they just did something I didn't like,
  

Generally, users of proprietary software have given up their freedom.
To say the company making the software took their freedom is 
only valid when they are forced to use the software - such as 
legal requirements to read documents in a format only 
readable by proprietary office software.



my position is in fact more idealistic than that of the 
  
FSF, and as a 


result GPLv3 is not (as claimed) more idealistic than
GPLv2 but less so as it is more restrictive.
  
Your ideals do not seem to include freedom for all users; 
instead, power for developers.


The point of the software freedom movement is that users and 
developers should have the same degree of power over the 
development of the software.


--
Regards,
Dave
-
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] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software

2007-12-06 Thread James Cridland
On Dec 6, 2007 2:23 PM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On 06/12/2007, Deirdre Harvey [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  Hurray for freedom. I'm sure you'll appreciate that that kind of disdain
 for
  users is not something the BBC is likely to go along with.

 Sadly the BBC has disdain for users when it goes along with DRM.



HOUSE!!

Licences, open-source, and now DRM, all in one thread! How splendid...

ly tiresome


Re: [backstage] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software

2007-12-06 Thread James Cridland
On Dec 6, 2007 12:16 PM, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On 05/12/2007, Matthew Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  The delay is just a
  small-team-working-on-/programmes-and-trying-to-fit-it-all-in thing.

 Any chance of explaining what the BBC actually have to do when someone
 says let's open source Y?
 It's normally a relatively simple for a small individual project
 (simply adding the appropriate license file and copyright text to each
 file). However I assume it is somewhat more tricky for a large
 organisation. Does this have to work it's way up to high management or
 are individual teams given freedom to make these decisions themselves?

 Will you be accepting bug reports and patches from people outside the
 BBC or is this a release and forget kind of thing? (Unfortunately I
 am not a Perl coder so there isn't much I can do).


I was asked, and readily agreed to it being made open-source. (Dunno if I
count as high management - http://james.cridland.net/biography ). I trust my
team to make the right decision.

Chatting today, we think we'll release it quickly as a .tar.gz at
/opensource, and then, depending on the reaction we get, put it on a
Sourceforge-or-similar site, to allow bug reports, patches, etc etc. Please
do give us time to release it; I'd rather this work didn't get in the way of
delivering great tools and products.

As a note, this will be the second time that a member of my team has
released code to /opensource; the first was a bit of Java:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/projects/tv_anytime_api/

Hope that helps.

//j


[backstage] Google Charts API

2007-12-06 Thread James Cridland
Neat and possibly useful chart API from Google, released today:
http://code.google.com/apis/chart/

If it's of any use, I've written a quick PHP encoding script for it, instead
of the JavaScript version they offer:
http://james.cridland.net/blog/2007/12/06/google-charts-api-using-php/

I've released it under the do whatever you like with my crappy code
licence, which I hope is acceptable to those herein. ;)

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com


Re: [backstage] Google Charts API

2007-12-06 Thread James Cridland
On Dec 7, 2007 12:15 AM, Michael Sparks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 James Cridland wrote:
 ...
  As a note, this will be the second time that a member of my team has
  released code

 Third actually :-) (that I know of :)


 http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=122494package_id=176999

 (python-dvb3 bindings)

 Also originated from Audio  Music Interactive. (Paul Clifford)


You're entirely correct. Apologies to Paul.
//j


Re: [backstage] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software

2007-12-05 Thread James Cridland
On Dec 5, 2007 9:06 PM, Matthew Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hello all - a quick word from the infamous Perl on Rails team itself


Psst, Matt, nobody's reading these bits. They're too busy arguing about
licences.

Still, better that than nothing. Which reminds me - have we finished adding
that DRM to our podcasts?*

//j



* the above was a joke. We are not adding DRM to our podcasts.


Re: [backstage] Please release Perl on Rails as Free Software

2007-12-04 Thread James Cridland
On Dec 3, 2007 12:48 PM, Noah Slater [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On 03/12/2007, Dave Cross [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  You don't need the BBC to release it.

 Yeah, a lot of the comments on that blog post said similar things -
 that notwithstanding it would be very helpful for the community if the
 BBC shared the source.


Delighted to let you know that after discussion with my team, we *will* be
making Perl on Rails (we'll call it something different) open-source.
It'll be licenced as openly as possible. You asked for it, so we'll give you
it.

Please watch the BBC Radio Labs blog for more information; we'll post when
we're ready.

In terms of the posting linked-to by Tom Loosemore, I've a blog post waiting
to go up on the BBC Internet Blog (which may appear tomorrow); the gag from
the bottom is...

sub job_requirement {
  my $target = shift;
  $target = 'this' unless defined $target;
  return You don't need to understand $target to work at the BBC\n;
  }
print job_requirement(perl);

... so hasten yourself to www.bbc.co.uk/jobs now.

-- 
James Cridland | Head of Future Media  Technology, BBC Audio  Music
Interactive
Room 718 | Henry Wood House | 3-6 Langham Place | London W1B 3DF

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio | http://www.bbc.co.uk/music |
http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalradio


Re: [backstage] BBC Podcasts Including Music

2007-11-24 Thread James Cridland
On Nov 23, 2007 12:20 PM, Dave Crossland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

[quoting me in April]
 
  It's possible for all our podcasts to be produced in Ogg Vorbis
  automatically, too. Indeed, all our on-demand audio is already encoded
 into
  Ogg Vorbis, for when it becomes a popular codec (and we're still
 waiting).

 It will become a popular codec by influential people publishing audio
 in it, like Virgin and the BBC, and by people learning to value
 software freedom and requesting audio publishers to use the format.


Chicken, meet egg. Given that Virgin's been broadcasting Ogg Vorbis for five
years without (until I left, at any rate) any real user takeup, it's less
likely that anyone else is going to start broadcasting it. Given, too, that
the best-selling portable audio players don't support it, it's unlikely that
broadcasters will add Ogg Vorbis versions of podcasts.

It shouldn't be forgotten that, for Virgin's streaming, use of Ogg Vorbis
was even in the minority among Linux users.



 [quoting me later]
 

 My Ubuntu box copes quite happily with an open source version of Real
  Player;

 This isn't true; to play RealAudio format audio, you need proprietary
 software that integrates with a piece of free software.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helix_project has the details.


Apologies, if this is the case.
https://player.helixcommunity.org/2005/downloads/ is not clear on this
point.



  presumably this Puppy Linux box would too if I bothered to download
  it; and the Mac under the telly copes with both Real and Windows, thanks
 to
  a free plugin to Quicktime. So, free-to-the-user alternatives to Ogg
 Vorbis
  exist on all major platforms.

 Sadly free-to-the-user is not the issue; free-as-in-freedom is the issue.


To you, it is.

However, to most people the only issue is does it work on my platform, is
it simple, and do I have to pay anything?. My experience supporting the Ogg
Vorbis platform would rather tend to prove that point; Virgin's Ogg Vorbis
stream was even the highest quality (at an average 160k).

And, given that you acknowledge a need for people to learn to value
software-freedom in this same message, above, I sense you agree with the
reality.

I do love a good mailing list troll, Dave. Don't let it border onto
obsessiveness, will you?

J

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/


Re: [backstage] Muddy Boots on Backstage

2007-11-22 Thread James Ockenden
Brian, I also missed the very subtle changes to the page- but I would
say, hyperlinking scientists and headaches etc every other word is
gonna give the reader sore eyes and thousands of hours of lost work as
they educate themselves in mass trivia.

And to Rob, respect for your project; from a user perspective, if I
wanna follow up something I've read on BBC news I'll just do it
through google.. are you able to make links to other media relevant
stories, rather than just Wiki?
EG BBC headline recently Karachi stock exhange falls 5% when in fact
every Asian stock exchange had fallen by over 5% that day, but I guess
some editor was trying to make the point Pakistan was a dangerous
unstable place without any mention at all of the worldwide stock
slide THEN we need Muddy Boot skill to pick out what's really
going on. The history of the Karachi stock exchange from Wiki ain't
gonna cut it... a link to that morning's Reuters Asian stocks slide
story is going to defeat the sensationalist editor's plans right there
and then.

Also an idea I had on Brian's overloaded link example - some sort of
spidery engine which grabs all such wiki links on pages viewed by the
user, collates the entries into a monthly encyclopedia pdf,
delivered to your door with fake leatherette burgundy cover for
$9.99...

cheers :-)

On 22/11/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Rob,

 This is an interesting - and very subtle - enhancedment to the BBC news
 pages.  Took me a while to spot what was being added, so well was it done.

 I was wondering if you could modify it so that it could also add links to
 Wikipedia articles by adding hypertext links within the text.

 For example, in the first one you post there is some text...

 Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains
 of people who develop migraines.

 They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from
 the debilitating headaches.

 What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of
 migraine attacks.

 The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, suggests
 the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. 

 IMHO, it would be enhanced by adding in Wikipedia links, like this:

 Scientists have discovered differences in the sensory areas of the brains
 of people who develop migraines.

 They found a part of the cortex is thicker than in people who are free from
 the debilitating headaches.

 What is not clear is whether the difference causes, or is the result of
 migraine attacks.

 The Neurology study, by Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston , suggests
 the changes may make patients hyper-sensitive to pain in general. 













 On 21/11/2007, robl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  Hi Everyone,
 
  Just thought I'd accompany the latest post to the backstage blog
  (
 http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/news/archives/2007/11/from_last_years_1.html)
  with some examples of muddyboots in action.  For those of you who aren't
  aware of the project it's probably best to look at
 
 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=more.
  Essentially we're attempting to use Wikipedia and other commons authored
  data sources to augment the meta-data around BBC news stories, this
  ultimately took the form of automated contextually relevant  link
  recommendations based off data within Wikipedia and del.icio.us
  (although we have some other ideas about how this data could be used ...)
 
  It's still a prototype so it's not production ready by any means, there
  are still stories where we are unable to recommend links and there are
  others where ambiguity becomes a problem and identifying what context a
  story has can be difficult (although we have some ideas around using the
  disambiguation data within Wikipedia to improve this).
 
  Here are a few links to stories where I thought muddyboots added some
  interest and hopefully a little of that Wikipedia 'browse experience' :
 
 
 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=646
 
 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=630
 
 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=622
 
 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=pageid=643
 
  If you'd like to see how those recommendations were arrived at then each
  story has a 'View' action which can be used to get a breakdown of each
  stage of the muddyboots process, for example :
 
 
 http://muddyboots.rattleresearch.com/cgi-bin/mb.cgi?action=viewid=622
 
  It's worth noting we only keep the last 50 story submissions in the
  system, so these links will eventually 'age' out.
 
  (Disclaimer : I worked on the project)
 
  Thanks,
 
  Rob
  -
  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] DRM duration?

2007-11-11 Thread James Cridland
On Nov 8, 2007 10:42 AM, David Greaves [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Of course this is a blog so not exactly a reference source:

 http://joyofsox.blogspot.com/2007/11/mlb-game-downloads-still-inaccessible.html

 So this DRM system seems to have lasted 2003-2006. Then a year later you
 lose
 any downloads.

 Yep, this is the kind of thing that makes honest consumers want to stay
 within
 the law.


As a note: the (public service) BBC produces no DRM'd content which lasts
longer than one month. This isn't a risk that those of us using iPlayer
downloads need concern ourselves with, therefore.

You might also enjoy
http://james.cridland.net/blog/2007/08/11/when-content-restriction-and-protection-goes-bad/-
the MLB aren't the first, nor will they be the last.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/


Re: [backstage] Use of Tinyurl in Emails

2007-11-06 Thread James Cox


On 6 Nov 2007, at 00:07, Andrew Bowden wrote:


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of James Cox

'course, bbc.co.uk has had some kind of redirect magic for a while:
http://bbc.co.uk/zanelowe/


First time I've seen a big fat httpd.conf called magic :)


and there I was thinking you had some nice routing controller thin- 
app which had some clever logging, tracking and management of such  
urls :)





though i suspect the problem (and usage of tinyurl) is that to get
one of those nice urls hooked up, you gotta email someone a request,
who needs to get approval from a manager


Well lets just say there is a process and it has to be done  
sensibly else you'd get loads of random redirects.  Although I  
still think bbc.co.uk/breakfast should go to a big portal page for  
all the BBC's breakfast shows :)





--

James Cox,
Internet Consultant
t: 07968 349990  e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: http://imaj.es/





Re: [backstage] Use of Tinyurl in Emails

2007-11-05 Thread James Cox


On 5 Nov 2007, at 12:58, David Greaves wrote:


Adam wrote:

What does everyone else think.


bbc.com/2e5u8e


David

PS it's smaller than tinyurl and it's a use for bbc.com too...  
(unless it's used

internationally)



'course, bbc.co.uk has had some kind of redirect magic for a while:  
http://bbc.co.uk/zanelowe/


though i suspect the problem (and usage of tinyurl) is that to get  
one of those nice urls hooked up, you gotta email someone a request,  
who needs to get approval from a manager


probably not all that efficient when all you want to do is send an  
email out and go home (or to the pub!)


- james


--

James Cox,
Internet Consultant
t: 07968 349990  e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: http://imaj.es/





Re: [backstage] Wii News Channel

2007-10-18 Thread James Cridland
On 10/16/07, Barry Carlyon [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

  I had heard that one of the student radio stations was building a flash
 player for their radio stream for the wii…..


Cough

http://www.playthree.net/2007/04/virgin-radio-available-on-ps3-and-wii.html

Yes, April.

//j


Re: [backstage] Voting data ideas

2007-09-28 Thread James Ockenden
i would like a data feed of all the BBC Have Your Say responses which
have a) been most recommended and b) feature a large amount of capital
letters (eg BOYCOTT CHINA).  That way, you could launch a very low
cost newspaper to rival the Daily Express/Mail without any real
journalism.
And thank-you newsbiscuit.com for Pisswizard. Great name for a cat or a dog.


On 28/09/2007, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 On 28/09/2007, Richard Lockwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  That's possibly a bit of a sledgehammer / nut scenario for a poll like
  What should we call the Tikkabilla (Play School for you other
  oldies...) hamster?.
 
  :-)
 
  Cheers,
 
  Rich.


 You tell that to Socks and Cookie!

 I can't see how you can look for trends in the data and come up with a
 confidence level for a vote without all the data.




  On 9/28/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   Martin,
  
   On 26/09/2007, Martin Belam [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
   
   
No I hadn't, thanks for pointing it out. I used to be Senior Producer
 on
   Online Voting at the BBC for a couple of years, and so I have some quite
   strong opinions about when it is right to run an online vote and when
 the
   correct reaction is You did *what*? - most of those views are probably
   more suited to the pub than this mailing list ;-)
  
   I guess one reason you might actually want to release a version of the
   original data is that it could be put out to external scrutiny, that is
 to
   say *our* scrutiny.  Perhaps it might be possible to detect the problems
   with each poll and potentially correct for them.For example:
  
   - if the referring page is listed, any links from other sites to the
 vote
   could be detected;
   - some form of IP-address-to-region (with a confidence-level perhaps) to
   detect location problems;
   - matching against botnet lists;
   - hashed reference to the bbc.co.uk login name;
   - hashed version of the IP address;
   - date and time of the vote;
   - hashed version of the bbc.co.uk tracking cookie; and
   - the vote data
  
   What you could possibly get back is a confidence level (as a percentage)
 as
   to the reliablity of the result...
  -
  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/
 



 --
 Please email me back if you need any more help.

 Brian Butterworth
 www.ukfree.tv
-
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] TV Data Formats and Sources of Data

2007-09-28 Thread James Ockenden
get a fast laser printer.


On 28/09/2007, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hi all

 I know some of you will find this question dull, but it's something
 that I would be interested in knowing the answer to (though a suspect
 there is no definitive answer the discussion would help with making
 informed design decisions).

 I am writing what was originally intended to be a small desktop
 application (in Java), though it's looking not so small any more. It
 hopes to provide both listings for traditional T.V. channels and more
 importantly allow people to download content from T.V. channels
 created by other users (quite how much of this I can achieve at this
 time is questionable, but it's more a proof of concept and learning
 experience to be honest). Obviously the actual data transfer will be
 using open standards such as HTTP and Bittorrent, mainly so I can
 avoid having to write much server code.

 However I have got to the point where it is necessary to store data
 about programmes.

 This is where I hit a snag. As far as I can tell there are 2 competing 
 formats:
 XMLTV http://xmltv.org
 TV-Anytime (aka TS 102 822) http://www.tv-anytime.org/

 As part of the application will be based on user defined programming
 it provides more freedom to choose a format based on the formats
 qualities and not what format the data providers choose.

 XMLTV is a much simpler format, which means I can code a parser for
 it, and more importantly understand how all the elements link together
 much easier.
 Unfortunately XMLTV doesn't seem to provide much provision for
 fetching a program, although there is a URL element within the
 programme element.

 On the other hand TV-Anytime appears to provides much greater depth of
 data and appears designed to handle Download T.V.. Unfortunately the
 specification is much harder to understand (hundreds of pages,
 compared with  10 for XMLTV), but more importantly the standard uses
 other standards which I can not seem to find available for less
 somewhere in the region of £250, which is a lot to pay when developing
 a free application. Although the TV-Anytime specification says the
 references should be found in a certain location on the ETSI site,
 they are missing.

 What is iPlayer using to hold it's Meta data?

 Another question I have is about where to find TV listings.
 Radio Times provide data (though I can't seem to find the link on
 their site) (and it's for personal use only)

 The BBC provide TV-Anytime listings but only for BBC channels.

 How detailed is the data from the BBC? Does it utilise all the
 features in the TV-Anytime format or is it just the basics?

 This leads me onto the question:
 Do we need a good provider of TV Meta Data?

 According to the TV-Anytime documents it is possible to list things
 like whether a TV show has been nominated form or won awards. Is there
 anyone who actually provides such data or does it go unused?

 Do we need a Wikipedia for TV Meta Data (is there one already that I
 don't know about?)

 According to the standard you can also provide grouping of channels,
 are there people who provide custom groupings of channels? Maybe
 having a My Favourite Programmes link on your website that points to
 you XMLTV group definition. The only problem with it is what do you do
 with it? The state of British Download TV is horrific. You can't setup
 a handler for such a file because it would need to invoke iPlayer* for
 the BBC channels, 4OD* for channels 4's channels and maybe another
 program that provides live TV listings or the ability to record from
 TV-cards.

 *This assumes iPlayer and 4OD would even be willing to handle such
 user submitted information, I do not know if they are capable of this.

 Of course the easiest way to fix this is a unified standard and then
 you can use any application you want to get all the channels, which
 should make it possible for people to provide a list of there
 favourite shows and other people could add them for downloading.
 (Was TS 102 822 meant to do just that?)

 No one seems at all interested in that kind of thing though I am sad to say.

 Quick thought popped into me head just now. On Facebook it is possible
 to list your favourite TV programmes, is there any way to leverage
 this information? Could you add a button that would invoke iPlayer (or
 4OD, of your TV Recording Software, or a TV Listings application) and
 tell it to search for those programmes and add the ones it has for
 downloading (it should be possible with TV-Anytime if I understood all
 those flow charts about where data goes and comes from), does iPlayer
 use TV-Anytime or could it be altered to accept input in that format?

 We are missing out on some interesting usage right here, it's a pity
 the only people who can fix this won't. (Maybe we need the IETF to do
 something, they seem much more helpful people, they allow free bulk
 download of their standards without any registration, so kind of
 them).

 Discuss.

 As an after 

[backstage] the economics of BBC content

2007-09-21 Thread James Ockenden
Hello
This has bothered me for some time but the picture and caption on this
page were the final straw
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7005206.stm

How much should the BBC be paying for that page, aside from the
journalism and broadcast? It really shouldn't need to pay for such a
pointless picture, there must be thousands of beautiful lightbulb
pictures available for free (although the beeb was accused of nicking
them off Flickr a whiles back, perhaps it's all stricter now...)

But with some clever feeds, the pictures could be free, just as
pretty, just as relevant, and the corporation saved enough to buy a
researcher to oomph up the story.

cheers!
James in HK
-
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] iPod touch // iPhone development

2007-09-20 Thread James Cridland
Those of you who might be keeping an eye on the next big thing, and who
are in London, might want to know that the Apple Store in Regent Street has
a slew of iPod Touch units available to play with. There are developer kits
available on the web, but if you want to give your new app a quick test on a
real iPod Touch, they are all connected to the instore open wifi. You might
have to queue to have a quick play. They're really *very* nice. The screen
is incredibly good, and the user interface is stunning.

(They're sold out, mind, until early next week. They'll be in all Apple UK
stores on September 28th, and available online for then.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/1413260855/ shows my first,
blurry, test of a media website near you. It almost displayed perfectly.

Worth mentioning that many companies have a corporate deal with Apple
allowing you money off. For those within the BBC, a flash of your ID card
when purchasing will suffice; I believe the government have similar, as do
bona-fide Virgin employees. There are also discounts for students.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/


Re: [backstage] Can't cannot to BBC radio streams

2007-09-17 Thread James Cridland
Thanks for this bug report. It's very interesting, and my team are looking
at it as we speak.

We are aware of some issues with the BBC Radio streams on Windows Media
Player. Yours has possibly been the most useful bug report we've seen so
far!

//j


On 9/17/07, Mark Hingston [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Hi,

 I'm in the process of creating a linux-based, lightweight RTSP client for
 listening to internet radio and have run into problems with connecting to
 the BBC's radio stations. I am using live555 libraries (www.live555.com)
 to provide RTSP support and have done a fair amount of work getting my
 client to receive mms streams via RTSP. My RTSP client can connect to most
 mms urls if you change the mms:// to rtsp://, but has problems
 downloading BBC radio stations in this way. So I was wondering if anyone can
 shed any light on the problems that I'm having.

 For eg. when i try to connect to:

 rtsp://wmlive.bbc.co.uk/wms/bbc7/hi_s1

 the RTSP conversation that fails is attached in the file named 
 MarksPlayer-rtsp-to-bbc.txt. The problem seems to be that whenever I
 issue a SETUP command, I receive a response of 400 Bad Request

 Other streams that show the same problem include:

 mms://wmlive.bbc.net.uk/wms/radio5/5Live_int_s1
 mms://wmlive.bbc.co.uk/wms/1xtra/hi_s1

 where simply replacing the mms:// with rtsp:// creates a stream that I
 can not connect to.  The version string shows that the BBC is using
 WMServer/9.1.1.3814, and in the past, I have successfully connected via RTSP
 to other servers running that version. (eg.
 mms://media.hostdepot.com/334479-02).

 What is especially confusing for me is the fact that Windows Media Player
 11, running on Windows XP successfully connects to the server, using a very
 similar pattern of RTSP commands (the messages sent during the WMP11
 exchange are attached in the file named wmp11-rtsp-to-bbc.txt). I have
 tried altering my own RTSP client (which runs on Linux) so that it uses an
 identical sequence of commands to WMP11, but this still results in a failure
 to connect - I can successfully issue the OPTIONS and DESCRIBE requests and
 get meaningful responses, yet every time i try to issue a GET_PARAMETER or
 SETUP request after this, I receive a response of RTSP/1.0 400 Bad
 Request.

 My own rtsp client is not able to download mms streams, as I haven't and
 don't plan to implement mms as it's a deprecated (and proprietary) protocol.

 I can connect to other WM Servers via RTSP, so I'm curious, is the BBC's
 Windows Server special in some way? Are the BBC's internet radio broadcasts
 DRM encrypted or something? Or is there any reason that anyone knows of that
 would be preventing me from connecting to the server via RTSP?

 If I'm asking these questions in the wrong place, please let me know where
 would be more appropriate to ask (N.B. I've already asked these questions
 to the live555 developers, who told me to ask the BBC or Microsoft).

 Thanks in advance,
 Mark Hingston.






Re: [backstage] Amazon EC2

2007-09-12 Thread James Cridland
It is in use within the BBC, I believe; though the hack day stuff used a
different virtualisation thing.

I use S3 personally and at mediauk.com, incidentally.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/

On 9/11/07, Jason Cartwright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I've not used it, but I read an interesting article comparing it with a
 product called Flexiscale (http://www.flexiscale.com/) over here...

 http://uk.blognation.com/2007/09/11/fowa-expo-exhibitors-announced/

 J

 On 9/11/07, Sean Dillon [EMAIL PROTECTED]  wrote:
 
  Afternoon.
 
  Anyone here using this at the moment? I've only started to venture into
  it after having been mightily pleased with their S3 stroage system.
 
 
  Seán
 
  -
  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] Fwd: Government response to petition 'iplayer'

2007-09-07 Thread James Cridland
On 9/6/07, Gordon Joly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 At 19:48 +0100 6/9/07, vijay chopra wrote:
 I saw that as well. though I signed the petition, I'm not really
 bothered any more. I just use my windows partition and just strip
 all my iPlayer downloads of their DRM with the help of the guys over
 at doom 9: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127943
 http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=127943 . That way I can
 watch them wherever I like.

 Is that legal?


My viewpoint: yes, provided it's for personal use (UK law); no, regardless
of if it's for personal use (US law).

//j


Re: [backstage] BBC Radio Icon on MediaBank DAB

2007-09-04 Thread James Cridland
Reported; thank you.

Any more these web pages aren't updated type emails, please feel free to
forward these to [EMAIL PROTECTED] where I will prod the people
responsible.

I have a collection of quite large res logos, on white, which I've used for
www.mediauk.com ; shout if you need them.


On 9/4/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Good morning...

 OK, so we have the new BBC Radio icons on the website

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/

 But they are not on DAB yet ... can someone please sort them.  If you need
 them cropping and resizing, just let me know - I know Auntie short of cash
 these days...

 Any chance the Media Bank people could get the high-resolution version
 too.  Some of like promoting BBC services online for free, you know ;-)

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/mediabank/ap.cgi?action=recently_added

 Brian Butterworth
 www.ukfree.tv



Re: [backstage] Release: BBC Weather iGoogle gadget

2007-09-02 Thread James Cridland
Sorry, have replied offlist to this.

 Any chance you could make it provide the old weather symbols (as stilled
used on bbc.co.uk homepage) as an option?

Every chance, but I'm unclear of whether we're allowed to.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/

On 9/2/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 James,

 Very nice - simple to use too.  Any chance you could make it provide the
 old weather symbols (as stilled used on bbc.co.uk homepage) as an
 option?


 On 01/09/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  A little bit of relaxation coding, and I'm proud to bring you my very
  first BBC Backstage iGoogle gadget.
 
  http://ig4bbcweather.notlong.com
 
  Edit the settings to choose your UK placename - it's nice and small, and
  uses the official BBC weather feed.
  Clicking the name of the place you've chosen will bring up the full page
  from the BBC Weather website.
 
  Coded in PHP, using the SimplePie library for RSS feeds.
 
  --
  http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com
 
  Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info: 
  http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/
 
 
 


 --
 Please email me back if you need any more help.

 Brian Butterworth
 www.ukfree.tv


Re: [backstage] Release: BBC Weather iGoogle gadget

2007-09-02 Thread James Cridland
Well, as a thought... if you add-by-URL
http://james.cridland.net/code/bbcnews.php then you'll get a BBC News
iGoogle gadget. It's quite pretty, I think. It scrapes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/text_only.stm and rewrites the linking URLs, so you
get the natty pictures.

Now - I think this is against the news copyright message, which states... you
are not permitted to ... adapt or change in any way the content of these BBC
web pages for any other purpose whatsoever without the prior written
permission of the BBC.

Similarly, the main site's copyright message states You may not ... use
bbc.co.uk content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial
use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any
bbc.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use.

I don't think I can use the nicer graphics for the weather map; and that my
iGoogle BBC News gadget can't be released for others to use, therefore.

Anyone disagree?

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/

On 9/2/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 I would have thought it would be fine you use the BBC URLs rather than
 copy them and rehost them.

 On 02/09/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 
  Sorry, have replied offlist to this.
 
   Any chance you could make it provide the old weather symbols (as
  stilled used on bbc.co.uk homepage) as an option?
 
  Every chance, but I'm unclear of whether we're allowed to.
 
  --
  http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com
 
  Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info: 
  http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/
 
 
   On 9/2/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED]  wrote:
  
   James,
  
   Very nice - simple to use too.  Any chance you could make it provide
   the old weather symbols (as stilled used on bbc.co.uk homepage) as
   an option?
  
  
On 01/09/07, James Cridland [EMAIL PROTECTED]  wrote:
   
A little bit of relaxation coding, and I'm proud to bring you my
very first BBC Backstage iGoogle gadget.
   
http://ig4bbcweather.notlong.com
   
Edit the settings to choose your UK placename - it's nice and small,
and uses the official BBC weather feed.
Clicking the name of the place you've chosen will bring up the full
page from the BBC Weather website.
   
Coded in PHP, using the SimplePie library for RSS feeds.
   
--
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com
   
Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info: 
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/
   
   
   
  
  
   --
   Please email me back if you need any more help.
  
   Brian Butterworth
   www.ukfree.tv
 
 
 


 --
 Please email me back if you need any more help.

 Brian Butterworth
 www.ukfree.tv



Re: [backstage] Later data

2007-08-24 Thread James Cridland
 http://bbc-hackday.dyndns.org:2825/
 - the whole thing's stitched together with MusicBrainz artist ids

Theoretically, it should be possible to stitch www.bbc.co.uk/music/ into
this, too. That uses Musicbrainz data, but I've no idea where the odd IDs
come from. The Coral, for example, is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/m3qv/ but if you Google m3qv and
Coral, it just returns that page, so it looks like an ID arbitrarily made
up by the BBC.

I shall endeavour to find the relationship out if you'd be interested;
benefits are that /music links to all music content throughout the BBC,
which is therefore a Good Thing.

-- 
http://james.cridland.net | http://www.mediauk.com

Media UK is a Not At All Bad Ltd production. Company info:
http://www.notatallbad.ltd.uk/


Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer Protest tommorow, Tuesday 14th, 10:30AM, White City

2007-08-14 Thread James Bridle
They're not mine, but both are listed as CC  Att-NonComm-ShareAlike on 
the site.



shorttermmemoryloss.com



Brian Butterworth wrote:

Can I use one of these photos on my site?  Are the CC licenced?

On 14/08/07, *Matthew Cashmore* [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Photos already up on flickr over here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattcashmore/sets/72157601436583881/

And here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/sets/72157601430492360/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubicgarden/sets/72157601430492360/

m


On 14/8/07 13:07, David Greaves [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Ian Forrester wrote:
 Yep we were there along with about another 20 people.

 So were they making a point or trying to make a difference?

 David

 -
 Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk http://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/

___
Matthew Cashmore
Development Producer

BBC Future Media  Technology, Research and Innovation
BC5C3, Broadcast Centre, Media Village, W12 7TP

T:020 8008 3959(02  83959)
M:07711 913241(072 83959)

-
Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk http://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/




--
Please email me back if you need any more help.

Brian Butterworth
www.ukfree.tv http://www.ukfree.tv 


[backstage] iPlayer on Intel Mac

2007-08-01 Thread James Bridle

[New thread]

I'm getting the same on my Mac Pro, booted in XP SP2 - 'Sorry, 
something's wrong' even though all boxes are ticked.


Will have a look at the browser's ident. If anyone wants to send me the 
exe, I'd be very grateful. I have a login and all, so I don't think 
there's anything wrong with that...



Christopher Woods wrote:
What's your browser's user-ident? Maybe one of the Mac-supplied 
drivers in their driver package is altering the user-agent somehow and 
the bbc site isn't authorising access on that basis. Only a guess...
 
Is your XP install updated to SP2?
 
If all else fails, I'm sure someone could send you 
BBC-iPlayer_Setup.exe (which updates to the latest version 
periodically anyway)...



*From:* David Wood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
*Sent:* 28 July 2007 09:30
*To:* backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk
*Subject:* Re: [backstage] iPlayer Today?


On 7/27/07, *James Bridle* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Looking forward to seeing what it looks like in XP on my Intel
Mac...


 
Doesn't appear to work on my MacBook, both booting into an almost

freshly installed XP SP2 and through XP via Parallels on Mac OS,
through Internet Explorer, or through Firefox with IE Tab. When I
come to download, the site is giving me the rather odd message of:

Sorry - to use the BBC iPlayer you need the following
- Windows XP
- Internet Explorer
- Windows Media Player

...where all the requirements are ticked. (Using with non-IE
Tabbed Firefox or directly from Mac OS turns the relevant ticks
into crosses, which is what you'd expect.) According to the
instructions, this is when the kontiki app should kick in and
install...

I can vaguely see why it might not work through Parallels, but I'm
not sure why booting directly into XP doesn't. Hrmmm.



Re: [backstage] iPlayer Today?

2007-07-30 Thread James Cridland
On 7/29/07, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(boring DRM invective deleted)

Also why does the BBC trust's report not mention the fact that not
 only is iPlayer Windows only, it is IE only? Did the BBC not tell them
 they where doing this? Why can't it work with Firefox? iplayer:// can
 be made to run iPlayer from Firefox it's not exactly tricky is it? Or
 do you use some dodgy way of invoking iPlayer from IE? (or is it no
 longer IE only?)


I asked just this question; and the answer is the invocation of the iPlayer
is some kind of ActiveX nastiness. Everything else works just fine with
Firefox, but the team made the sensible decision to make the entire site
not work, rather than allow you to get all the way to choosing a programme
and then be told you can't. It *is* on the roadmap to be sorted, though; as
is the Mac/Linux issue.


On 7/30/07, Nico Morrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 But for heavens sake BBC - put a proper forum up, not this manky
 'messageboard'.


The manky messageboard is the BBC's DNA system, which talks correctly to
the single sign-on service, and does other useful fancy things. There's a
lot of work going on behind the scenes; much of what I see of the BBC's
current web infrastructure (now I'm inside) is very Web0.5, but that's being
sorted. Don't panic. (That previous sentence was, I note, an unintended pun,
given that 'DNA' is actually based on the H2G2 engine.)

//j

http://james.cridland.net/


Re: [backstage] Can we have a developer mailing list?

2007-07-30 Thread James Cridland
On 7/29/07, Adam Leach [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Is there any chance of a separate developer list for discussion of APIs,
 services, Geek events, etc.

 The BBC with the encouragement from Ian  Matthew are providing some
 great sources of information for doing mashups and organising some great
 events like Hackday, but this mailing list is just becoming a BBC
 Bashing list.


Good plan!

Might I recommend (having run many a mailing list in my time) that we, the
users of this list, do not accept wildly off-topic conversation and mail
people, off list, to enforce this?

//j


Re: [backstage] iPlayer Today?

2007-07-27 Thread James Bridle
How are the accounts being allocated? I signed up this morning, and like 
Owen I'm wondering when I'll hear.


Looking forward to seeing what it looks like in XP on my Intel Mac...

shorttermmemoryloss.com



Owen Griffin wrote:

On 7/27/07, Jonathan Tweed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  

On 27 Jul 2007, at 09:08, Steve Jolly wrote:



Phil Winstanley wrote:
  

Any idea what time it'll be available?
This press release [1] says it'll be available from here on the
27^th : -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer


When I go to that link I see a Find out more and register... link
that takes me through to the signup page.  I'm connecting from
within the BBC though - perhaps a different page is presented to
external visitors?
  

No, that's what appeared last night.

What's been launched today is an 'open, closed beta', i.e. it's still
only available to users of the beta but anyone can register their
interest and at some point receive an account.



Has anyone tried using the iPlayer on Linux using wine?

I could wait for the Linux version but I'm quite impatient. :)

Also, does anyone have any idea how long you have to wait before you
receive an account?



  


Re: [backstage] About our API

2007-07-23 Thread James Cridland

On 7/17/07, Jonathan Tweed [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


It's a shame it's internal only. I'd love it to be on Backstage.


I second your thoughts...

//j


Re: [backstage] feeds with icons or pictures?

2007-07-23 Thread James Cridland

On 7/23/07, Brian Butterworth [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


If you want BBC images to use on other websites (from Wikipedia onwards)
just visit
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediabank/
Register, download and use to your hearts desires.



Gosh. A search for all images related to BBC Radio (ten national networks,
another 50 nations/regions stations, a tremendous choice of talent, an
unrivalled amount of content) gives me...

...some pictures of Russell Brand. From June last year.

And, um, that's it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've a chocolate teapot to buy, which might be of
more use.

//j


[backstage] Tivo StopWatch beginner questions...

2007-07-16 Thread James Ockenden

Interesting news from Tivo, it has been measuring 20,000 users
second-by-second viewing habits. The results show people actually like
the direct response ads better...

more interesting i thought was how StopWatch managed the 20,000
CRID/URI-style info streaming in every second for two months (that's a
lot of data no?) and how it measured and identified each program, and,
since this was primarliy for advertisers, how they identified each
advert? by the station's output listing/time - surely unreliable? So
do adverts have URIs? what about the promo snippets on BBC?

intellecutal curiosity is starving the dog...
-
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] Links to video/audio for specific shows

2007-07-16 Thread James Cridland

On 7/16/07, Tom Coates [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Hey - as the person who developed the URL stuff for the programme
information pages project (PIPs - hence pip in the URL), I can assure
you that the one you're proposing is not generally better.



That's me told! Though thank you... ;)

In terms of music artists (I rediscovered the great band Bliss this weekend,
and found three different Bliss's within the same last.fm page, of which I
was only interested in one, and the pictures and everything is all really
very messed-up) then perhaps disambiguation pages work like wikis.

www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/bliss/ is a disambiguation page, leading to
www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/bliss_1/
www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/bliss_2/
...etc

This also has the benefit that you don't need a database call to link to an
artist page on /music - just call *str_replace( ,_,strtolower($artist));
* instead. Not that it's quite that easy, of course.


On 7/16/07, Kim Plowright [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


James - an aside - you need to talk to the programme info people in
FMT, and maybe the person in  VMPS who is looking after the work done
for drama/comedy TV on this kind of stuff. There's a good four year
history on this one!



I don't doubt it. The nice thing about being in a new job is that you can
ask damn stupid questions, and then be told the sane and sensible reasons
for why things have been done the way they've been done. Generally - though
not always - there are sensible reasons why, and that's cool.

--
http://james.cridland.net/


Re: [backstage] Tivo StopWatch beginner questions...

2007-07-16 Thread James Cridland

On 7/16/07, James Ockenden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


more interesting i thought was how StopWatch managed the 20,000
CRID/URI-style info streaming in every second for two months (that's a
lot of data no?) and how it measured and identified each program, and,
since this was primarliy for advertisers, how they identified each
advert? by the station's output listing/time - surely unreliable? So
do adverts have URIs? what about the promo snippets on BBC?



If you know an accurate time (broadcast on all DTV/DAB systems, and analogue
with teletext at least); and you know the channel being watched, you can
look-up what was on. No need to broadcast any URLs or CRIDs or anything.


Re: [backstage] Links to video/audio for specific shows

2007-07-14 Thread James Cridland

On 7/13/07, Jakob Fix [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


On 7/13/07, Steve Jolly [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 There's some confusion over CRIDs IMO - even in RFC 4078 they get
 referred to as URLs.  I think it's best to think of them as URIs,
 designed to be unique and location-independent.  TV-Anytime defines the
 concept of a CRI service that (amongst other things) provides mappings
 between CRIDs and locators, which could include http, rtsp etc *URLs*.
 This gives you the benefits of both time-invariant identifiers and
 time-varying locators, at the cost of an extra lookup.

welcome to CRIDland!



Wha? Huh? Eh?

But now you've woken me up - I (as others are in here) am a big fan of
human-readable URLs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/breakfast/pip/jrjen/ - good.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/breakfast/archive/07/07/10/ - better.

The 'jrjen' in this URL (no idea, but I suspect it's an internal ID for the
PIP system) isn't easily guessable. A date (in this case, a backwards one)
is more guessable.

Another example (from the same area):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/x9qv/ - good
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artist/elton_john/ - better

Of course, other benefits are that Google will love these URLs more.

Having said that, after five days I'm understanding the reasons for why the
URLs currently work the way they do. And I think it might be partially my
job to fix that. Just hoping nobody notices quite yet.

(In other news, on Friday I found Matt Cashmore's desk. But he wasn't in. I
left him a bizarre sticky note on his monitor, though.)

j

--
http://james.cridland.net/


[backstage] data streaming into video

2007-07-09 Thread James Ockenden

Hello Backstage,
thinking about how wonderfully modular our web/information has become
(eg google home page, blogger web site creation, mambo/opensource CMS
web pages), is it conceivable video content goes likewise?

i'm picturing a corporate or training video i make for someone. the
core content is timeless*  so i'd love whoever's watching it to be
also getting a bloomberg style modular/ticker approach fed with
up-to-date data while they're watching it. eg latest company news from
XYZ inc tickering along the bottom and live market data spewing down
the right column while the why invest in XYZ core content is
churning along. Even if timeless is a six week shelf life, this
would be impressive during an investor roadshow with no extra work
required.

of course that effect is easily done on a webpage/screensaver/dog toy
right now...

but a video player which is more like a browser, with a Video ML
language relating to module positions and data source, whether its
video or 15-min-delayed FTSE data... it assumes that every web or disc
media player will be connected to the web.

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!

best

James

* although in ten years everyone's gonna be laughing at our waxed
eyebrows and black suits... leggings and perms will be back by then i
tell you
-
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/


  1   2   3   4   >