Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 20:50, Dave Crossland d...@lab6.com wrote: 2010/1/1 Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net: it was suggested initially that GNU/Linux was pretty much irrelevant Only by ignorant assholes. :-) Making it a “GNU/Linux” issue misses the point, really: the OS itself is fairly irrelevant, and there’s no proprietary magic which can be incanted in order to make things suddenly wonderful on all Linux devices (in part by definition). The key is of course relying on open standards rather than FLV-in-RTMP for iPlayer. ’course, when the web-based iPlayer was launched, browser support for video / was practically nonexistant. Now… not so much. This, in a roundabout way, renders the old argument of “we don’t want to require everyone to have an H.264 decoder installed” somewhat moot, as video / makes it pretty easy to serve H.264 to those who support it and fall back to Flash for those who don’t. Of course, the _real_ issue is that serving content using standards which are now years old in formats which are widely-supported doesn’t account for DRM, despite its worthlessness: all of the other issues are pretty much red herrings compared to this. M. - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
Mo McRoberts wrote: On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 20:50, Dave Crossland d...@lab6.com wrote: 2010/1/1 Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net: it was suggested initially that GNU/Linux was pretty much irrelevant Only by ignorant assholes. :-) Making it a “GNU/Linux” issue misses the point, really: the OS itself is fairly irrelevant, and there’s no proprietary magic which can be incanted in order to make things suddenly wonderful on all Linux devices (in part by definition). The key is of course relying on open standards rather than FLV-in-RTMP for iPlayer. ’course, when the web-based iPlayer was launched, browser support for video / was practically nonexistant. Now… not so much. This, in a roundabout way, renders the old argument of “we don’t want to require everyone to have an H.264 decoder installed” somewhat moot, as video / makes it pretty easy to serve H.264 to those who support it and fall back to Flash for those who don’t. Of course, the _real_ issue is that serving content using standards which are now years old in formats which are widely-supported doesn’t account for DRM, despite its worthlessness: all of the other issues are pretty much red herrings compared to this. Good points. Yes, I think you are right actually, I was sightly missing the point, you, however, have cleared it up quite nicely. :) The default Maemo browser is essentially Firefox 3.5+ which supports video / (not natively H.264 though, but that's a different debate). With regards to DRM, well, I think some people are generally coming round to the idea that it may not be the be all and end all. We'll have to see what happens, but it wouldn't surprise me if 2010 was the year video DRM got dropped as DRM for audio and in music has been in the last year or two... Time will tell, but hear is to hoping. :) Have a good new year everyone! Tim - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 13:19, Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net wrote: We'll have to see what happens, but it wouldn't surprise me if 2010 was the year video DRM got dropped as DRM for audio and in music has been in the last year or two... I'm not that hopeful. I think the biggest driver behind the dropping of DRM for audio was that the music industry painted themselves into a corner with Apple+iTunes+FairPlay. The only way they could break the iTunes monopoly and regain some sense of control was to go DRM free. The same situation doesn't really exist for video. Maybe media executives will come to their senses and realize that DRM isn't worth the money they spend on it in 2010, but I doubt it - I'm fairly certain that what they're actually paying for is that feeling of being in control and not some technical method to stop piracy. Scot
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
Tim Dobson wrote: The default Maemo browser is essentially Firefox 3.5+ which supports video / (not natively H.264 though, but that's a different debate). With regards to DRM, well, I think some people are generally coming round to the idea that it may not be the be all and end all. We'll have to see what happens, but it wouldn't surprise me if 2010 was the year video DRM got dropped as DRM for audio and in music has been in the last year or two... Heh, what's ironic is that the next Maemo device is likely to have a very solid and secure DRM capability :) http://wiki.maemo.org/MaemoSecurity David (A Maemo/Mer dev) -- Don't worry, you'll be fine; I saw it work in a cartoon once... - 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] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
Hi, Nokia have released the Nokia N900 phone based on their Maemo operating system. As it doesn't support S60 WRT that the current Nokia phones iPlayer app is written in is there anyway i can access the iPlayer videos directly. I can access the current videos and play them, but they are unwatchable as the phone can't handle them. This might be due to the standard streams using the VP6 codec, although i haven't been able to confirm this. The specs are: * Firefox Mobile browser * Flash 9.4 * Maemo OS based on Debian with ARM processor * User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux armv7l; en-GB; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090928 Firefox/3.5 Maemo Browser 1.4.1.21 RX-51 N900 Is there a work around to get iPlayer working on this phone and videos watchable? Thanks Adam - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
Adam wrote: Hi, Nokia have released the Nokia N900 phone based on their Maemo operating system. As it doesn't support S60 WRT that the current Nokia phones iPlayer app is written in is there anyway i can access the iPlayer videos directly. I can access the current videos and play them, but they are unwatchable as the phone can't handle them. This might be due to the standard streams using the VP6 codec, although i haven't been able to confirm this. The specs are: * Firefox Mobile browser * Flash 9.4 * Maemo OS based on Debian with ARM processor * User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux armv7l; en-GB; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090928 Firefox/3.5 Maemo Browser 1.4.1.21 RX-51 N900 Is there a work around to get iPlayer working on this phone and videos watchable? I have been using the silly workaround of get_iplayer on my desktop, then transcoding the files. mplayer on the device will actually - just - cope with the flash - with appropriate switches - mplayer -vfm ffmpeg -lavdopts skiploopfilt =all Top_Gear_Series_14_-_Episode_1_b00p1lgb_default.flv The 'proper' flash player is laughably slower though. Flash slowness is pretty much my only annoyance with the device. Other than the cheap gits only including one stylus. You can of course run get_iplayer and transcode on the device itself, but that's not very fast :) - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
Adam wrote: Nokia have released the Nokia N900 phone based on their Maemo operating system. As it doesn't support S60 WRT that the current Nokia phones iPlayer app is written in is there anyway i can access the iPlayer videos directly. I can access the current videos and play them, but they are unwatchable as the phone can't handle them. This might be due to the standard streams using the VP6 codec, although i haven't been able to confirm this. The specs are: * Firefox Mobile browser * Flash 9.4 * Maemo OS based on Debian with ARM processor * User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux armv7l; en-GB; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090928 Firefox/3.5 Maemo Browser 1.4.1.21 RX-51 N900 Is there a work around to get iPlayer working on this phone and videos watchable? I've had a n900 for about a month now and I've been thinking about this quite a lot recently. The device is quite capable of playing h.264 at iplayer quality. I've been able to get it to play some HD stuff, and I'll try some iplayer quality stuff at some point. The hardware is certainly able to render good quality ogg+vorbis+theora/mpeg4+h264+aac fine. Watching flash iplayer with the device fundamentally works - the controls work - you can do full screen etc. However you only get one frame every two seconds due to flash being exceedingly heavy on the processor as opposed to native gstreamer video stuff. I don't really think it's the VP6 codec *per se* being the issue, but more the VP6 *flash player* bit. Unfortunately, I've been really busy lately but I keep meaning to knock together an iPlayer viewer with get_iplayer for the N900, perhaps by modifying one of the Maemo h264 youtube video viewers. The N900 was born for this sort of media consumption and it seems a shame that it is being prevented from doing it. I find it mildly ironic how back in the old days of the iPlayer flamewars, it was suggested initially that GNU/Linux was pretty much irrelevant and then subsequently that the Adobe stack would solve the cross platform compatibility issue. With a growing number of smartphone operating systems running GNU/Linux in some form (Android, Maemo, LiMo, WebOS etc.) and the number of smartphones not supporting flash (iPhoneOS), or not having the power to play anything in flash more intensive than Youtube eg. iPlayer (Every mobile OS that supports Adobe Flash?), I'm not sure that GNU/Linux is largely irrelevant or that Adobe is the answer. Hopefully the next iteration will take a common sense approach because the iPlayer concept really rocks. :) Have a great new year! Tim - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/backstage@lists.bbc.co.uk/
Re: [backstage] BBC iPlayer and the Nokia N900
2010/1/1 Tim Dobson li...@tdobson.net: it was suggested initially that GNU/Linux was pretty much irrelevant Only by ignorant assholes. :-) - 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/
