[SWLUG] BBC's "iPlayer"

[Steve Anderson]

On 26/06/07, Steve Hill <steve at nexusuk.org> wrote:
>
> It looks like the EC want to give the beeb a kicking over locking people
> into Windows:
>    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236612.stm

It's a bit soon to say they'll give them a kicking, seeing as the Open
Source Consortium is merely threatening the report at this stage, but
I do hope that this doesn't get swept under the carpet.

> It's interesting that the BBC seem to think that only supporting Windows
> and Mac is "platform agnostic".

Yeah... I've got a Chumby (www.chumby.com) which, when launched
properly later in the year, will be able to play video. Will their
content play on this embedded-Linux wonder? Of course not.

<preaching_to_the_converted>
When will they get the message? DRM just doesn't work. It will never
work, because it's a doomed technology. You can throw as much money as
you like at it, you can't lock up something, then provide the locked
file and a key that unlocks it in some manner, and expect it to be
secure. And if we're all looking at Green Computing, why constantly
come up with DRM systems that suck more and more CPU cycles to
function?

And why DRM content that I, as a TV licence payer, have already forked out for?
</preaching_to_the_converted>

A vaguely entertaining aside. I registered for the BBC Archive trial,
which is streaming some of the content that they plan to put into this
iPlayer nonsense, and it went live last week. After a brief look
through what's on offer, I spotted Threads, the classic early 80s
nuclear winter play. "Ooh," thought I, "I'll have a look at that."

I clicked the link and it started playing in an embedded WMP on my
Windows box at work, and it played fine. I noticed that there was a
link to an ASX file, which is an XML manifest for streaming media, so
I grabbed that to see how VLC would play it. It opened in WMP first,
and played Threads as expected. Closed it, opened it in VLC... An
episode of That's Life from 1988 was in its place!

(Turns out that they've got different URLs in the manifest for
different streaming protocols, fact fans, and VLC chose a different
system, which was pointing to That's Life.)

The conspiracy theorist in me has already decided that they do this ON
PURPOSE to DEFEAT VIEWING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY on non-proprietary
systems. The realist in me has decided that they don't really know
what they're doing.

Apologies for going on, I'm recovering from gastroenteritis and have
little else to fill my time with...

Steve

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