BBC Discusses PVR Software, Creative Archive Plans

Fidigit writes "You may have heard something about the BBC Internet Media Player {iMP) - a computer-based PVR for the BBC's TV and radio content, 'only... available to UK broadband users', which'll use P2P to shuttle content around between downloaders. Now we hear the iMP content will distributed using DRM, using Microsoft's DRM technology, 'in a break with the BBC's long-standing support of Real.'" The previously mentioned BBC Creative Archive is also discussed - apparently its content "...will be downloaded using a similar application, but will not be restricted by DRM, enabling people to re-edit it, or use it to make other programmes" - the content "will not be the complete BBC archive", but an example given of the initial content is "nature programmes".

Good Idea

If you have all the p2p people dowloading the legit programs, then they don't have time to download all the illegal stuff.

What about the jackass who decides to rename his entire porn collection to titles of children's shows?

Re:Good Idea

I speak only out of logic here, not facts, so take this as you will..

Most P2P programs which break down files into chunks would have some sort of hash on the individual chunks, which are compared to others or a central tracker (a la bittorrent) - you cant rename file and try to share them, as your data will continually be corrupted to other users.

Of course, the more basic P2P apps, like the old gnutella (& co) simply worked off the name and downloaded from a single user, whereby renaming would let you download rubbish, thinking it was something else!

eMule/Donkey/whatever has a has for the files and even if the filenames the same, if the hash doesnt match, that users file is not lumped in with all the others that do match - its returned as an extra result in the search box.

The US needs something like this!

Cuz between p2p networks, newsgroups, and torrents, I can't find any TV Shows :(

Grrrrrrr

The BBC is funded esentially by general taxation.

No problem with them limiting content to the UK (and turning it into a revenue service outside the UK, as they do with BBC North America) but WTF do they think they should be restricting content? We paid for it after all.

For example the BBC has not embraced Open Source, even for their own in house products, even under a non-commercial-use-only license. They are an organisation that could do such things free from commercial considerations, yet refuse to. It's infuriating.

They do the same thing with their programming - because of the way they are funded they could offer interesting and different programming _NOT_ reality crap that is available on the commercial channels anyway. And they even have adverts (self promotion) now - and at a louder volume in the same irritating commercial TV style.

Well, I don't care, I don't have a TV and I'll just carry on stealing the few things I want to watch anyway. Groening et al can contact the BBC for their royalties, since if they could find their ass with both hands I'd be getting the content (legally) from them instead.

Re:Grrrrrrr

so you pay the TV licence then even though you don't have a TV?

Re:Grrrrrrr

No - you dont. If you buy a TV to watch broadcasted television from BBC / ITV / SKY you must have a license, otherwise you are breaking the law. If you buy a TV simply to watch DVDs then you do not have to get a license. However, License inspectors would be highly sceptical if they were to find an aerial lying around....

Re:Grrrrrrr

That's not true. My old landlord would be in the shit every other week in regards to watching VHS only on his TV. He had no aerial but the tuner was capable of picking up signals so he had to pay - so they kept telling him. He had the option to remove the tuner (not practical) or pay the tax.

He paid because the hassle was not worth the £100+ licence fee he might have saved.

It is a tax, not a service.

Re:Grrrrrrr

A licence is not needed to own a TV receiver. A licence is needed only for the reception of broadcast television signals. You could have a TV plugged into an ariel and tuned in, and not be in violation of the law as long as you never used it. However, the TV licencing authority (a private company run by Capita) will assume that you have and use a TV and will prosecute anyone who doesn't have a TV licence. They usually rely on a signed confession for this, and drop prosecutions against people who fight back in court. Have a look at the Abolish the TV licence [tvlicensing.biz] campaign.

Steve.

Re:Grrrrrrr

The license is on the tuner not on the viewing device.

For example, if you purchased a computer monitor and a DVD player and connected them to each other, you would not be required to own a TV license to use them together, as you do not have a method of viewing "television". If you bought a regular TV you would.

In another example, if you had a black and white television and a VCR, you would have to own a colour television license, as the VCR is able to receive colour television, even though you cannot view it.

A further example would be if you owned a TV Tuner card for your computer, irreguardless of whether it was physically in the computer or not you would be required to own a TV License.

In cases where you do not own a Television Tuner, you are usually invited to sign a document saying that you do not, otherwise the TV Licensing authority will assume you are dodging paying your TV License fee and fine you accordingly. (This agreement also has the clause, like the license, that you must inform them when you move)

Re:Grrrrrrr

In cases where you do not own a Television Tuner, you are usually invited to sign a document saying that you do not, otherwise the TV Licensing authority will assume you are dodging paying your TV License fee and fine you accordingly. (This agreement also has the clause, like the license, that you must inform them when you move)

You sign the damned form and send it to them. A fortnight later you get a letter saying "thankyou for informing us that you do not need a TV license now sign the form to declare it formallly." It's the same damned form. You send it away.

A week later a nice lady from TV Licensing phones you and announces that you've sent a form saying you don't need a TV license. She asks you why. You tell her. She asks "are you sure?". You assure her. She asks whether you'd mind signing a form. She'll send you one in the post.

So you get the same form again, in the post, inviting you to sign.

You phone them to explain. They say "just fill it in and sign it anayway." You protest but reluctantly agree.

A month later a man from TV licensing knocks on your door when you're in the middle of cooking your dinner.

He says, "You don't have a TV license!" And grins.

"That's right," you reply cheerfully, "I don't have a TV set!"

"Really?" He says, "why's that?"

"Because there's nothing on it I wan't to watch and I'd rather spend the 100-odd pound license fee on bits for my computer.

He agrees, muttering about the lack of quality TV content and leaves.

So you move house. A week later they put up a billboard poster across the road saying "3 adresses in don't have TV licenses."

No, this is not Soviet Russia or 1984. This is late 1990/early 2000's England, UK etc.

Now tell me we're not going to hell in a hand basket.

A small clarification

I think it is if you have anything capable of recieving any active TV signals, and only if the device actually works... and if you don't have a license they have to prove the something was receiving TV signals (i.e. with their tracker van).

If you live in a flat with other tenants, and you have independant contracts with the landlord, then you have to have a TV license if you wanna watch TV irrelevant of the other tenants. If all the tenants are on a sharing contract, then only on TV license is needed for the whole building (or area covering shared accomodation).

I for one have first hand experience with the TV licensing people. On my uni industrial placement (internship), I lived in a flat on an individual contract. I didn't have a TV nor did I want one (boy did that free up my time for doing other things I tell you!), but I got a threatening letter from TV licensing nearly every 2 months... they threatened me by saying that you don't have a license, they'll get a warrant to check on me... blah blah. I was just waiting for the time they actually followed through with one of those threats just to be able to explore the option of being able to sue them... I know that they can trace a signal to individual rooms, and I was happy in the knowledge that I did not have anything capable of recieving TV signals (my PC video card wasn't VIVO either).

Although I'm not sure on the precise details, but I think the TV license is illegal under European law... but with the UK being half in and half out of the EU depending on whether it suits the government at the time, not much can be done about it. The BBC's charter is up for renewal in 2006, and they've been hit hard by the Hutton report (those who say that will have no bearing on the charter renewal, yeah right!). Plus the license fee continually goes up in frickin price.

Just my 0.02, not going to the licensing gestapo though ;-)

Re:Grrrrrrr

most of the techs are very much for open source solutions, but are restricted due to internal politics

A few years ago I did some work at TV Centre with BBC News Online. I was told, "The servers run Windows. The person responsible for this mistake has since been removed." :-)

Re:Grrrrrrr

Not true. The beeb uses a lot of open source, and has even released some software as open src, including a nice little web ticketing system and a more portable PXE booter.

I do wish that people would do a little research before going off on bordering right-wing murdoch style rants, especially ones so ill-informed.

Also, be aware that there are several sources of technology advocacy within the BBC, the engineers in R+D at Kingswood Warren are a lot more open to open src software than the less technically astute creative types (who are brilliant in their own way, but not always best placed to make such decisions).

The BBC /HAS/ embraced open src for in-house products, and indeed some of the cutting-edge production tools used are based in part on Linux, even. It's just that if you ask people who don't really understand it, obviously they won't be able to give you an accurate picture, no matter how helpful they want to be; try asking one of the engineers to help with moody lighting and you'll get about as far :-)

Rather than merely writing off things you know nothing about, a little background research might be an idea.

At least this will stop people calling me a pirate

Most of the people at work (non IT - all over 34yrs) look at me funny when I mention I listen to music on my PC - even though its ripped from CD's i purchased years ago. The notion that I have "MP3's" makes me look suspect (sheez - imagine if I had ripped everything to OGG !).

Downloadable Nature shows - now that's a Good Thing - Once the average person understands that "you are not a pirate if you download music/videos", then its a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.

Re:At least this will stop people calling me a pir

In the UK it is illegal to make MP3s from your own CDs. The copyright exceptions for "fair dealing" don't cover nearly as much as the US's "fair use".

Re:At least this will stop people calling me a pir

To clarify - any copying is illegal under UK law, there's nothing special about MP3s. Technically, making a cassette copy of a CD you own for a walkman or for the car is equally illegal.

Since no-one prosecutes for making tapes for the car, I suspect it's unlikely (although entirely possible) that anyone would prosecute you for ripping CDs you own to MP3.

Q.

Crippled

apparently its content "...will be downloaded using a similar application, but will not be restricted by DRM, enabling people to re-edit it, or use it to make other programmes" - the content "will not be the complete BBC archive"

So in short: the BBC will put the "BBC Creative Archive" online, composed of BBC programs (well, slightly crippled, it's not all of the BBC's archive) using Microsoft's DRM technology (only a bit crippled, as the DRM part of the technology is disabled).

In short, it really seems the Beeb is crippled these days...

At last! Digital quality BBC recordings..

Maybe leading to the creation a distributed archive of sorts, because the BBC doesn't exactly have a great track record of keeping its own archives, having wiped a great many programmes from its own archives. I can see it now - 'BBC appeals to PVR owners after short sightedly deleting every episode of Dr Who in archives'

Re:At last! Digital quality BBC recordings..

the BBC doesn't exactly have a great track record of keeping its own archives, having wiped a great many programmes from its own archives.

Well no, those records were naturally wiped out when Lister found them after his million-year stasis.

Re:At last! Digital quality BBC recordings..

I think the main reason for wiping of programmes was to do with the cost of tapes.

I read recently (no citation, I'm afraid, but it was probably on a BBC site) that the old film (rather than video) was literally piled up in a building and was a fire risk. As the perceived value of these old programmes was zero, they were trashed (not reused). With most of the ephemera, they were right. They weren't to know the cult status some like Dr Who would achieve years later, and selling video was also years in the future (ironic for an SF show to suffer from the lack of thinking forward).

"Shuttle Content"

So it will be P2P, but do you think they should use some sort of BitTorrent-esque protocol to make the process even easier?

You have to be kidding

So they use P2P so that I can send part of the contents to people with MY bandwidth (baid by me on a monthly basis), but comes with Digital Restrictions Management so that I cannot actually use it as I want?

Yeah right, that'll happen.

Remember children...

If you don't use DRM your computer is insecure and is at risk from viruses, trojans, hackers, paedophiles, terrorists and illegal copyright violators.

offcourse

but an example given of the initial content is "nature programmes".

great ! More pr0n... Now who said the BBC is conservative ?

So many channels so little time.

Any one else noticed that the quality of productions on the BBC has fallen off drastically the last couple of years? Coincided with the explosion in the numbers of channels.

Re:So many channels so little time.

Both Dead Ringers and Little Britain started out on Radio 4, not TV. The main problem with the Dead Ringers transition was that the impressionists look absolutely nothing like the actual people - after all, it doesn't matter on radio.
Radio 4 seems to be a last bastion of quality on the BBC.

Re:So many channels so little time.

Any one else noticed that the quality of productions on the BBC has fallen off drastically the last couple of years?

No, not really. Memory has the effect of compressing things from the past together (like how you only remember all the good songs from the last decade, and not all the crap), so it probably just seems that way.

Yay for DRM!

This is very very good news - lets hope that DRM is used to only allow TV License owners to experience the content thus causing we few people who do not need a TV License constantly receiving threatening letters. [marmalade.net]

Good and bad

I'm a bit jealous because it won't be available outside UK (well, I understand the legal mess it would be, but BBC is a real reference outside UK, and I'd be glad to watch legally some of their programs).
The good point is, at last, somebody big understood what P2P could bring technically. As they are close friends with Real and its network, it means a lot for the future if this experiment works fine.
The really bad point is this MsDRM. It means no standard and even no cross-platform; it means no freedom for the player (I don't really appreciate WMPlayer and usually watch wm file using VLC which brings me many more functions I like).
When will big company understand that opening their offer to as many customers/users as possible is a good thing? If you've got a shop, you try to make it accessible to anybody, with or without a car, with or without disabilities; you try to be opened as much as you can!
Why the technical options are not the same (and it's so easier with the Internet and the standards than with real world places)?
Why consider all the Internet users/customers as thiefs? Imagine a shop where you are systematically checked walking out, will you come back?
Why can a UK citizen rip/mix/burn as much BBC programs as he want from his TV plug but not from his IP plug?
I hope they will change their mind with the time (for example after the experiment!) but I know they have also to face the rights owners (producers, agencies) who are certainly a bit less interested in what final users experience

P2P: Media killer app after TV and Radio

This article is revealing of a future I envision, where P2P is not seen as a pirate's haven, but a tool for highly efficient delivery and marketing of digital media. I don't need to explain this to ./ers, but imagine set-top PC's (or Media Centers as MS likes to call them) communicating and sharing music / movies / TV eps with each other, like how you send IM / email messages to friends and family.

The lines between fair use and "piracy" would be thin in this scenario, but I don't think most people want to steal if you give them a choice that is more convenient and higher service quality than the pirate networks can offer.

And BitTorrent will be the perfect use for this: legitimate content distribution, which is exactly what it was designed for. I have some plans for projects toward this vision, I will be putting up a website that outline my ideas but I just don't have time for it yet.

I already have all the DRM'd BBC content I need

...meaning the 14 DVD's of The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus. If we're lucky, all future incarnations of DRM will either flop in the marketplace, or become the joke that is now CSS...

BBC and Redmond

There's a whole internal discussion going on inside the BBC about them being a MS house.

Remember when PalmOS devices where 'banned' from the network, they closed down Kingswood Warren and moved everyone to Maidenhead to be with the MS based content team, stopped the OGG streams...

Of course all the computers you see on live telly (non-current news items with phone-ins) always have those ever so pretty Apples rather than ugly PC's!!!

Governments giveth, and taketh away...

I always wonder how governments can complain about monopoly and unfair advantage on one hand, and then purchase from these "monopolies" on the other. Isn't that what's going on here?

Take U.S. v Microsoft. The United States government is a huge customer. If they decide to place a bunch of PC's on the desks of their departments, and all those PC's run Windows, that more than anything helps foster Microsoft's continued dominance. Why don't they standardize all documents in XML, or plaintext. No! See how many times you're asked to submit something in Word format.

Goverments could just as easily begin converting to open source, or begin a Linux initiative; they could require a certain number of computers be Macintosh; or they could choose to buy something other than the Microsoft Office suite. Now, the British government is going to switch to MS, dumping Real. All these actions encourage the same company they complain about.

Am I the only one who sees conflict and hypocrisy?

The TV license fee and the BBC

I have always considered the TV licensing fee to be a breach of human rights.Amongst the rights we have, the right to information is amongst the foremost.I cant protest against the breach of rights of my fellow citizens if i dont know about it and in the present day world TV & radio are the most wisespread disseminators of news.By making me purchase a TV license the gov makes me pay to exercise a right of mine.And since this money is supposed to fund the BBC,it is making a choice for me.If i want to watch the Beeb let me decide,by charging me money dont make that decision for me.

We pay a charge for phone services,not for owning the bloody instrument,for god's sake.I will support abolition of the licence fee in the next review of the bbc charter.

OTT:
I am getting increasingly frustated by this government's tax them to death tactics.The govt makes enough of our taxes to pay for our uni fees.plaese fund education in this country before funding other people's wars in some godforsaken place.I know the whitehall govtment is not to blame but the council tax fiasco is too much to take.My Borough(Wandsworth) increased it by a whopping 50% last year and this year they want a 18% increase.I fully support the OAP pensioners who are willing to go to prison than pay this blood money.Civil disobedience against unjust laws is the last and often the only resort.let's hope the present lot remember Martin Luther King and Gandhi.

Incentive to piracy

The BBC's choice to use a platform-restricted DRM file format can only have one certain consequence - more time and development being spent on breaking Windows Media DRM components.

I have a right to view this content, if I cannot do so on a platform of my choice then I'll strip the DRM from the files and watch them in a format of my choice. I can't see there being any difficulty in getting hold of software to defeat the restrictions....

Hehe

using Microsoft's DRM technology

Phew, for a second there I thought they where going to restrict the content.

Creative Archive a long way off

Although there's been a lot of announcements recently about the BBC's Creative Archive, I can't really see it being launched for at least a couple of years.

One of the major issues with distributing BBC aired programmes, via the Internet, is rights management. A lot of BBC produced programmes use material that is not actually owned by the BBC. It may have been commissioned from independant produces who retain some rights over it, or even purchased from other broadcasters. For example, the BBC archive has no World War II footage. That's because the BBC didn't start broadcasting until the 1950's. So every time you see a documentary on the BBC that has original WWII footage incorporated, that material has been purchased from a 3rd party (say Pathe [britishpathe.com] for example). So clearing all material from all BBC shows is going to be a total headache! This may be in part why only a portion of the archive, and not the whole thing, is going to be initially available online.

The other issue is of course digitising all that content. It's a big ask and not going to happen overnight. The whole process of getting the tapes from the Windmill Road archive, selecting the content that you want to use, encoding that content (let's hope for MPEG4 but most likely to be MPEG2. Although Creative Archive doesn't have to be broadcast quality for personal use, only VHS quality, they'd be crazy not to encode at a higher quality so that content could be re-used in a digital format for other projects), cataloguing that content with all relevant keywords and metadata and then publishing the content. As for storage we're talking several (tens) terabytes at least.

I think building the website itself if going to be the easy bit!

Creative Archive is a project I'd love to work on as I think it's going to be quite exciting, but the shear scale is also quite enormous.

Here's a million dollar idea

Why not make a home stereo that plays mp3s, and has a hard drive? A 20GB HDD would hold, what? 4000 songs?

Of course you could use your PC for this, but who wants their stereo clutered with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor?

Of course you would need a way to get the mp3s on the HDD. Network?

Time To Email The BBC Methinks...

This definitely needs some action from us license payers...

Firstly, I don't mind the BBC license at all because I get advert-free TV and radio programming that's of a consistently good quality. It's worth the money in that respect.

Secondly, the "illusion" that ITV is "free" is a myth - we all pay higher prices for products because a proportion of those prices funds TV & radio advertisement. Get those channels through satellite or cable TV and you pay an extra subscription charge on the top of that...

However, there's a much deeper issue here. The BBC has been in existence for most of the 20th century and their archive includes a very detailed log of global history throughout that time as well as entertainment programs. The value of that archive cannot be underestimated as a historical, social and political eductaional resource for future generations - therefore, if it is to be "opened to the public" then it must be done so in a manner independent of DRM enforced by an American software company! Otherwise, the public ends up paying Microsoft to access information that should be accessible to all, no matter whether they can afford to pay MS for a DRM license.

I must admit, I'm not sure about how access should be controlled to entertainment programs in the archive - for example, I guess a lot of people already own taped copies of "Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy" when it was first broadcast on BBC Radio while many others have purchased legitimate tapes and CDs of the same programs; the same can be said for the superb "Lord Of The Rings" and Asimov's "Foundation" dramatisations that were also broadcast on BBC radio.

I think the answer probably lies in the BBC making lower quality audio and video versions freely available in their archive with the option to purchase higher quality versions legitimately - in the way that MP3 downloading has done no real damage to CD sales.

However, the core issue here is maintaining the right to free information. Just as anyone (in the UK at least) can stroll into a public library and have free access to important historical books, the factual BBC archive must be handled in a similar fashion, even to the point where there's a PC in every library to be able to get to that archive also.

Anyone know of the best place to send an email to on this within the BBC? They'll have to listen to those if us that pay our licenses :-)

TV License = Racketeering

An ex housemate brought an Xbox to our digs, and then bought a cheap TV to use it with. The shop he bought it at told the TV Gestapo and they paid us a visit - cautioned another resident who happened to open the door and when showed the Tv/Console set up and the legit Licence for our communal TV, he still summonsed my Xbox owning freind who paid up rather than go to court. Why should we be deprived of the right to own a TV and watch non BBC content without paying the BBC? - ITV/C4/C5 should sue.

This explains the other article

[tinfoilhat on]
So, about the same time this comes out, the BBC publishes a whitewash of Microsoft's security problems (also available here on Slashdot.)

Is this a coincidence? Or are they hoping to make everyone feel better about their support for Microsoft?

Camel's Nose Further Under Tent

So the BBC is "using Microsoft's DRM technology, in a break with the BBC's long-standing support of Real"? This illustrates the danger we face when competition authorities twiddle their thumbs at the dwindling competition in media players, DRM and any other enabling software. The BBC could never dictate which television or radio manufactures I chose to use, but somehow these public and private media giants think nothing of dictating which media player, DRM software or computer operating system they will "support". We desparately need third parties to be free to offer consumers support for the media palyers, OS and DRM of their choice. The BBC may set minimum DRM or player standards, for example, but should never be able to dictate which company from among numerous software providers actually wins in the marketplace.

Re:Microsuck DRM...

No, the BBC doesn't need to keep a lot of its content secure because it has all been paid for by the license fee. In fact, the BBC is pretty much obliged to distribute its stuff as far as possible - we own it already!

Re:Microsuck DRM...

You over simplify; the BBC archive os beset by complex ownership issues; especially the older stuff. In many cases, the actors, writers, directors have rights involving repeat showing fees etc. Much kudos to the BBC to attempt to find a way through these problems. ... Yes the new contracts have this sorted out.

Re:Microsuck DRM...

This distribution of programmes is part of the BBC's public service agreement [culture.gov.uk] as all BBC content is supposed to be free, as in no money required and as in to be used by other people.