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BBC Trial of TV Show Download Service

Posted by Zonk on Tue May 17, 2005 09:31 AM
from the working-for-the-viewers dept.
Media Television The Internet Patents Technology
Little Hamster writes "Five thousand households with broadband access has been selected for a trial of the BBC's new interactive Media Player. The trial will run from September to December, and users can 'time shift' and download selected BBC TV shows, radio programmes, regional programming and feature films. After seven days, the content will be automatically deleted from the user's computers. BBC will use this trial to iron out any outstanding rights issues and resolve teething difficulties with the technology ahead of a full launch next year." The BBC Press Office has a release about this as well.
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  • The Office? (Score:3, Funny)

    by FriedTurkey (761642) * on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:33AM (#12554944)
    Hopefully they will allow downloads of the "The Office". It is a great series. Although as an American, I have to turn on the subtitles to understand what they are saying. Also I didn't understand any of the British pop culture references except the Benny Hill ones.

    Maybe BBC should allow downloads of Benny Hill too?

    • Re:The Office? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Benny Hill was on ITV (Thames IIRC)
      • "The Benny Hill Show" started on the BBC in 1955, but transferred to ITV in 1969. The ones that are seen in the US are entirely from the ITV run, and with many of the ruder bits cut out.

    • Re:The Office? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BenjyD (316700) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @10:01AM (#12555341)
      I often read Americans saying they had to turn on subtitles to understand parts of The Office. As an English person I've always wanted to know which parts/characters Americans find hard to understand. Or is it just the slang terms used?

      From an English person's point of view, the accents are fairly standard mid-England/London accents. But then, having driven round rural Georgia, I know we are two countries divided by a common language.
      • Mostly just the general slang. I can assume most of them refer to sex. I think Americans find some of the humor [humour] in the cheeky British "shagging" words.

        Also David Brent's songs are hilarious when you actually see the words.
      • I gather it's largely the slang and culture references. Things like muff, minge, pub (which I didn't realise would cause confusion), and others. There is a list on the BBC website somewhere I think. Some of the culture references are just totally lost, like us watching some Simpson's episodes. I doubt anyone not from these shores could appreciate the brilliance of David Brent saying he loved Ian Botham, references to the Corrs, Des'ree, the poem Slough ("dropping bombs is no way to solve town planning p

      • I often read Americans saying they had to turn on subtitles to understand parts of The Office. As an English person I've always wanted to know which parts/characters Americans find hard to understand. Or is it just the slang terms used?

        I'm from the USA, but I moved to Brazil 5 years ago. I had no trouble at all understanding any of the accents on The Office (I noticed some minor variations between different characters), and I watched both seasons and the Christmas wrap-up ep. I didn't even find the s

  • Am I missing something? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by frankthechicken (607647) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:33AM (#12554946) Journal
    If the BBC essentially runs a public domain service anyway, why are the shows deleted after seven days?

    This ceratinly doesn't need to happen on a video recording.
    • If the BBC essentially runs a public domain service anyway, why are the shows deleted after seven days?

      I don't think it's that simple. For one, I believe that BBC doesn't own all the shows they broadcast. (Although they do own quite a few.) As such, they are licensed to provide public distribution of the shows, but are not necessary able to just give them away. This would seem to be backed by the article's mention of Hollywood and independent studios.

      In addition, it also mentions that the acting unions are "acting up"^H^H balking at the idea of Internet distribution. They don't give any details, but my guess is that actors are concerned that rampant piracy would result in lower wages and fewer acting jobs. It's probably pretty hard to convince them that if given a good for-pay alternative, the majority of people will use the convenient pay service. (The only reason why Napster ever appeared was that the music industry failed to respond to market pressures. What did they THINK was going to happen?)
      • actors are concerned that rampant piracy would result in lower wages and fewer acting jobs
        It's more likely that they're balking at the fact that on-demand video won't supply them with the repeat fees that they get when shows are rebroadcast by traditional means.
        • It's more likely that they're balking at the fact that on-demand video won't supply them with the repeat fees that they get when shows are rebroadcast by traditional means.

          That's a good point. I'm not too familar with British styles of acting compensation, but if I had royalties, I'd definitely like to hold onto them. Once the time-shifting issue is figured out, I suppose what they'd need to do for pay-per-view is make sure that royalties are properly earmarked for each download. This would give actors a
    • I seem to remember a while ago that it was taking so long for them to do this (they announced it first quite a long time ago) because of the issues of paying actors (IIRC they get paid royalties each time it's shown, or something like that), so DRM is probably their solution they could agree on. Also the BBC gains a lot of capital from DVD sales.

      Really is a pity though they are using DRM, and a custom application, as I wouldn't be surprised at all if it only ran on Windows. I also hope the P2P part of it

    • Re:Am I missing something? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by erroneus (253617) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:52AM (#12555215) Homepage
      If they didn't delete content, people's computers would crash. You seem to forget we're talking about the public here...
    • Disclaimer: The following is a guess.

      The system uses a P2P network to distribute the shows. By forcing the erasure of old shows, they ensure that only the latest shows are being shared, resulting in more efficient use of bandwidth, and faster downloads.

      Having said that, it's probably just because they can.

  • Well (Score:3, Insightful)

    by metlin (258108) <narayan@f[ ]harvard.edu ['as.' in gap]> on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:34AM (#12554951) Homepage Journal
    If it is available digitally, it would certainly be possible to find a way of copying it without the whole deletion procedure.

    Even if its a custom media player, how long is it going to take for someone to hack it up?

  • From the BBC Press release (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alranor (472986) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:34AM (#12554955)
    The BBC's interactive media player (iMP) is a new application in development which will allow users to download tv and radio programmes from bbc.co.uk to their PC or laptop and watch or listen to them for seven days after the transmission date.


    Anyone wanna bet it'll be Windows only.

    Guess i'll probably end up sticking to bittorrent.
    • Naturally, it might be out on the Mac too in time but I doubt it'll have a Linux version. There's no builtin DRM with Linux like there is with Windows so it'd be a lot harder to protect the content files.

      IMHO DRM and Linux don't necessarily have to be enemies. For instance take the Windows XP "Secure Audio Path". It relies on driver co-operation and essentially means the audio passes from the media player encrypted into the kernel: there's no way to get the audio out of the media player in a cleartext fo

  • I'm off to see if I can get the good Doctor here in the states! Cherrio!
      • >but Laser Disks are still used at the industrial level to store master digital recordings of movies.

        Laser Disks does not store video digitally.
        • Laser Disks does not store video digitally.

          Seems you're right. From Wikipedia:

          Video was stored on LD as an analog signal, while audio could be stored in either analog or digital format and in a variety of surround sound formats. Like on a CD, the surface of the disc is an aluminium foil covered by pits and lands, but whereas on a audio CD (or DVD) the pits and lands will signify binary codes, on an LD the pits are created using frequency modulation of an analog signal.

          I always assumed that LD stored i
  • I like it. I think that you should be able to keep stuff for a month (what if you are on vacation, etc.) because you can't always watch what you need. I don't have Tivo because when I got it a while ago there was no interoperability with my VOIP phone. If I was told I could have this service I would have taken it. It might not suit everyone, but it works for me.

  • BBC and DRM (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tdvaughan (582870) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:39AM (#12555032) Homepage
    I was disappointed at first to see that the BBC is implementing DRM but it's worth bearing in mind that not all the content broadcast by the BBC is owned by them. Much of it comes from independent studios who license it to the BBC. So I remain hopeful that the BBC will offer its own copyrighted material to UK license payers on more permissive terms.
    • Agreed, I thought the most interesting deveolopment was that they were allowing downloads of feature films (which presumably they've liscenced to show on the TV channels as well.) That's a step forward if anything.
  • But with that headline, i first thought it was refering to a lawsuit. Trial and Music in the same headline, and it's not a lawsuit?! Expect a letter from the RIAA soon, guys!

  • Time-shifting (Score:4, Funny)

    by RealProgrammer (723725) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:48AM (#12555159) Homepage Journal
    Dr. Who fans will note that their house now looks a lot smaller on the outside than it really is on the inside.

  • I've had a decent idea for legal TV distribution online in my journal for a while now. Most of the posts I see so far about this BBC service are negative. Finally a media outlet is trying to embrace technology instead of calling their lawyers every 5 minutes, and all people can do is complain. Downloadable shows will probably never be free without the show including some form of DRM or advertising... get used to it. I'd much rather have DRM or ads than no downloadable shows at all.

    If you don't want the DRM or ads, get a Tivo or TV capture card and skip the commercials or edit them out.

    • Re:Quit Complaining - And Read My Journal ;) (Score:4, Informative)

      by kingdon (220100) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @10:36AM (#12555870) Homepage
      Well, my local NPR radio station here in California is offering the radio SHARK as a premium you get for donating money. (The radio SHARK is a tuner which receives radio programs and records them to a computer; as far as I can tell from their website, there is no DRM).

      Don't know if the station had some heavy discussion about DRM, or even thought about it, but it would appear that not everyone in the content production and distribution business are as worried about pushing DRM as we assume.
  • I will pay subscription fees to whoever will take the money so that I can download Six Feet Under or Lost or whatever else within minutes of broadcast without having to go looking for a torrent. Even more important, I want to be able to get series that I missed (Firefly, Sopranos) .... The nature of most P2P services (esp bittorrent) is that this older stuff is harder to come by.

    I don't really care if I can keep the episodes forever. I do now, but I never rewatch any of them an only keep them around so I h
  • Automatically deleted from user's computers? That would make me a bit uncomfortable. Why would I want someone poking around MY computer deleting stuff, even if it is authorized? Computers, especially systems running Windows should not be open to others for manipulation (IMAO). Then, there's the issue of Linux. Will there be a special BBC account set up, or should users just hand over their root password?

    I don't know. It's just too much control over private property by a governmental/corporate entity

  • FTFA: (Score:3, Funny)

    by oneandoneis2 (777721) * on Tuesday May 17 2005, @10:01AM (#12555336) Homepage
    Commercial rivals have already voiced fears that the BBC's substantial investment in iMP and the Creative Archive could damage their chances of making money from the concept.

    [rant]Well, maybe they should have been worrying about that for the last bloody decade then, instead of spending all their time & money trying to legislate the whole bloody concept out of existance!![/rant]

    *ahem*

    Yay, BBC! It's times like this I don't object to paying my license fee!

  • It is MY computer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rtkluttz (244325) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @10:33AM (#12555820) Homepage
    They still don't get it. DRM will still be unnacceptable.

    It is MY computer and it should only delete something when I tell it to. No one else. It should not police me. It should not tell me what to do, I should tell it what to do. If I break the law using my computer, then I should be held responsible, but I should NOT be limited if I choose to use the computer in a fashion that some short sited company didn't plan on.
  • BBC will use this trial to iron out any outstanding rights issues

    So remember, kids, even if you come up with a totally trivial means of defeating their DRM, don't release it until AFTER they have irreversably committed to this!

  • Already done in Norway? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Echnin (607099) <p3s46f102.sneakemail@com> on Tuesday May 17 2005, @03:36PM (#12559638) Homepage
    NRK, the Norwegian government-run TV already offer high-quality streams of every single show they produce, including newscasts, for free. It's an excellent service; if I miss a show, I'll just watch it online. How the BBC claims that this is revolutionary I cannot understand. http://www.nrk.no/ [www.nrk.no]

    • Re:TiVo? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by maharg (182366) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:36AM (#12554981) Homepage Journal
      yes, you don't get a free TiVo with a UK tv license

      • Re:TiVo? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TheRaven64 (641858) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:46AM (#12555130) Homepage Journal
        Although this does raise the question of why the content is deleted at all. Since the license payers have already paid for it to be produced, why can they not do whatever they want with the content?
        • Simple - they havent paid for it to be produced, theyve paid a TV license fee, which is entirely differnet. It just so happens that the BBC receives this money, but that does not automatically mean that the viewers have all rights to the productions.

        • Re:TiVo? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by andrewbaldwin (442273) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @10:24AM (#12555686)
          Where have you been?

          The UK TV licence fee is regularly moaned about on Slashdot!

          For info:

          In the UK you need to have a licence for each address which has a TV receiver (you can have dozens of sets in the same house and one licence if you want*)

          FWIW I'm happy to pay it for TV free from adverts disrupting the shows and with greater freedom to express ideas without worrying about business withdrawing advertising revenue. And don't worry about the 'tax' aspects meaning state direction - the Beeb regularly clashes with the government of the day - as both main parties seem to complain about it, it must be reasonably neutral. (BTW I have no connection with the BBC)

          Others may dislike the licence on philosophical / political / dogmatic grounds (esp if they like watching the commercial channels more) - I accept that I have to subsidise, through higher prices, the advertising 'industry' and through them the other channels.

          * actually there are some restrictions (eg multiple independent occupancy of a house split into flats) but the principle holds for most cases

          • Re:TiVo? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward
            They moan about a fee of £100 for a year for a load of channels free of advertising. Sky costs about half that much for a month of advert-ridden shit. I know which is better value.
          • As a person who has emigrated from England to Australia - I have learned to appreciate the BBC even more.
            Before I left I would have died in a ditch to protect the BBC's freedoms but having seen what continual government interference has done to the Australian equivalent (the ABC) I have really come to marvel at what a great job the BBC does with its limited resources.
            Especially now they've brought back Dr Who...
            I know that to our American readers the idea of a "television tax" being used to pay for adver

    • Re:TiVo? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by taskforce (866056) on Tuesday May 17 2005, @09:37AM (#12554995) Homepage
      Yes, you have access to the BBC's entire library Napster style, except it's *free* (As in TV Liscence, not beer.)

      TiVo I believe you can only record shows that were on and watch them later, or am I missing something?

    • Re:TiVo? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by /ASCII (86998)
      This is a test. Once this is mature, you will have all of these advantages:

      Watch programs that are several years old, whenever you want, without having to record them. Watch three or more programs which all originally ran at the same time. Set up playlists of arbitrary programs, i.e. 'show me season two of Buffy'.

      This is all assuming the BBC continues to try and develop it's offerings. I sure hope they do.

      • Re:TiVo? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gtkuhn (823989)
        An AC somewhere above posted...
        [BBC is] "the most important cultural institution in Britain and, arguably, the World" (ref. Modern British History, M. Garnett and R. Weight ISBN 1-844-13104-1)
        And you want season two of 'Buffy'? The world can be a sad place sometimes.

    • Re:TiVo? (Score:3, Informative)

      by gowen (141411)
      From TFA
      Unlike personal video recorders such as Sky Plus, viewers will not have to signal their chosen programmes in advance, allowing critically acclaimed shows to benefit retrospectively from a favourable review or word of mouth.
      Wow. It's almost as if you didn't RTFA.
    • All the other responses are entirely valid, and this does indeed look like a good and useful service.

      It's worth pointing out though, that certainly in the UK, most 'people' won't know what a TiVo is. This is New and Exciting for them, and is perhaps a step up from Sky Plus.

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