BBC Testing Ogg Vorbis Streaming 256
jregel writes: "Credit must go to AirLance who posted a comment on Slashdot that the BBC are currently testing Ogg Vorbis streaming. As the comment says, users should email the BBC and show support. It would certainly suggest that someone at the BBC is quietly pushing open source. Is this the first major media outlet to use the format?" I hope someone from NPR is reading this, too :)
good to hear (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:good to hear (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if only Windows Media Player came with an Ogg codec preinstalled, Ogg could take over the world!
Re:good to hear (Score:2)
At 192Kbps, I find Ogg is the best sounding codec. It's got good solid bass, tight transients, and even a bit of depth and soundstage.
MP3 at 192Kbps (SoundForge Siren, not sure whose codec they use) tends to get a little "watery" on cymbals and brass, and muffles the bass a bit (particularly kicks, tympani, and Japanese drum work.)
Microsoft's codecs (version 8?) sound pretty bad at 192Kbps. For all their bragging about how "advanced" their codecs are, they completely lose the bass texture and presence at that rate. Even at 256Kbps, their coded just doesn't compare to Ogg.
(Don't bother asking what I've got on DiVX. I don't support piracy and will not provide copies.)
Re:good to hear (Score:2)
Excuse me for being ignorant, but what's the "streaming" market like for > 56K?
I always thought that Real and WMA ruled this market (over MP3) because they at least sound like something for modem users. Either Real or Ogg would necessarily be broadband-only, no?
Ogg Vorbis 1.0 (Score:1)
Re:Ogg Vorbis 1.0 (Score:2, Informative)
But I'd advise you not to worry about "1.0". The current release is very stable, you can use it already, no fear.
Ogg is good for streaming ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? (Score:2)
Kjella
Re:Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
FLAC is specialized to and optimized for acoustic signals. Try compressing the same WAV under zip and FLAC.
But if I can't hear the difference, what's the difference?
Err, because you're not everybody, and some people *can* tell the difference? Or perhaps you could tell the difference if the rest of your system is good enough - reader, amplifier, speakers, room acoustics, the whole chain.
Whoever set the human ability to hear equal to the 44,1kHz of a CD? For a select few it's maybe more, but for me it's definately less.
Your sampling frequency needs to be *at least* twice the highest audible. 20 KHz is supposed to be the highest audible frequency for humans, and for many it's more than adequate (especially for those who never wore earplugs in nightclubs or at rock concerts). I personally was tested up to around 22 KHz, so the 20 KHz limit is bunk. Not only that, but the 2X rule (think about it) is only *in theory*. It assumes perfect filters, which don't exist. In fact you get artifacts well below what's supposed to be the high cutoff for a 44.1 KHz sample stream.
Lame using the --remix command is more than enough for my ears (actually overkill, but I assume I someday *might* regret not setting it that high). Considering that many ppl are happy with 128kb CBR, I'm probably even picky.
I glad for you, go ahead and listen to the sound the way you like it, but to me and many others the artifacts in 44.1KHz sound are quite audible. As for streams at 128kb, it sounds like it's being played through a phase shifter.
Re:Why? (Score:1, Interesting)
You really should visit Project Mayhem [hydrogenaudio.org] - there's a lot more to audio coding than "256 kbps MP3 is transparent to everyone because I say so".
News flash. You're not everyone. Neither is the guy waving 256 kbps about (in this case, Roel).
Re:Why? (Score:1, Interesting)
2. I don't know of anyone who "set the human ability to hear."
(my apologies if english is not your primary language, it's difficult to learn, but please strive for more precise wording)
3. Sounds near the 20kHz mark are essentially converted to sine waves by the 44,100 samples/sec of CDs. CD quality is not the best there is.
4. Most people listen to their music as a background without their full attention. 128kbs is enough for that (and if that's all you've heard then you can't compare), but if you pay attention to the music you'll need higher.
Re:Ogg is good for streaming ... (Score:2)
Good Lord, man - what a waste of memory that would be.
The aural difference between 256 Kbps (or even 192) MP3s and a lossless codec is imperceptible to most people. However, the memory difference between the two is not. At 1.9Mb/minute for 256 Kbps MP3 versus 5.6Mb/minute for FLAC; I know which one I would choose for a limited storage digital jukebox.
Now I'm not saying that there isn't any difference between 256 Kbps MP3s and FLAC. The difference is there - but generally, it just isn't worth it.
Way to go (Score:3, Interesting)
entering the realm that formats like MP3 and RealAudio have dominated for far too long.
I opened the Radio 1 stream in XMMS, and it sounds much better than an MP3 stream at 60 kbps.
Re:Way to go (Score:3, Interesting)
Also Serious Sam [serioussam.com] plays OGG in game, go download the Serious Sam 2 demo..
I picked up a soundblaster audrey, and It comes with a dvd audio player. Now 5.1 dvd
Nothing New (Score:5, Informative)
Let the opensource, linux, anti-microsoft, beowulf cluster, and the other flames begin.
Re:Nothing New (Score:2)
Gosh, it looks like the Windows Media test ends on Jan 2, while the Ogg test continues until Jan 2002.
Re:Nothing New (Score:2)
Gosh, it looks like the Windows Media test ends on Jan 2, while the Ogg test continues until Jan 2002.
Hmm, the ogg seems to be available as part of [sourceforge.net] to Windows Media test, as well as through open source players. It seems the whole test, Windows Media and others only runs to January. Wow, source code [sourceforge.net] on the link too.
Re:Nothing New (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, and while they have half a dozen PCs being using in the Ogg Vorbis trial there's only 6 being used in the Media player one.
Re:Nothing New (Score:2)
Re:Nothing New (Score:2)
Anyway, given that the Windows Media Player that can stream
Re:Nothing New (Score:3, Insightful)
The BBC must (or should!) stand neutral in the software wars and not blithely hand its audience to Microsoft, and in doing so deny its content to the developing countries and their silent tsunami of open-source OS 486 PC's.
Real and Ogg actually give a damn about non-Windows users and have clients for them.
Alternatively you could just look at the new streaming media client bundled on your Desktop and conclude that Real are about to get Netscalped.
(Hello? US Government? MS is collapsing your software industry into itself, or hadn't you noticed?)
Ogg is the only alternative that cannot get worse (or Netscalped) and really can only get better over time.
MS really don't give a damn what you think. You have to buy their kit regardless.
Real probably have the best streaming software out there, but that hardly matters to a public with Windows Media preinstalled and an MS salesman waving 'installed base' figures at the boss of the boss of the team who just decided they'd stream Realmedia because it was better.
Curiously, if Ogg reach critical mass, MS won't be able to achieve market domination by Netscalping Real. Without this prize, would they still bother?
Assisting Ogg might actually prove to be in Real's best interests.
Streaming? as in low-bitrate? (Score:1, Interesting)
Actually.... (Score:2, Informative)
nothing revolutional (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:1)
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not quite clear on the concept, this is not about simulcasting, it's about freedom. It's not about sound quality, compression or lightening the network load, it's about not having to pay the man to transmit sound over the internet, to listen to it, or to save it on CDs. It's about making sure that open source multimedia software never becomes illegal.
i'm itching for something akin to broadcast: where we only use bandwidth once, not in multiples of however many listeners we have.
We certainly won't ever get it if you and people like you don't get a clue. Oh sure, you'll be able to rent your music, you'll never be able to own it. You won't be able to save it on your disk. You won't be able to run Linux on your machine, or if you can, it won't be able to play your favorite band's music on your sound card. Sorry if this is going over your head a little, it's important, please make the effort to figure out what I'm saying.
Sorry about being an arrogant bastard... Not! This is for your own good.
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:2)
The odds are that I'm going to die eventually. When I do, I'll have listened to tens of thousands of hours of music of my choice, watched hundreds of films that I chose, ditto that freedom for books and trips that I've planned and men or women that I've loved. In the end, I'll probably have been as happy as you are, but I won''t have ulcers.
When I die and when you die, we'll both be in the same boat. We will cease to exist and what we owned or didn't own won't fucking matter. The difference might be that your heirs will have more shit to sort through than mine, and, if that is what you want for them, I'm happy for you. I won't necessarily be happy for them, assuming that I am still alive when you die, but that is another matter.
I don't drive and I don't own a car. I walk nearly everywhere, and I like it that way. I rent my home, and I only buy books that I can't borrow from the library. I don't generally buy music CD's or DVD's. If I never had to buy them because I could listen to any music that I wanted, anytime that I wanted, on a continuously-streaming high-quality music server - and I could bookmark the songs that I liked in a sort of playlist - I would sell all of my music CD's tomorrow, assuming that I could afford the subscription cost. Ownership is a burden. You have to pack it when you move and unpack it when you arrive, and buy it again when it wears out or gets/lost/stolen/damaged.
One day in not too many more years I'll be able to stroll down the street, or be backpacking up a mountainside, and say to apparently open air "Sabbath mix 6" and be able to listen to my favorite Sabbath mix without carrying anything larger than the watch I'm already wearing. I'll probably have to pay someone a subscripton for that service, as it will involve satellites and billions of dollars of technology that others worry about and maintain.
And I'll be as free as you are sitting in your room with thousands of CD's and expensive equipment that can only become obsolete, but hey, you'll OWN your music, and I'll only be free to listen to mine because I've paid for the service.
I'm assuming you'll have paid for your CD's, unless you pirate them all, in which case our expenses might have reached parity, but when we die our measure of happiness will have been the same.
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:1)
Anyway, back to the subject: for live feeds it's easy to multicast, because there's no time shifting. For on-demand streams (say of news updates or whatever) I can't see a way to mulitcast because everyone's listening to a different point in time. Perhaps a Akaimi type solution is the best idea with current tech.
You're a dick. It doesn't matter what spiffy simulcast whizzy-bangy-thingy you have if the source code isn't free. With source code in our hands and an established media format, we can do what we want.
Perhaps if the original poster was not a dick (starting of by damming Ogg with faint praise) I'd have contributed some of my design suggestions on how to adapt Ogg streaming for simulcasting.
Remember, if you want to get modded up, don't start your post with 'you're a dick', it just makes you look like a dick.
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:1)
Multicasting is a open specification. The source code exists, and yet has NOTHING to do with the format being streamed. He never mentioned source code, licensing, pirating, microsoft, windows, linux or anything. Yet somehow you found enough hints or broken fragments to start frothing at the mouth about Freedom.
So from here, yes it does look like you're a dick.
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:2)
The on-demand streaming problem you present is solved with smart-caching, at least partially. It involves things like SQUID or the commercial counterparts, and the concept is very popular with some major broadband ISP's since internal broadband is still cheaper than external broadband. This is effective for repetitive data, not so much for live data, but then, live data falls under the multicasting category of network reduction. For a
In the case of interim stream requests, where you want a live stream, but the existing streams are already multicast (and you need a syn/ack), a destination can be added (er, might want to check that, but the notion that it cannot is almost offensive
Brian
Re:nothing revolutional (Score:1)
As with most optional technologies, until a critical mass is reached, noone's going to bother to support it.
Fortunately, multicasting is one of the requirements for IPv6 compliance. Of course, since IPv6 is itself currently considered another of those "optional technologies", for now people who really want this tend to roll their own.
If you want to help, do so! People are obviously already throwing ideas around... for example, a quick websearch turned up a draft
RTP ogg payload [xiph.org] spec, for multicasting ogg streams.
IP Multicasting (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, Joe Average does not demand multicasting support, so you have to look very closely in order to find an ISP which supports it. AFAIK, here in Germany, you can get multicast support almost everywhere, but of course at rates which are not affordable for personal use.
In theory, multicasting is very interesting for ISPs, too: you receive the traffic once and account it seperately for each customer. Unfortunately, multicasting requires quite an investment to get started, both in man hours and hardware (although most hardware nowadays supports multicasting, but maybe not in an optimal way).
Re:some clarification and insight (Score:2)
You might be right that there will be a "next big thing" in media compression, but I have a feeling this won't be an endless parade. The problem is that compression is doomed to improve more and more slowly as it approaches the asymptote of "no wasted bits." It used to be possible that with a revolutionary compression scheme, a media file would strike the human senses as being just as accurate as ... plug in a file encoded in some pre-revolutionary standard .... The file in the new standard was, however, only half the size.
We've seen this a few times, most recently with MPEG4. And I am willing to bet anything that we will never see this again in all the future of humanity. There is just a limit to how much you can compress something, and pretty soon, no one will be able to detect the next step towards maximal compressability. They'll say: hey, bandwith is more available and storage cheaper. I'll just stick with the old standard, even if its files are 15% larger for the same quality.
That's just how it's gonna be; I honestly think we will have a "last" comression format, which will be tuned tinkered with in a backwards-complatible way (like the brilliant LAME team is doing to MP3). It won't be displaced, because the insentive just won't be there.
I'm certainly not saything that I think this generation of compression technologies will remain forever; I don't think that. I don't even think the next generation will stand the test of time. However, after that what else would force people to en masse abandon the familiar system and go for something better? It won't be the improvement in quality/bitrate ratio, because that part will just stop improving for all practical intent. So why would people swith?
Well, I'd be very happy if the Son of Ogg were the music compression default in our long, audio futures.
not necessarily pushing open source.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Merry X-mas all..
Re:not necessarily pushing open source.... (Score:2)
Re:not necessarily pushing open source.... (Score:2)
Some people even think that freedom is more important than advancement of technology.
Re:not necessarily pushing open source.... (Score:2, Informative)
pretty silly to me
Not at all. The BBC has a legal obligation to broadcast to as
many people in the British Commenwealth as possible. Without Ogg
Vorbis I couldn't hear BBC web broadcasts as the commericial
companies who pedal this sort of technology, deems me unworthy of
it's custom.
As a licence payer I expect nothing less that the use of Open
Source software by the BBC. I don't pay £100 a year only to be
told I need to use this piece of software on this piece of
hardware in order to recieve a broadcast I have already paid for.
Very cool (Score:2)
This is great! A broadcasting entity as large and well respected as Auntie Beeb boosting Ogg Vorbis is exactly the push it needs. This will also same the BBC a huge amount of money. Thomson is collecting a lot of money for Franuhoffer for every MP3 stream...money that they could use in a lot of other ways. (Maybe this will result in a reduction of the radio licence fee? Nah...) Hopefully all the other broadcasters will look at this for an example.
I'm sure the opportunity to thumb their noses at the French (Thomson) and the Germans (Fraunhoffer) had nothing to do with their decision either.
Re:Very cool (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Very cool (Score:1)
Re:Very cool (Score:2)
No, I'm American.
Ah, my mistake. It's a bit confusing though, that it's called the "television licence" if it covers both TV and radio. Shouldn't it be a "broadcasting licence" then?
No, but then it's hardly obvious that one would need a licence for one type of broadcasting and not the other. Americans, in general I believe, think that the whole idea of having to licence a TV set is pretty weird in the first place.
Get there Quickly and Listen to John Peel (Score:4, Informative)
He's on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday every week from 10-12 gmt.
I've been listening to the vorbis stream for a while now - we were never quite sure whether wewanted teh server slashdotted or not - I guess christmas day will be quieter than usual. But I think the resources available are a lot more limited than the real or wimpy machines.
Oh yeah - make sure to e-mail the people in charge about how you prefer this over Real (and even moreso over WMP)
Re:Get there Quickly and Listen to John Peel (Score:1)
I didn't even think of the /. effect. I'm listening to it now - well after the story was posted - and it sounds great.
After never taking the time to set up streaming media on may machine I'm totally revved right now to be listening to the BBC on Linux, I suppose it's been possible for some time with Real Audio, but who likes Real Audio, really?
Sounds great, installs in seconds! (Score:1)
worked great. sounded better than Real, and was much quicker to load.
this is just too cool... makes me think I am glad for not putting all my cd's to mp3
Re:Sounds great, installs in seconds! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that you had to install something to your base system in order to listen to the stream. There are millions (yes, millions) of users who don't want to have to install anything else, they just want things to work straight of the box. These are exactly the sort of people BBC doesn't want calling their tech support. Any costs saved by avoiding Microsoft license fees get eaten up by the phone calls and e-mails that these people will send to the BBC asking "how the heck do I install this silly plugin thing?"
Microsoft isn't about to give up their licensing fee revenue stream without a fight, and so they're not going to include the Ogg Vorbis codec in the Media Player anytime soon.
The BBC is a business. They don't care anything about "free" software versus things they have to pay for. The question is, which costs more: Providing tech support to people so that they can view their content, or writing one simple check to Microsoft. Unfortunately, the business solution is to just pay Microsoft, it's probably cheaper.
Sad, but true.
Re:Sounds great, installs in seconds! (Score:2, Insightful)
IMHO, one of two things will happen if/(or more likely when) Ogg Vorbis becomes a widely used format - either a particular media player will be picked as the Ogg vorbis 'Champion' - possibly the new version of Winamp which I believe will include the ogg vorbis plugin by default, or a nice download page which let's you choose your operating system, media player and click download to get an executable that will install it.
People have been blindly installing plugins for years now - I don't think that they are particularly likely to stop just because a plugin is opensource.
...and you only have to download it once, anyway.
Re:Sounds great, installs in seconds! (Score:2)
The problem is that you had to install something to your base system in order to listen to the stream. There are millions (yes, millions) of users who don't want to have to install anything else, they just want things to work straight of the box. These are exactly the sort of people BBC doesn't want calling their tech support. Any costs saved by avoiding Microsoft license fees get eaten up by the phone calls and e-mails that these people will send to the BBC asking "how the heck do I install this silly plugin thing?"
Microsoft isn't about to give up their licensing fee revenue stream without a fight, and so they're not going to include the Ogg Vorbis codec in the Media Player anytime soon.
Hmm, good point, it is for this reason that we should all trundle over here [yahoo.com] and figure out how to submit our public comments on the Microsoft settlement, under the Tunney act. It would be just plain anticompetitive for Microsoft to freeze out the Ogg codec, wouldn't it? Now that you made me think about it, Microsoft will be far from in the clear on this, even after the Tunney comment period.
The BBC is a business. They don't care anything about "free" software versus things they have to pay for.
Once again, good point. The BBC is of course a business, and has to worry about the potential cost of encoding the stream for broadcasting. Hence the attraction of Ogg. Even if Microsoft doesn't charge BBC a fee right now for encoding WMF, they're certain to slap one on if they get control of the market. BBC isn't dumb enough to miss this little point. Then there's the problem of customers potentially being charged by Microsoft to listen to the streams, or being restricted by end user licenses in how they can listen to them, which could limit or erode BBC's market. Yes indeed, BBC has some very good reasons for looking hard at Ogg.
The question is, which costs more: Providing tech support to people so that they can view their content, or writing one simple check to Microsoft. Unfortunately, the business solution is to just pay Microsoft, it's probably cheaper.
Paying Microsoft is never cheaper in the end, not if you want to stay competitive.
Re:Sounds great, installs in seconds! (Score:2)
Not exactly. The BBC is a weird hybrid between a business and a public service. They are of course interested in cost, but profit is not a primary driver (go to the BBC web site and count the ads - there are exactly none).
My wife and a few of my friends work for the BBC (all in IT, but different departments) so here's my informed take on the situation. There is no Ubermind supporting anything software wise at the BBC. They pick the best available tool for the job, especially in the public facing side. They needed streaming media - Real was the choice at the time. Now, after a few years, they are reviewing that choice, and looking at the alternatives. So don't read too much into it.
What is good is that they are neutral - for a lot of applications they have assessed the best tool to be open source or free software. Some of the software that runs the digital TV interactive services runs on Linux of some variety (some is also NT). Their main website (IIRC) runs on Apache.
So, if you get to the stage that the neutral BBC takes a long, deep look at the software then you can a least be comfortable with the knowledge that it's a contender.
Re:Sounds great, installs in seconds! (Score:1)
Since the original Winmap is only around 700KB, people can download it, and install it in less than the time it takes to download a single song. Be hold, millions of people have been downloaded and use it without any support whatsoever from the OSes' vendors.
Built a great software that encodes/decodes the format, make it easy to use to the masses and people will use them.
Soon when you see the high percentage of people begin to encode their musics/ sound clips in OGG, then you will know it is getting there. For now, any support is great. But do not give me some source code that I have to compile and debug to make it work. (*I* as any JohnDoe Average).
Hear me?
MCVT
Yup, bundling is overrated (Score:2)
Good point. I mean, so Java is not bundled with Windows. So Ogg is not bundled with Windows. Heck, *RealPlayer* and *QuickTime* are not bundled with Windows. So does that stop people from installing QuickTime or RealPlayer or the JRE? Hey, with WinME, XP etc, Windows Media Player has been a very prominent addition. But people still get Winamp, Sonique etc. They still install Quicktime on their PCs.
Point is, users != sheep. Given a reasonably easy install procedure, they can indeed download and install a plugin. Heck, on windows, installing binary code off the web is a piece of cake (one reason malwares love windows
PS. Even now, Winamp 2.78 "Lite" clocks in at 502 kB. Those guys at Nullsoft sure have a good thing going in terms of Winamp2x.
But they are also testing Windows Media format (Score:1, Informative)
Yeah, Ditch Real.Com (Score:1, Funny)
to be good.
Real sucks ass.
- Penguin Kicka
Made in the UK (Score:3, Funny)
Unfortunately somethings don't change, and BBC America is showing the Queen's Christmas speech in 5 minutes. Arrgh, run, hide.
Just use it! (Score:3, Informative)
Even more important, users should download XMMS, which supports Vorbis on UNIX [xmms.org] or FreeAMP [freeamp.org] which supports Ogg Vorbis on UNIX and Windows via a plugin.
Then (and this is the most important bit) go to BBC and use it to stream content.
Entirely subjective, but - Oh wow! (Score:4, Interesting)
The low-bandwith music on BBC-1 is still pretty bad, but about as good as anything else I've heard. It's stellar on the high bandwidth BBC-1 stream, however. It's heavy on the treble, where I'm used to having to boost that range.
I'm having a little trouble EQing to correct for the high treble. It seems to have a huge upward curve on the high end where other CODECs just chop or only represent simple harmonic overtones. That makes it a little harsh on some things, but it's nicer than the sensation of listening underwater or through a tube that Real & MS give.
Re:Entirely subjective, but - Oh wow! (Score:2)
Great news for free software (Score:2)
At home, I run nothing but main and contrib Debian GNU/Linux. No non-free. This means no RealPlayer, no Quicktime, no MS Media. Nothing that I don't get source for. This has also meant no video and audio clips on news sites.
I've been searching for quite some time for a daily news site with MPEG video and MP3 audio, but have found absolutely nothing noteworthy.
Enter the BBC. Admittedly, audio streaming is just a start, but if I were forced to pick the BBC for fully free audio/video news and streaming entertainment, I'd be the last to complain. :)
Re:Great news for free software (Score:2)
I believe I'm being trolled. No less - you'll note that in the original message, I said that free software was all I use at home. Work is another matter. There, I use a mixture of free and non-free tools, using the combination which generates correct data in the most efficient and comfortable environment possible.
I'm not entirely worried if productivity slips at home because a tool takes a little extra work, however. But at home, I am worried about security and stability. These things which are handled for me at work. At home, it's up to me to pick the software to which I'll trust my data. And so I pick peer-reviewed open and free software for home, a decision I never regret.
I don't use IE at home because I don't own IE at home. And IE doesn't do anything worth setting up a second computer and buying a copy of Windows for. And IE certainly doesn't give me anything worth changing my chosen operating system and giving up control of my system inernals for.
A merry christmas to you also.
Write your BBC (Score:2)
Sure, but I hope that Microsoft or Real isn't. The two formats they support aren't free an any sense.
If you truely want to promote a format [xiph.org] that you could count on in the future, write to the BBC telling them the honest truth about the streams. Don't lie, but also explain your somewhat interest in a widely used open source music compression format [codec].
I really do want to store my entire music collection on CDs - but not a standard audio cd format. MP3 would be good, but it's large and isn't free, although mo'free than WMA and RA. Being able to add a folder to my CD containing the source [or latest CVS mainline] lets me feel safe that later on down the road I may be able to play those songs.
I don't care if P2P systems don't want to support it - I just want it to be continually developed.
The wonderful BBC (Score:2, Interesting)
The BBC, in their nature, are the most bias-free, impartial news reporting service in the world. The biggest alternatives, MSNBC are obviously going to edge more towards the side of MS related properties (whether or not they say otherwise) and CNN... well CNN is owned by the world's largest media-congolomerate - AOL Time Warner (a company much more scary and powerful than MS could ever hope to be). The BBC is owned by the people and is therefore advertisement free. It's fabulous.
Replacing their Real streams with Ogg is great for many reasons. It means I can get rid of the horrible, bloated application that is Real Player (now Real One) and use Winamp instead. It means on my Mac I can listen with the various OS X players (Real for OS X isn't available I believe) and it means that if I decided to move to a Linux desktop, I'd have it on there too.
In fact this is probably why the BBC want to move to. Not counting the fact that licensing Real costs them money, but part of the BBC mandate is to provide their services to as many people in the UK as possible (sorry to disappoint the folks across the world, but the BBC is a public service over here, so we come first
It'll be interesting to see if they find an alternative to Real for video too, I believe they want to start doing BBC News 24 (their 24 hour digital TV news service) streaming over the net as well...
From the point of view of the British TV license owner, for a little over £100 a year the BBC provide us with at least 2 TV channels (more if you have digital), an amazingly comprehensive online service, countless radio stations (at least 5, with others depending on your region) and all of it is completely and utterly advertising free. And, thanks to their promise (they make yearly promises to the British public of things they'll do) to reach out to as many people as possible, and make everything integrate as well as possible - all the radio is available online too. Programs on digital TV are interactive, most programs have a website, and they don't treat the Internet as some mystical magical place for geeks, but as another part of everyday life, just like the Radio and TV.
So three cheers for the BBC.
I'll shut up now.
Sorry, the British TV 'tax' is awful. (Score:1)
I don't dislike the BBC, but I dislike the practice of every TV owner in the UK being forced (you go to *prison* otherwise) to pay £100 (US $150) a year to go to a company you might even be interested in.
Why should I pay $150 a year just to own a TV if all I use the TV for is to watch DVDs and play Playstation? It's frightfully socialist, and the sooner they scrap the licence fee and allow the BBC to make its money in a decent capitalist way, the better.
(Note for American readers: Once upon a time you had to have a licence to even own a radio in the UK.. and, believe it or not, you had to have a licence to own a dog. The UK will tax you for anything and everything they can get away with.. and we don't even have a constitution to prevent it.)
Re:Sorry, the British TV 'tax' is awful. (Score:2)
In Germany, I pay rather more than £100, but the state sponsored channels still carry the same crap advertisements as the commercial channels (however the breaks are slightly shorter). We also have to have a licence even if we only have a radio. Currently the use of Internet radios and licences is under question. The only people who avoid the TV and radio licence fees are the diplomats.
As a total side note, the German press wrote of Mohammed Atta and Co of September 11th fame, who were studying in Germany that they even paid their TV licenses!!!!!
News Flash - BBC Website Taken Down (Score:1)
In an unprecedented legal twist, the BBC's website has been taken offline, and will stay offline pending the outcome of a legal dispute.
Following the BBC's decision to trial the use of the inherently insecure Ogg Vorbis format, the Recording Industry Association of America, in a case heard by the San Franscisco District Court, won an injunction against the BBC, with the order that name service to all BBC internet domains be terminated, effectively making the BBC sites unreachable.
"This is our opportunity to wipe out all open source music distribution", said an RIAA spokesman who declined to be named. "We intend to use this case as a step towards banning all insecure digital music formats. The next step is getting Microsoft to change XP to make it impossible to play insecure media such as MP3, then to lobby for laws to ban ISPs from accepting connections from customers who aren't running content-secured operating systems. It'll take about 2 more years, but I'm confident we will prevail".
Re:News Flash - BBC Website Taken Down (Score:2)
It all started in the late 80's when they were finalising the Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB/Digital Radio) spec with the Eureka 147 [eurekadab.org] Consortium, the group responsable for developing the Digital Radio spec.
Anyway they had solved the problem of creating a digital distribution network but the problem was a PCM channel took up the entire multiplex, so Fraunhofer started to develop a perceptual audio codec that would compress the audio and allow many stations in the same multiplex, and so the MPEG audio layers were born. Then the popular growth of the Internet came along, added to the source code available on the Fraunhofer FTP and the rest is history, unfortunately, so are the record companies
The RIAA have a lot to thank BBC R&D [bbc.co.uk] for.
Re:News Flash - World Outside of US Shocker (Score:1)
The article was satire (look up that word in www.dictionary.com or somewhere), and based on real experience:
I was offering download of a banned book on a website hosted on my server here in NZ. The ISP pulled the plug in obedience to a US court order, and in so doing, 'acknowledged' US jurisdiction on New Zealand soil.
Re:News Flash - World Outside of US Shocker (Score:2)
lame 3.9x is available (Score:2, Informative)
Change the Name! (Score:2, Insightful)
Pick a new name for Ogg Vorbis. I would consider myself a geek but at a glance when I first read about it, I had NFI what was going on.
Something snazzy, something that implies audio. [and im not qualified to make suggestions]
does MP3 imply audio? (Score:2, Insightful)
b) words acquire meaning through use. When people ("most people") say "MP3," they sure as heck aren't thinking "Layer 3 of a certain spec from the Motion Picture Experts Group." They're thinking "emm pee thrie -- three great sounds that sound great together." Or even "empythree." Which is to say, it's just a few syllables serving as a name, not the abbreviation it really is at heart. "doubleya emm eff" has no more cognitive strength except to a small number of people who know (but don't need to know, exactly)what those letters / sounds stand for.
c) As (not when) Ogg catches on, it will be catchier, "stickier" and more fun than some marketing department-style contrivance. ("SoundChunk"? "Earbit"? "AudiAll"?). Apple is a funny name for computers, but it's not just a "so what?" -- it's actually a strength of Apple. [Weak point, I know: "Apple" has a clean, interesting sound, food associations, as well as previous associations like Apple Records, intriguing religious / artistic connections, too
d) Heh, "Ogg should change its name" and "No it shouldn't" have perhaps become one of the standard slashdot sub-plots for the ages, but I know I come down on the "Keep it, love it, revel in it" side.
Cheers,
timothy
Sounds really good... (Score:1)
I'm a fan!
If xiph just got version 1.0 out soon... I could start working on my jukebox
They also use apache (Score:2, Offtopic)
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:31:05 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix)
# lynx -head -dump http://www.bbc.co.uk
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 00:31:25 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.14 (Unix)
Someone over there may be a big open source advocate.
Re:They also use apache (Score:1)
Interestingly (at least to me), Amazon made a move away from IIS to Apache a while ago and is expected to save a stupid ammount of money on support costs... With fairly well known names like these beginning to move to open source platforms, perhaps some other companies might get the hint that they're good solutions and jump ship as well... If enough do it then Microsoft may have to actually produce good software for once...
Nah... It's just a pipedream I guess....
Re:They also use apache (Score:2)
Re:They also use apache (Score:2)
Details of how they use Linux.
This is excellent (Score:2, Informative)
All partisanship aside, I think this is excellent, and I have been hoping that someone like BBC will do this for some time.
I've been listening to this for the past few hours, and the radio seems excellent. It's kind of rare to listen to English radio here in New Zealand.
Of course if I wanted to be partisan I could also add that I don't like the bloat that comes with Real, and I can't listen to Windows Media on my non-Windows system.
I do hope the BBC continues to offer this choice in the future.
BBC is pretty forward thinking... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether or not their web staff are linux orientated, their journalists are certainly well learned
I suppose in a way it makes sense - for anyone that is unaware the BBC is a state funded corporation. As a consequence their budget isn't exactly huge, so they would want to keep costs down. (Despite their low bugdet the BBC does provide excellent television and radio - far superior to the commercially funded channels available in the UK. And there are no advertisements! (commercials) )
Re:BBC is pretty forward thinking... (Score:2, Informative)
They were very early with teletext services (and today the close captioning still runs via the teletext service). They were early with broadcasting using Nicam. Hell, they were early with broadcasting television at all. They were later than the US with Colour television which is A Good Thing as we run on PAL rather than Never Twice the Same Colour (NTSC - yuk).
They were also pretty early with providing internet services - and it was copyright rather than technology which stopped them putting teletext onto the web/gopher much earlier. They are proud (and yes, a bit smug too) about the amount of emailed listener feedback they get from around the world.
My big fear is that they spend a fortune on external consultants - not that the money is wasted, but that the MacKinsey style suits of the world will advise the senior management at the BBC to climb into bed with, for example, MicroSoft for content delivery. They have a good track record over the last few years of "outsourcing" some absolute jewels of internal resources (the library services, the music library services, the pronounciation unit), and losing the skill and expertise which has been built over more than fifty years.
The BBC seem to be particularly receptive to opinion from overseas listeners, so if you want to remind them that enabling free (whether beer or speech, but preferably speech) technology will increase their listener base in the developing world, then that is a good point to make.
Dunstan
Nope (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nope (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect they're also using it because it's cheap. Very cheap. Free, in fact. This is a GOOD THING(tm) for a public service organisation.
Cheers,
Ian
Great for audio...what about video? (Score:2, Insightful)
Most sites out there seem to offer all three of real, quicktime, and bill's media player, as there still isn't a clear winner in the area. Still ample opportunity for Ogg Tarkin or DivX2, but they need to be as good as or better then all three of the commercial alternatives, in cpu use, streaming, file size, etc. I have a feeling this is going to be much more of a challenge for video then it was for audio, and if an open source solution can't pull it off, eventually the winner of the video battle (probably microsoft) will win the audio battle for free.
Re:Great for audio...what about video? (Score:2, Insightful)
Real(tm) realizes this, which is why they've integrated their two players into "Real One" (which, by the way guys, is a stupid name).
Quicktime *IS* open source (Score:1, Informative)
Ogg Streaming (Score:2)
I'm guessing this never made it to the format? Too bad cause that would have been great!
Stuff to listen to on Radio 1 (Score:1, Informative)
The big problem is that it's Christmas, so they've taken off the regular good DJs (Chris Moyles, Sara Cox, Mark and Lard etc) and replaced them with really crappy ones (Vicky Marsden, Scott Mills, Jamie Theakston).
But.. today (Boxing Day), there's a good music show on at 10pm GMT (5pm EST).. it's John Peel (been a DJ for 40 years, somewhat of a British musical god) presenting 50 of the best voted songs.
And on regular weekdays, you get the regular wonderful lineup (this is from Thursday I'd guess):
7am GMT (2am EST) - Sara Cox.. northern lass, you Americans won't be able to understand her cute accent.
1pm GMT (8am EST)- Mark and Lard.. two weird northern comedians with crap sense of humor but funny none the less.
3pm GMT (10am EST)- Chris Moyles.. a radio comedy GOD! Plays the typical crap from the charts, but is a comic genius.. plenty of laughs on this show.
10pm GMT (5pm EST) Tues, Weds, Thurs only - John Peel.. a guy who plays everything that's either weird, independent or new.. like The White Stripes, The Strokes, and all sorts of crazy nonsense. Gotta love it.
DJs to avoid include the god-awful Scott "I wish I was Pat Sharp" Mills, and Jamie "I wish I didn't look like Pat Sharp" Theakston. Other than that, Radio 1 is a top station.
Radio 4, on the other hand, is a generally dull talk station run by the British elite to brainwash the British public to their socialist trains of thought.
Hell Yeah! (Score:2, Interesting)
only one question... How would one save the files after broadcast? (i.e. to save the essential mix broadcasts?)
Re:Hell Yeah! (Score:2)
In XMMS, go to the Ogg Vorbis configuration window, and select "Save stream to disk".
NB, this is one reason some broadcasters might prefer to use proprietary streaming formats -- they don't want people keeping recordings, and a proprietary player makes it marginally more difficult for a non-technical person to record (although a hacked soundcard driver will defeat any such measures).
Re: (Score:2)
A comment from the BBC (Score:5, Informative)
One of the main reasons we're currently looking at Ogg is that BBC is interested in investigating other solutions than Real (since we started using it 5 years ago, it has been the most widely supported cross platform solution), and rather than get tied into another proprietry solution, we're instead looking for an "open standard" solution, which theoretically could be played in any player. We've looked at MPEG4 and other such solutions, but Ogg has come the closest so far to meeting our requirements.
Yes, we're also looking at solutions like WMP, but the biggest downside with going for another proprietry solution is that it doesn't really extend our audience (almost everyone who can play WMP can also play Real), and to remain impartial, if we support Real and WMP, why not Quicktime as well. Why not all the other streaming formats (particularly the java-player ones which have become popular again). For each extra format, we have to add another set of encoders, and another set of servers (and whne you consider we've got over 50 encoding chains at the moment...)
Anyway, I can't promise anything for the future. Maybe Ogg will work for us, maybe not. We've had a lot of positive feedback, which is nice - keep sending it in! The key thing is that it *has* to be easy to use for the end user. We're not talking about techies here, we're talking about all those families who got a PC for Christmas. If we can serve a streaming format which people can play on whatever computer they've got, under whatever OS they run, on whatever connection they've got to the Internet, and it sounds as good as any other solutions, then we've found our ideal solution!
Simon Lockhart - Internet Engineering Manager, BBC Internet Services
It's a test so it connects very slowly (Score:2)
This is just awesome for two reasons: the BBC online sounds great now. I've been listening to the Real stream for a long while now, and the OGG stream sounds much better. The second reason why this is awesome is because it's a big shot in the arm for OGG. This might be the core of the big snowballing effect that puts OGG on everybody's computer. After that, deciding about what format you stream in should be a no brainer: OGG is free and sounds great and isn't dominated by some nasty US corporate types.
Re:NPR? (Score:3)
Altogether, I think we in the US should be glad that we have NPR. It has its problems, but it provides at least a little bit of balance in an otherwise very bleak media landscape.
Re:NPR? (Score:2)
You won't find that on the BBC, NPR, CNN, NBC, etc.
In fact the only stations that keep telling you that they are unbiased are FoxNews and EIB network(Rush Limbaugh). Now that should make you wonder, but I'm sure you haven't thought that far ahead in your argument.
Re:NPR? (Score:1, Troll)
Then you can get good old fashioned right-wing leaning bullshit without none of that pretending to be unbiased crap you get on regular media outlets.
Re:NPR? (Score:1)
after all, I found the kernel 2.5 summit audio files
in mp3 format, and not ogg.
(osdn.com/conferences/kernel)
Is there a reason for this?
Re:NPR? (Score:1)
"Okay, I'll support more funding for you if you consider using this codec that is marketed by a company in my district......"
"Sure thing, sir. Anything you want."
NPR would be the first to use Microsoft, just like the rest of the Government.
Viable open-source players and streaming mechanisms need to be pitched to the commercial broadcasters (I am one, BTW) as an economically-viable way for them to increase their audience. NPR doesn't care about its audience; it doesn't have to. NPR will exist so long as the politicians decide to keep it in existance, even if *nobody* listens. NPR doesn't care about making money; it doesn't have to. NPR, therefore, never does anything groundbreaking.
Re:NPR? (Score:1)
If commercial radio stations are going to wait for "pitchmen" to arrive to sell them on ogg vorbis, it's going to be a long wait. The open source movement doesn't have a skank-and-crank budget like the record promotors do.
Re:NPR? (Score:2)
And this is off-topic exactly how? Because a cracksmoking moderator disagrees with it...
Re:better to feel (Score:1)
Better to feel...
hm... best to actually do something!
Hope they're not slashdotted with mails now, but a certain amount of SMTP-type response can't be bad. i did my part. [dyndns.org]
Re:Gross. (Score:1)
Re:didnt get it to work (Score:1)
Installed the Winamp plugin and Yo!, Music from that half submerged mountain ridge in the Western Atlantic!
And it sounds good.
(Tosh laptop, W98SE, ADSL)
working now (Score:1)
I had mad plug in installed... that made a conflict.
well anyway... nice sound quality - but I need my Mad plugin back