Open Source... Television?

jarit0z writes: "In Robert Cringely's latest column he toys with the idea of creating a TV show to go along with his rants. The show would be freely (as in beer) distributable, to hopefully keep bandwidth costs down. And it would also be freely (as in speech) modifiable, since he would also be releasing the "source" or raw footage of the show. Very interesting ideas if you ask me."

Re:pbs

[foobar104]

I don't believe it works exactly like that. The stuff that ends up going out over the various PBS stations is finished programming. Somebody had to produce that programming. I live in Dallas, and the local PBS station, KERA, has been doing a lot of production lately, shooting and finishing various shows.

When a production company or station makes a program, they turn over only the finished piece to the distributor or broadcaster. The production company or station keeps ownership of and rights to the stuff that went into making the program. Sometimes there are agreements between the distributor and the production company, like the production company promising not to turn around and use the same footage to make a different cut of the same program and sell it to somebody else for instance.

So what PBS gets is actually just the finished programs, not the raw footage or anything like that. It's not theirs to release.

'Open Source' television already exists

[banuaba]

It's called the local access channel. And it's full of right wing conspiracy junkies and left wing bean eaters making shows with a handicam. No editing, so the 'source' is released, and many of them encourage you to copy the show all you want.

Re:Start with

[NeMon'ess]

If you read the article you'd know it isn't just a webcast. What's open about it is that not only could anyone download any or all of four differnt "cuts" of the same program, they would then be encouraged to share those programs. The biggest problem with webcasting vs. broadcasting is that it costs nothing to reach more people when broadcasting. As long as the viewer is within the radius of the broadcast signal, they get it. Webcasting costs money for every additional stream. By making this "Open", the idea is for everyone to share the files in an organized manner so they are easy to find and the bandwidth burden is spread out. The four different streams would be the Uncut version for geeks wanting to watch every little thing. Then there would be an edited cut for geeks wanting to get the most information and geeky tidbits. A made-for-business cut would be shorter and condense topics down for those with less time, more like TV news instead of the newspaper. Lastly, a Headline News type cut would just cover the basic facts, keeping people up to date on stories.

Re:pbs

[Yoje]

Since taxpayers cover at least part of the cost of these shows via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, shouldn't ALL these shows be free-as-in-everything? We paid for them, after all!

Actually, total federal funding to CPB/PBS is about $250 million, only 12.2% of CPB's total budget (figures from CPB). This is less than 0.0005% of the total federal budget.

Personally, I wish Congress would either a) leave CPB/PBS alone, cut funding entirely, and let it do its own thing, instead of this shoestring allowance it gives it (currently, the President picks the head of the CPB board and Congress approves) OR b) keep CPB's current setup, but FUND the organization it founded so they don't have to rely on so many advertisers, and so they can give us better programming. [/rant]

Re:pbs

[56ker]

Well it's a lot different to TV in the UK. Here if we want to watch any TV we have to pay a licence fee (about US $150) a year which all goes to the BBC. The government isn't involved in funding them at all (other than the free TV licenced they give to pensioners). Which do people think is a better way of funding this sort of TV - directly from tax revenue or by an imposed licence fee?

I already do it, download now !

[Anon0mous]

Mr Cringly obviously has no idea how much footage goes into a 1/2 hr program, i make documentaries (for a tv company) and on average we have 10 - 40 hrs of raw footage to produce a single edited hour program, this in data terms at full broadcast resolution equates from 200gig - 2tb, so how does he propose i distribute this footage my cable modem ? my t1 line ? who pays for the bandwidth ? what if 500 people try to download it, should take you ooh six months to download the footage and even then you have no creative freedom over the camera and where to point it. mr cringely is obviously more stupid than i though