BBC Trial of TV Show Download Service

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.

Re:The Office?

[Anonymous Coward]

Benny Hill was on ITV (Thames IIRC)

Re:TiVo?

[gowen]

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.

you dont have access to the BBC's entire library

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

"...which allows viewers to download any show from the previous week that they may have missed."

Re:From the BBC Press release

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's some ActiveX gunk. I discovered the install URL and it runs in Crossover Office IE, but it doesn't show any programmes (maybe because I'm not a 'selected household').

Re:The Office?

[gowen]

"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:UK has a yearly TV "tax"

[NetNifty]

"the BBC is supported by advertising and (are you sitting down?) a yearly television tax."

Nope, just a yearly TV tax, no advertising.

Re:Quit Complaining - And Read My Journal ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally a media outlet is trying to embrace technology instead of calling their lawyers every 5 minutes, and all people can do is complain.

Well, this media outlet gets its money from a tax on every TV in the land. Regardless of whether you actually watch any of the shows it makes, I suspect this is the Beeb's thin end of the wedge for demanding a broadband tax on every computer in the Uk, regardless of whether you ever actualy download any of their DRM's material. Yes, I know you could pay per download of stuff you actually want, but that's not what the BBC is about. What the BBC is about is getting money from every actual or potential viewer, regardless of what they actually watch, if anything.

disclaimer: I've no TV. I've downloaded some streaming radio programs (countable on the fingers of one hand, excluding the thumb) using Mplayer to enamble me to save the Real streams and convert to something sensible.

More info about the TV License (tax)

[SuperBanana]

More information:

One guy who doesn't own a TV, but gets harassed by the TV Licensing Agency (which is actually a private company contracted by the BBC, to the tune of a quarter billion pounds a year): http://www.marmalade.net/lime/ [marmalade.net]

Information about BBC revenue and expenditures, TVLA, etc: http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/international/bbc.htm l [turnoffyourtv.com]

Re:Quit Complaining - And Read My Journal ;)

[kingdon]

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.

Re:The Office?

[TwistedSquare]

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 problems"), or in the final episodes the appearance of Howard from the Halifax adverts, and his manager's reference to having had the same problem with Bruno Brookes. All these slightly out-of-date and very British references cause problems I gather.

Re:BBC iMP based on Kontiki Windoze software

[otherniceman]

Kontiki users who choose not install a client can receive content through standard client-free delivery (http://www.kontiki.com/products/deliverymanager/i ndex.html [kontiki.com]). I don't know if the BBC is taking that option.

Yes, according to the article they are using Geo-IP to ensure content is only avilable to UK residents. They will probably need some registration to restrict the content to license payers though.