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Television Media

Open Source TV 148

Posted by CowboyNeal from the geeks-on-the-tube dept.
Lish writes "Everyone's favorite tech prognosticator, Robert X Cringely, is going to do a TV show called 'NerdsTV.' It will be available on the web and playable on pretty much any system. The cool part is, they will provide three video versions: one geared at techies, one for suits, and one with all the raw footage so you can edit your own version to your heart's content. There will also be audio-only versions in Ogg and Mp3. All of this is freely redistributable."
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Open Source TV More

Open Source TV

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  • Because I'm there!
    No really, this sounds like a great idea for information sharing, just release everything that you have, so noone can complain your holding back.

    I get the feeling the suits might not be that happy, but the geeks will. =)
    • The suits may have some inbuilt resistance to the concept of like giving stuff away, but if it becomes successful, I can forsee an entire menswear department of suits queuing at the GPL counter. The money counts first and foremost, not some high minded principle like copyright. The Prinicple just means "an easier way to make money"

  • Educational? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by capt.Hij ( 318203 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @06:46AM (#4250338) Homepage Journal
    It [Nerds 1] is aimed at the education market, not homes,...

    I enjoyed the show a great deal and I'm willing to ignore the shameless promotion filler at the top of Cringley's article, but... is this something that has much educational value for our schools? There hasn't been enough time past to make it valuable for a history class and the technological info in the series is surely way to low to be of any value.

    Moreover, I doubt that the pictures of geeks making millions will be enough to stop the school bullies from beating the snot our of nerds. In fact it may make it worse!

    • Schools have cable TV ayways, with shows (note: I said "shows", not "news") like CNN [cnn.com]. Don't you think NerdTV will be at least as good as one of these shows, if not significantly better? I'd watch Cringely [pbs.org] over Zahn [cnn.com] any day (speaking about the news content, of course!)
      • Although the NervTV show can be freely discributed, it is not stated anywhere that it will be broadcasted in schools. The "Triumph Of The Nerds" DVD is, however.
      • I agree NerdTV might be useful for schools...but FYI, the parent poster's quote was actually referring to a DVD version of Cringely's "Triumph of the Nerds", which is not this new Free webcast interview series, but a documentary on the history of Silicon Valley he did a few years ago.

        Cringely mentioned it in the first part of his column this week (the "aimed at the educational market" bit was meant to justify its huge pricetag ($145)).
    • I think hge meant that the DVD licence was aimed at education. Thus the right to show it publically & the $145 (except from amazon) price tag.
    • Moreover, I doubt that the pictures of geeks making millions will be enough to stop the school bullies from beating the snot our of nerds. In fact it may make it worse!

      Now they'll beat them up and steal their money.

    • Wow, this is super cool.
      Why? Because off the bat there will be two versions- a tech one and a suit one.
      Can you think of a more concrete way of showing (not just telling kids) that there are multiple facets to every story?

      Then by giving the kids some editing tools (A mac with premier, and not even an expensive mac. For the cost of a case of beer I lent out my Power Mac 7200 with 40 megs of ram to a friend a few years ago and he made an educational video/cd-rom)
      and they:
      1) get skills on how to link and cut scenes (okay- you argue that this may not be very valuable, point taken)
      2) get experience on "creating" a story line
      3) get to see how their classmates started with the same raw footage and created vastly different final products.

      If this can teach a young mind conspicuous consumption regarding news, media and information, HALLELUJIA!!! (doubtful...)

      But if this can teach a young'in there are multiple sides to a story, then super-duper.

      And if you can do some fancy editing and make Cringley burp, fart, and insert bathroom jokes, the school bullies will be laughing too hard to beat the snot out of you. Besides, you get a chance to make friends with them with the detention you got.

  • Is GPL best license for this purpose (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jukal ( 523582 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @06:47AM (#4250343) Journal
    "Viewers will be free to share and redistribute the shows under the General Public License, which is something no other TV network in the world is doing. So there! "

    Or would some else do better, such as the GNU Free Documentation License [gnu.org] FDL be better? Or something completely different and maybe new? I just have the feeling that GPL is tailored for software in a way that makes it incomplete or even invalid for licensing a TV show.

    Does someone have more insightful input than my "feelings" ;)

  • Man, why didn't I think of a concept [slashdot.org] like that?
  • This is going to be great. I can't tell how many times I've wanted to sit and edit the TV shows I watch. Seriously, I would actually like to edit the raw footage of a Drama or anything with a story for that matter... But why would I want to edit a informative broadcast. I could be wrong, but if this is like a news format show, then a front and center camera shot is all I really want anyway.

    • Re:Uh, yeah.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by msl521 ( 468252 )
      Well as any mass media theorist will tell you, any news/information/education program has an inherent bias. Doesn't matter what the producer says, some sort of bias creeps in when they have to make decisions just related to keeping to the alloted time for the program. So by giving you the uncut material, they eliminate some of the bias. There will still be bias remaining from the fact that the producers had limited resources in gathering the original material.
      • Most of the "bias" never gets onto video tape anyway. By that point, the story editor and/or journalist has narrowed the focus of their story down already.

        It's not like they film three versions of a news story, all with different takes on the subject and choose one to show.

        So, unless they plan on releasing all of his paper notes, his scriblings, his internal thought processes during the initial stages of a story, I don't think this is going to be much more than a Choose-Your-Own-Camera-Angle adventure.

        So they save money on post-production, I guess.

    • But just imagine the fun you can have! With clever editing, it should be possible to turn this show into a comedy, or even a satire of itself. Depending on the available content, you could probably edit the interviews to mismatch the questions and answers -- choosing answers for their humorous effects. You could even insert footage of yourself answering or asking the questions (I assume you could insert any other, non-copyrighted footage for that matter.)

      I'll bet a two dollars that someone will begin distributing a funny/satirical version of NerdTV shortly after it becomes available. I'd do it , but I'm too busy running PowerPopRadio.com [powerpopradio.com] .

    • 120kbps (Score:2)

      by akb ( 39826 )
      This is going to be 120kbps which will limit your derivative works to that or less which is not great.
  • Free is the way for a low buudget tv show that broadcasts over the web should be. They might just be able to build an audience that way. If enough "geeks" and "suits" watch the show he might eventually be able to make some money. Of course it all depends on the show being good enough for people to want to watch their divx and mpeg rips of the show. Especially the "raw footage" edition. All the fun of editing out the garbage yourself.
  • Being PBS, don't we already have the rights to watch this stuff no cost and commercial free?

    Isn't that what PBS is for?

    Or does the GPL liscense mean I can superimpose robots and WWII fighter planes and elmo and call it my own show, so long as I distribute it with the actual source? Can I change the dialogue? Can MS exec's dub over "Linux sucks! We suck!" and distribute it with their marketing?

    What exactly is the news here, besides the 'GPL' geek buzzword(acronymn)?

    • Re:i don't get it? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Um No. PBS actually buys lots of its content from other sources, and like pretty much everything in the world now it all has a copyright. The remainder is probably copyright of the PBS.
      • But PBS is inherently owned by the public, so any copyrights they hold, I hold.

        It's not Open Source, but for all intents and purposes, it's the same thing.

        You can't get busted, AFAIK, for trading Nova episodes online
        • That's not quite how it works. The producers of a program own the copyright: PBS, as an entity, doesn't produce its own programming. PBS acquires the right to air that program a certain number of times over a certain period of time. Other rights are attached during this period, like if a school can record and playback, and how long that school has the right to keep that recording, etc. PBS spends money on that acquisition, which is why they need corporate underwriting, government funding, and "contributions from viewers like you."

          The producer (it could be independent people, or another member station, like WGBH) retains all rights to the program, as they are the actual copyright owner for it.

          In short, yes, you could probably get hassled for trading NOVA online, but it wouldn't be PBS that hunted you down.

        • An excellent example... (Score:3, Informative)

          by freeBill ( 3843 )

          ...of why you shouldn't use /. for legal advice.

          Almost everything in this post is factually wrong.

          "But PBS is inherently owned by the public..."

          I am not aware of any sense in which PBS is legally owned by the public. I'm not sure what "inherent" ownership means. But it is not a concept which would likely get you far in a court of law.

          I believe the ownership structure of PBS is as follows: PBS is a nonprofit corporation owned by all of the local PBS stations, which are usually nonprofit corporations themselves. Most of these local stations were originally associated with colleges or universities, some of which may still maintain some ownership of the local station. Also part of the picture is CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I think CPB is responsible for the distribution of federal funds to PBS and NPR. I don't know if there is any sense in which it owns or is owned by PBS. It is also a nonprofit.

          "...so any copyrights they hold, I hold."

          The absurdity of this statement is demonstrated (partially) by translating it to the private sector: "I own shares of GE stock, so any copyrights NBC holds, I hold."

          But it also inaccurate to imply that PBS "holds" a large number of copyrights. Unlike the three major private networks, PBS does not originate most of its programming (if any, at all). Most PBS programming originates with local PBS stations. The network exists primarily to distribute those local programs of national interest to other PBS stations.

          Nor does this imply, necessarily, that the local station which originates a particular show owns the copyright, either. Usually these shows are produced by independent contractors which own the copyrights. I believe PBS guarantees to its members that most of the shows which go out on their network feed can be broadcast by the local stations for up to five years after the original time it went out on the feed.

          There are probably exceptions to this: If you watch The Wall Street Journal Report on your local ABC or NBC or CBS or Fox affiliate, that station may have picked it up from the PBS network feed. The Wall Street Journal Report is an independent production (now owned by CNBC) which may rent time on the PBS feed late at night on the weekends. Your local network affiliate can purchase the rights to broadcast it on Sunday. If they do so they may get the broadcast by pointing one of their satellite dishes at the PBS bird and recording the half-hour program for broadcast on Sunday.

          The contracts under which local PBS stations acquire the rights to broadcast (and offer the show for network broadcast) are usually patterned on book publishing contracts. This means the creator maintains ownership of the copyright and that all rights revert to the creator at some point. In book publishing, this is when the book is out of print. For PBS it's usually five years.

          You can't get busted, AFAIK, for trading Nova episodes online.

          NOVA is an excellent example of the ownership pattern described above. WGBH distributes the show and is often listed as the producer. But, if you look carefully at the credits, they often list a separate company as the producer of an individual episode.

          PBS Home Video has the rights to sell the videos of NOVA, but they do so only for three years after the original broadcast. Of course, anyone who buys such a video copy has the fair-use right to resell it, but not to reproduce it and resell the reproductions. AFAIK, it is not legal to sell tapes of NOVA you have recorded off the air on the Internet.

          Of course, all warnings about using /. for legal opinions apply to this post as well.

        • >But PBS is inherently owned by the public

          Wow, they are?

          I want my Sesame Street tote bag, and I want it NOW.

          -l

    • Being PBS, don't we already have the rights to watch this stuff no cost and commercial free?

      Isn't that what PBS is for?

      Yes.

      Or does the GPL liscense mean I can superimpose robots and WWII fighter planes and elmo and call it my own show, so long as I distribute it with the actual source?

      Yes. (Although there may be a need to credit the original creator)

      Can I change the dialogue?

      Yes.

      Can MS exec's dub over "Linux sucks! We suck!" and distribute it with their marketing?

      Yes.

    • Re:i don't get it? (Score:2, Redundant)

      by akb ( 39826 )
      Yes, GPL includes rights that PBS does not normally grant, namely you can redistribute and edit or make derivative works. No show that I am aware of grants these rights.

      You don't seem impressed with the rights so I'll explain a little more.

      Redistribution - A show runs on PBS once or twice and might never run again or disappear from their website. You may have made a personal copy for yourself but most people will not have done that so it effectively disappears. With the right to redistribute it doesn't disappear.

      Editing - the examples of editing you gave aren't very compelling from the creative perspective. More interesting is using excerpts in another work, finding footage is one of the hardest things about video production.

      For more in depth explanation of the GPL see the philosphy section [fsf.org] of the Free Software Foundation Website.

      I do share your scepticism about this being a buzz kind thinig because they are only releasing shows in 120kbps, not even VHS quality. That limits its usefulness significantly.
    • Being PBS, don't we already have the rights to watch this stuff no cost and commercial free?

      PBS produces no original content. PBS is a program distributor and video interconnection service. Public television stations pay dues to PBS in return for programming and video delivered via satellite (except for American Samoa and Guam, who get tapes, soon to be DVDs).

      Shows you see on PBS are produced by people other than PBS. Those producers hold the copyrights. Often the producers are stations such as WGBH and WNET. Sometimes they are not.

      PBS acquires rights for Public Television stations to air programs, in return for paying the producers. Generally, these rights entitle a Public Television station to air a program a certain number of times in a certain period of time.

  • here are the original articles (Score:5, Informative)

    by sc00p18 ( 536811 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @07:01AM (#4250383)

    Here are the original articles which have some more information about the new show.

    1. Is the World Ready for a Cringely Open Source TV Show? [pbs.org]

    2. Downloadable Video Cringely is on His Way [pbs.org]

  • Something missing. (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <(ten.elcychtneves) (ta) (kram)> on Friday September 13, 2002 @07:02AM (#4250384) Homepage
    From his article:

    Luckily this is the U.S. version, which lacks my big nude scene from the UK version. I am not making this up.

    Cringely, I'll be buying the "Special Edition" of your DVD when it comes out in another year.

    Do NOT disappoint me.

  • Good. (Score:2)

    by ACK!! ( 10229 )
    There needs to be a show focused on the progress of technology and the computer world that does not focus on consumer advice, or How To's.

    A chronicle of where we are going and how we got here in terms of computers in our society would be very nice.

    Oddly, the article in the link focused mostly on how the show is being distributed. He mentions interviews with people that did not make it into Nerds1 and 2 but not much else about the content. I hope that Cringley remembers the contents the thing and not the distribution. However, I liked Truimph of the Nerds 1 so I hope the show does well.

    ________________________________________________ _

  • This is great (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bjb ( 3050 )
    I love Cringely's tech reporting, and this show can only be enjoyable to me. The fact that you can also get the raw takes is perfect for someone trying out Adobe Premiere, iMovie or Windows Movie Maker for the first time; you can splice together your own show.

    I can't wait to see this.

  • Discussion Shows (Score:3, Insightful)

    by squaretorus ( 459130 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @07:43AM (#4250499) Homepage Journal
    There are only a handful of discussion shows that seem to have any kind of legs:

    POLITICAL: Question Time, CNN, loads of this
    SPORTS: Mainly on radio, whole stations dedicated to this ad infinitum
    ARTS: That film rocked, no iot sucked and it was anti women, shut up germaine!
    POOOOR MEEEE: Oprah style 'Im fat', 'I hate my wife', 'no one likes me' reassurance stuff - staggering amounts of this
    IM GREAT: Oprah style 'your writing moves me so much I want to die every time I read a word of it' style stuff.

    Geek chat is unlikely to get any decent airtime, and in fact is unlikely to be of any interest. Those who are into this stuff will probably be at least as knowledgable as the folk on the program, and have access to others to have these conversations in any case.

    Oprah fans are all sitting at home alone with the baby rocking gently thinking 'I used to love my life'.
  • The problem with having a version for the 'suits' is that most of them think they know as much as (or more than) those lazy, overpaid techies and engineers. So they'll watch the "nerd" version, then glean some kind of twisted idea from the production; like replacing all the expensive point-to-point T1's with Yagi-equipped Linksys WAPs.

    • That reminds me of an old Dilbert strip:

      Pointy-Haired-Boss: I think we should build an SQL database
      Dilbert: *think* Uh-Oh
      Dilbert: *thinks* Does he understand what he said or is it something he saw in a trade magazine ad?
      Dilbert: *out loud* What color do you want that database?
      Pointy-Haired-Boss: I think mauve has the most RAM

      It's a great idea but it's just going to be another reason for suits to think they know more than us. *sigh*

    • The way I understood it the difference would only be the video format. E.g. the "suits" version might be real or wmv or sorensen, while the "nerd" would be mpeg or theora.

      I might be wrong, though, that was just my general impression from not reading very carefully. :)
    • Hmm... Maybe they could require some form of "identification" for the nerd version:
      [localhost:~] admin% openssl version -?
      OpenSSL 0.9.6b 9 Jul 2001
      [localhost:~] admin%

      answer: [ ]

  • Time for a Cringely topic icon? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ekrout ( 139379 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @07:59AM (#4250564) Journal
    I've said this before, but I'll say it again [a little extra karma never hurt anyone] -- we need a Cringely topic icon.

    Why, you ask?

    Basically, some of the best discussions come from the Slashdot community after we collectively read a piece from Cringely. His ideas are often fairly original and interesting, which makes for a nice "vacation" from the usual OS Wars, Text Editor Wars, and Software Licensing Wars.

    I'd even be happy to make the icon for the Cringely topic.

    So, editors, care to give a little feedback on this? There are several other topic areas that we could certainly do without, but I feel that a Cringely area of the site would be well worth it.

    Thanks for listening.
    • I'd say to go even further. Make Cringely an editor, or at least a most favored columnist. Not meaning to troll here, but certain other authors who used to post frequently here weren't half as interesting as Cringely
    • Cringely posts have really dropped off here after his son died. Previous to that we were getting one of two a month. This is the first one I have seen since the editors refused to run the articles about his son's death, and yes, they weren't OT. I think they realized that they were running almost anything he put up, which might have made some people a bit upset.

      Anyhow, if they are going to run his stuff frequently again, an icon is certainly needed. This has been suggested before. I once submitted headshots of both RXC and David Letterman as evidence that either one could be used as an icon for the other. Nobody thought it was funny then, and I doubt that it would be funny now without the evidence.

    • I totally agree. It would be great to have a Cringely topic.

      I'm not trolling here but I would really like to be able to use that to filter out his idiotic thoughts.

      "Open Source TV" isn't original or interesting or insightful. Quite the opposite. It is the most obvious next step if you're obsessing over the GPL and how "evil movie dudes" control all the DVDs you want to watch without paying for. However, it betrays a lack of thought. The GPL does not apply or make any sense in this context. There are other open source licensing schemes which would work much better.

      Cringely doesn't seem to have thought through the issues he is talking about here - he just seems to have tried to figure out the square root of 4 and come up with 2, been delighted with the solution and a whole bunch of fanboys on Slashdot will worship him for it. He missed the (-2) however.
    • Doesn't Cringely's opinion matter at all? :) Maybe he doesn't want to be an editor here -- out of curiousity, has he even ever showed an interest to Slashdot?
    • I really like his stuff too, but if you put a Cringely icon, won't people perceive him to be an editor at slashdot? And even if they don't, this opens things up for lots of writers who think that they deserve icons. I like the icon system the way it is, icons about the topic, rather than the source.

    • but does Cringely use vi or emacs?
    • There already is a I, Cringley slashbox available. Just go to Preferences - Homepage - and scroll ALLL the way down to the customize slashboxes.

      There ya go.

  • Hmm. (Score:2)

    by zapfie ( 560589 )
    Wouldn't this be more appropriately labelled Free TV, or Open Content TV, as opposed to Open Source TV?
    • Interesting, although I suppose "Open Source TV" is actually an appropriate description. After all, he's allowing download of the raw footage, which is the TV world equivalent of source code.

      But let's just call it "commie-anarchist-hippie-software-pirate TV" to make sure we've called all our bases. :)
    • No, I think it's supposed to be "GNU_TV"
  • that someone fills the void left by Geeks-in-Space. We've been without a techno-rant show for some time now.
  • See also: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/22/172622 1&mode=thread&tid=129
  • QuickTime Streaming Server and Quicktime Brodcaster are already OSS solutions for Cringley. He could save even more money.

    If he really wants to make it a download - then even as a MPEG-4 instead of the /. fav - Sorenson - there's not reason why it can't be viewed on ANY operating system if they work on software to decode what's being streamed by the open source streamers - and since it would be QuickTime - it could be watched the second it stared downloading.

    what does this all mean...?

    Apple needs to get off their ass and make QuickTime player for Linux and BSD unix - or just OSS the fscking player and charge for the Pro player.

    Damnit Apple - you are always so close - yet so far.. you have drawn in tens of thousands of linux geeks with Darwin and a real Unix operating system, and you don't realize what its buying you? The alternative when Microsoft really starts to screw people with rentalware is going to be Apple - and if you have the love of the OSS community - you'll have the love of all...

    oh well, at least you aren't installing DRM in your products - so i'll keep buying.
    • Apple doesn't want to make a player for Linux/BSD because Apple doesn't NEED to, and it would probably hurt them in the long run. With Windows, Apple ported the player in an effort to get the QuickTime format to become a standard among Windows users. More users = more content providers.

      What does Apple get by porting their player to Linux or BSD? They don't get much in terms of additional users (since many of those using Linux also use Windows), and they give people that much less reason to switch to a Mac. What does open-sourcing the player do for Apple? It means now any platform can potentially run QuickTime players. The only reason Apple ported the player to Windows was to increase the installed userbase to a point where many content providers would see QuickTime as a viable format to publish in.

      Apple won't be releasing players for other platforms other than Windows and Mac, and frankly, it's in their best interest that they don't. If you really have to play QuickTime content under Linux, you could always look into the Crossover Plugin. [codeweavers.com]
    • Um, the whole point Apple is pushing mpeg4 is because they're no longer powerful enough to have their own proprietary standard win out.

      You completely ignore the fact that if mpeg4 does become the de-facto standard for video content, then linux users won't NEED quicktime. Users on *any* platform could use their player of choice.

      Quicktime is just the first widely used player to support both playback and encoding of ISO Mpeg4 files (in addition to mpeg4 video streams in other container formats, such as QT Movie files, which while becoming non-standard (even though the format is published), brings you a LOT of extra nifty features).

      Now, as for using this weird java thing instead of Quicktime Streaming Server and a RTSP stream, I don't know.
    • Just get Crossover Office. I watch Quicktime files with Quicktime through that.
      • Uhh, in case you haven't caught on the current trend of things yet, the whole idea is not to rely on other operating system code.

        Crossover Office runs Windows code... thus, it's not native, going against the current trend of things that you *want* to happen.

  • I want my,
    I want my NTV
    • It exists. It's called TechTV [techtv.com]. It might not exist in the future, but at least it's around now.

      Thank Goddess TechTV is privately held, or it would have been gone by now.

  • There ought to be a protocol for doing 3D animations over networks. It would work like this: you make up a bunch of computational models for the objects in the scene. You have a rather large scene header where you transmit theses models to the receiver. Then you ship down parameters for each model for each animation frame.

    The receiver gets to decide his own camera angle, or if he has the MIPS and the inclination, he can render five different camera angles simultaneously. Or maybe if he's a radiologist he might enjoy watching a real-time CAT scan view of the scene.

    With all the video-game hardware floating around these days, this certainly must be feasible. Surely it could be done with crude low-bandwidth animations like the music video for "Money for Nothing", where every object is only made of a few dozens polygons.

    ObCringely

    Some posters have complained that he hasn't formalized the open-source-ness of the show by using the GFDL. But this is (IIRC) the first time anybody has done anything at all along these lines, so I think we can cut him a little slack. It may turn out that legally it makes sense to invent a new license, like a GNU Free Video License or GNU Free Media License, to cover streamable media.

    The world of TV hasn't had to deal with open source yet. This could be a highly entertaining bee to put in the *AA's bonnet.

  • Three different shows? Well okay two different shows, since the rough cut will be the main show.

  • Frontline has a similar, but different, approach.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by freeBill ( 3843 ) on Friday September 13, 2002 @09:33AM (#4251002) Homepage
    ...raw footage is not made available, but much of the material not used in a particular show is put on their web site.

    For instance: If a number of experts were interviewed for a show, with excerpts from those interviews included in the actual broadcast, the web site not only includes transcripts of the broadcast but also transcripts of the complete interviews. This is very useful if you're wondering if the excerpts were taken out of context.

    I think it's the future of broadcast-related web sites: all the info from the show...and more.

    I have my doubts about the usefulness of the Cringely experiment, but it is interesting. At the very least.
    • It benefits the producers as well as the skeptical viewer. Frontline probably does this (supplies complete interview transcripts online) because some experts refuse to do interviews at all because they understand that their words are going to be butchered.

      I know that social scientists are especially cautious. Imagine making an empirical claim, and supporting it with sound scientific evidence and theory, and then having your controversial *descriptive* words taken out of context and made to sound *prescriptive* because it would fit better into a dramatic story which was crafted to offend and upset people.

      Frontline deals with hot-button political issues, so if they want comments from experts, they need to provide the experts with some kind of damage control insurance. Having the complete interview available online is one way to preemptively refute characterizations meant to create trouble for the expert or issue advocates.

      Call it the anti-O'Reilly factor.
  • what i like about this is that this is something the traditional television networks would have trouble doing since it's not clear how to capitalize it.

    pbs thus can take a near monopoly on a new paradigm in (video) content production and distribution, and it might raise their donations as well.

    in fact, to prognosticate a little, perhaps the future of content in a p2p world is higher quality, less lowest-common-denominator stuff, since the only viable business models are donations (pbs) and pay-for-premium-content (hbo).

    -- p
  • The "NerdTV" video player isn't a player at all, but an applet that is being supplied by the very nice people from IBM Research. This is not any shipping IBM product, but rather a custom applet IBM's Michelle Kim and her crew are whipping-up just for "NerdTV." Going with an applet means there is no player application to download and install. We don't have to make a choice between Windows Media, RealPlayer, or QuickTime (actually, I suppose what we've done is reject all three).

    An applet means you have to download the Player every time you view it.

    If it is MPEG4, I trust he's choosing a profile that meets interoperability standards, [isma.tv] in which case QT Player will play it and let people edit it, and RealPlayer will play MPEG4 with the Envivio plugin. It's just Windows Media Player that is deliberately shunning MPEG4 because they want to own the codecs and decide who can play things back.

    • An applet can be cached locally, so you only have to download it once per machine you watch it on - unless there are updates, then you get the newer version at that time. I wonder if he'll use the Java plugin? It would seem to make sense for this application.

      As for the interoperability - we shall see but it seemed his goal was that you could edit it, so it seems probable.
      • Bob is planning a weekly or bi-weekly show, so we'll have to make sure our browser caches are big enough to keep the applet for that time - a little tricky as half an hour of TV will be pushing everything out right afterwards.

        The 'no download' mantra for Java players is very odd - of course there is a download. Nothing wrong with providinga java playback option, but ignoring the MPEG4 playback options many people already have installed is daft.
        • You are confusing the browser cache with the applet cache. With something like Java Web Start, the applet essentially stays around forever. I did an applet a while ago that worked just liked this - the first time the user coonnected the applet was cached, and stayed there for months (or forever) until an upgrade came along.

          The "no download" mantra for any player is odd then. For RealMedia, there's a download. For Quicktiime there's a download on Windows. For WMV there's a download on the Mac. So there's always going to be a download for anyone regardless of format, might as well have a Java player that you don't have to worry about versions and I can save the stream myself if I like or possibly have a player that is not confined to the browser window with no hope of resizing.

          As to not being able to use some other player - why not? You should be able to, once again the INTENT is for anyone to be able to edit the stream after downloading. It was stated in the article it was meant to be a raw digital feed pretty much. Open it with whatever you like, but there's a player if you don't have one or want to hunt one down.

          Again, we'll have to see what happens but the JMF (Java Media Framework) can work with standard streams and that's probably what they would use, having no desire at all to lock people into using that player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    • I suspect that what we're talking about is:

      JMF has an all-Java version, and the MPEG-4 player is all-java, so yes, you can create an applet that doesn't require WMP/QT/Real installed on the client. An app called jmfcustomizer trims the jar so that you only send the classes needed for your app.

      That said, it seems like there is a risk of having to download the same .jar over and over again, unless your browser caches jars, or if they use something cool like Java Web Start (which isn't widely deployed).

      Maybe they'll have seperate links for "self-contained applet" vs. "I already have an MPEG-4 player, thanks"

      BTW, if Bob gets too many hits, won't he have to pay the content provider fee [mpegla.com]?

      My only complaint about the IBM MPEG-4 support is that it only seems to support MPEG-4 video codec in .avi files (like DiVX), not the .mp4 files created by QuickTime.

      --realinvalidname

  • There is a large potential audience for a GPL'd show not on the Internet via public access cable tv. For those not familar with it public access cable is a channel on most cable system that allows anyone it that locality to submit and run programming.

    If a full res version was available for download all the public access station would have to do is download and air it. Many stations now have mpeg2 playback so they might not even have to put it too tape.

    However, it doesn't sound like this will happen

    If any networks outside the U.S. would like to run a broadcast quality version of "NerdTV," please get in touch with me because we could sure use the money.

    It sounds to me like this is traditional TV workings, PBS wants exclusive broadcast rights in the US.

    So it seems in practice that a low quality (120kbps) version will be gpl'd but "The Show" itself is not free in the sense of "here's a piece of information, share it with everyone who wants to share it".
    • I think what Cringeley meant is that if broadcast stations want a broadcast-quality version of the show, all they need to do is ask in order to get it. The rest of us will suffer with a much lower res quality video...because we all don't have fat pipes. :)

      Salis
  • I wonder if this is going to be like TechTV, or just like one of TechTV's shows. Althogether I was not to impressed by techtv because the lack of depth they covered some stuff, and even on their most geeky show, the screen savers, nothing would get more complex than installing a hard drive in your computer, etc, and hardly ever any tips on doing anything outside windows. I hope this show not only showcases more "geekiness", but also greater attention to detail on open source projects and open source operating systems.
    • I agree, even though TechTV is fun at times I find the screen savers a little too Windows centric (though they do mention Linux and the mac from time to time).

      I also find they loop other content far too often now, almost any time I turn it on I see something I saw four months ago already. As a result I hardly watch it anymore - the only show I like there is "Tech Live" (oh, and Big Thinkers) but it never seems to be on when I'm watching. And those "Tech Of" shows have got to go, did they really want to be slumming in the land of Discovery Channel (sorry, I've forgot the new name)?

      I'm imagining NerdTV will be like a mix of Big Thinkers (with the interviews) and hopefully stuff that goes beyond Screen Savers and Fresh Gear in depth.
    • It's because The Screen Savers is NOT targetted to real geeks. it's targetted tawards the wannabees and posers. I am sure that the two main hosts would love to get more down and dirty or get more technical... but TechTV's main viewership is the dweebs that really dont know anything or are the i wanna look like I know something type... Just watch the "call for help" show... many many MANY times I see that over-caffinated guy give out wrong or misleading information. and I end up screaming at the TV at work because the guy is not well inormed..
  • Can I edit "Plane Crazy" so he doesn't come across as a jerk?
  • Excuse me? I thought we all realized that Cringley is an idiot! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here!
  • yea boy oh boy thats the one big thing i've been waiting for all this time!!! now i can edit TV shows just for FUN for me and my friends!! my edited versions of his show will light the Internet on FIRE!!! my dreams have come true!!

    while back in reality... the only good that will come from this is that someone will most likely edit Mr.Cringley into a porno or something funny. i don't "get" the release of the "original raw footage".
  • could we get someone with something worth saying to host it. Cringly is a meathead.
  • And I think it's called Public Access, which probably has fewer viewers than the population per square mile of North Dakota. Not just a day late, but two dollars short. And I think this is something you might be interested in... !Link! [techtv.com]. Yay. 3 channels. Editable. W00t. I'm just not seeing the light here...

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