Digital-Lifestyles

July 2007

  • BBC Trust OK With No DRM On BBC Shows

    BBC Trust OK With No DRMIf you listen to our interview with Mark Taylor, you’ll have heard a very interesting point that was raise in the OSC discussion with the BBC Trust.

    The BBC Trust are totally fine with BBC content going out to over the Internet _without_ content protection – ie DRM.

    This would be in-line with the BBC’s view of distributing their TV content over satellite in the UK, where in 2003 they made Sky beam out the BBC TV channels without encryption – much to Sky’s displeasure – saving themselves £40m – £85m in the process.

    This is of course still an avenue open to the BBC. We wonder how much of the License payers money would be saved on DRM if they were to take this route?

  • iPlayer: OSC Interview After BBC Trust Meeting: Podcast

    We got the exclusive opportunity to interview the members of the Open Source Consortium (OSC) that has met with the BBC Trust, directly after they had been discussing the BBC iPlayer with them for the first time.

    From there we scooped the iPlayer On Linux a must story, but there was a lot more detail in the interview than we could get into the piece.

    Various highlights were

    • How discussion went with the BBC Trust
    • The path that the OSC has been following
    • Discussion with Ofcom
    • How iPlayer is based entirely on the Microsoft stack
    • concerns under the BBC Radio player being rolled into the iPlayer and the loss of support of other players that would occur
    • BBC Trust’s different view on BBC Content and content from other production companies
    • Support for a Linux iPlayer from the “the most popular Linux desktop client in the world”

    If you, like many others, are unhappy about the iPlayer only being available on a particular version of Windows, get yourself over to the iPlayer petition. Every vote counts, so join the current 12,000+ that have said they don’t like it.

    Sorry about the popping in part of the recording (like the beginning), but I left the mic windshield at the office – blast!)
    [audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/osc-post-bbc-trust-iplayer-meeting.mp3]

  • Ofcom Wants VoIP 999 Services

    Ofcom Wants VoIP 999 ServicesOfcom has published a proposal that some VoIP services should allow users to call 999 to connect to emergency services as soon as by early 2008.

    They’ve carried out research that has revealed that as many as 78% of those with VoIP thought that they could, or did not know if they could.

    Ofcom’s concern is that VoIP users cannot connect to emergency services when they really need it – ie. in an emergency.

    If people have to locate a landline or mobile phone, costing them a delay of seconds or minutes in getting through to emergency services, it could prove critical.
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  • Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?

    Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?We’re all aware that the BBC is planning to make their iPlayer compatible with Macs … and we even know that now that the BBC Trust has committed to make it work with Linux (shock horror).

    Well if you’re like most of the tech population, you might be scratching your heads, wondering how the bleep they’re going to be doing it – given that the whole system relies on Microsoft technology to deliver any of it, and in particular the DRM. Especially as, to date Microsoft has steadfastly refused to deliver a media player for the Mac that has DRM built in.
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  • Cheap SD memory – Don’t Do It!

    Cheap memory - Don't Do It!We’ve recently had an horrific experience. Having recorded a few great interviews using the excellent Zoom H4 digital audio recorder, gone to download them to the Mac for processing, only to find that some of them were zero length – apparently completely inaccessible.

    The sinking of the heart that occurs and the sheer blind panic shouldn’t be experienced by anyone, so we’re going to pass on our experience to you in the hope that you don’t ever have to live through the same.

    The Zoom H4 has always performed well for us. it produces excellent quality stereo recordings with no hint of data lost.
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  • BBC Trust Statement On iPlayer OSC Meeting: Bit Woolly

    BBC Trust Statement On iPlayer OSC Meeting

    We’ve been in touch with the BBC Trust today, to follow up the statement that was mentioned in our piece about the BBC Trust position on the iPlayer and Linux playback. Here it is in full with our observations at the end.
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  • BBC Trust: iPlayer On Linux And Mac A Must

    BBC Trust Want iPlayer Mac And Linux Support: OSCThe Open Source Consortium (OSC), the organisation leading the charge to make the BBC iPlayer open to all platforms, not just Microsoft Windows, met with the BBC Trust yesterday to find that there was a lot of agreement in their ambitions.

    (The BBC Trust has now issued a statement.)

    Speaking to Mark Taylor of the OSC straight after the BBC Trust meeting, I learnt that The Trust had declared that they “share the vision” of the OSC. Not surprisingly the OSC representatives felt very buoyant but the very positive meeting.
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  • Nokia Acquires Media Sharing Site Twango

    Nokia Acquires Media Sharing Site TwangoNokia has just added photo sharing service Twango to their swagbag, giving punters an easy way to share multimedia content through their desktop and mobile devices.

    Founded by former Microsoft veterans, Twango is a site for sharing multimedia content (photos, video, audio) offering a wide range of options for people to manage, share, and repurpose their content.
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  • Panasonic DMC-FZ18 Superzoom Camera Announced

    Panasonic DMC-FZ18 Superzoom Camera AnnouncedPanasonic has taken the wraps off the the latest model in their FZ superzoom series, the FZ18 which packs an astonishing eighteen times optical zoom.

    Sporting a relatively modest 8 megapixel sensor, the SLR-style camera offers an ‘Intelligent Auto Mode’, Face detection, automatic LCD backlight control and high ISO performance.
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  • Sony Network Walkman NWD-B100 MP3 Player Series Announced

    Sony Network Walkman NWD-B100 MP3 Player Series AnnouncedSony has announced a rather snazzy looking range of stick MP3 players that do away with the need to transfer tunes with their much-maligned SonicStage desktop software.

    With the new ATRAC-free NWD-B100 Series players, users can simply drag and drop music straight from their desktop PCs to the pencil thin, 30-gram player.
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