UK – Page 77 – Digital-Lifestyles

R.E.M. On-Demand Music Channel Launched By HomeChoice

Video Networks Launches On-Demand R.E.M. Music Channel Video Networks, providers of the HomeChoice entertainment and communications service, has announced the addition of a brand new R.E.M. video-on-demand (VoD) channel to its platform.

HomeChoice customers keen to keep on losing their religion will gain exclusive access to the channel – which has been entirely designed and built in-house – from 31st March 2005.

Earlier this year also saw the re-release of nine of R.E.M.’s most successful albums including Green, Out of Time and Automatic for the People. The launch of the R.E.M. channel ties in with the band’s UK tour.

The V:MX R.E.M. channel is being trumpeted as the first artist specific video-on-demand package in the world and will sit within HomeChoice’s suite of V:MX music channels, which feature a library of over 3,000 music videos.

The R.E.M. channel will offer a R.E.M. videography (a what?!), featuring the nine re-released R.E.M. albums.

Sofa reclining HomeChoice customers will be able to access music videos – and associated live and documentary footage – by selecting the appropriate album cover using their remote control.

The functionality of the HomeChoice service will let customers create their own R.E.M. play list from the music videos on the channel and optionally purchase downloadable tracks by SMS.

Video Networks Launches On-Demand R.E.M. Music Channel While useful, this isn’t quite as slick as it sounds: if a viewer hears a track they want to buy, they have to click on the onscreen information button which will provide a number to text. A code is then sent back to them which they can enter when they log onto the Internet to download the music track. When we spoke to HomeChoice, they told us they were working on a more integrated way of getting pay-for content to their customers.

Naturally, there’s the usual ring tone guff provided for those who like to display their ‘individuality’ with irritating phone noises, with the channel offering 10 R.E.M. true tones of their most popular tracks, purchasable via SMS for £3 (US$5.60 /€4.40) each.

The R.E.M. channel will also include four competitions throughout the life of the channel, with prizes including an MP3 player pre-loaded with R.E.M. tracks, a pair of VIP tickets to R.E.M.’s concert in Hyde Park in July plus several R.E.M. goody bags.

The deal is what ghastly corporate types would call a “synergetic win win situation”, with Video Networks telling us that “no money has changed hands as both parties have brought certain elements to the channel and will then be sharing the revenue from the downloads and ring tones.” This would make sense, Warners/R.E.M. are providing a lot of content, and HomeChoice/Video Networks are providing a lot of design, programming and, of course, bandwidth. Video Networks have 34 people working in their in-house design studio and within the TV product team.

Video Networks Launches On-Demand R.E.M. Music Channel Roger Lynch, Chairman and Chief Executive, Video Networks Ltd said: “The addition of this on-demand channel is not only a true coup for R.E.M. fans but also ensures Video Networks continues to offer the most innovative music content on TV in the world today.”

The R.E.M. music channel will be automatically available to all shiny, happy customers who currently subscribe to the HomeChoice music package.

The negotiations for the deal with Warner Music have been underway since the beginning of 2005, brokered by a Video Networks BizDev person, who joined them from the music business. The service launches on 31st March 2005 and is available for a total of 16 weeks.

Home Choice
Video Networks
R.E.M. official site

Viacom Outdoor, Tube Trial For Digital Advertising Screens

London Underground To Blast Customers With Digital Advertising The London Underground is to show digital advertising on its escalators for the first time, as part of a trial being handled by Viacom Outdoor.

Viacom, the current holder of London Underground’s outdoor advertising contract, will be trialing the display screens, (snappily entitled Digital Escalator Panels (D-EPs), on the side of the busiest escalators on the network at Tottenham Court Road station.

We spoke to the staff at London Underground and understand that tests will be carried out over the next five days. The screens will intially be mounted at the top of the escalator, but they are very concerned that the screen could initially attract too much attention from the public, causing a blockage at this very busy station.

The 66 video panels will blast out moving images and text, although LU has stated that they will not display TV or film advertising on safety grounds “for fear of distracting travellers”. Seeing as some adverts are better than TV shows, we’re not quite sure how they work that one out.

The screens also have the ability to link up, making the transfer of images from screen to screen possible. What is displayed and when will be controlled centrally at Viacom’s North London office.

Advertisers will be offered the option of time-specific advertising (such as theatres using evening slots, or fast-food at lunchtimes) although there is no prospect of retina scanning being used to provide personally targeted advertising, a la Minority Report.

Viacom is flogging five- and 10-second slots and has already scooped up seven clients for the service.

London Underground To Blast Customers With Digital Advertising The trial is due to start within months, and if successful will be rolled out at other locations across the network.

Jon Lewen, Viacom Outdoor’s digital account director, was on hand to provide the required buzzword-peppered statement: “We are committed to exploring new and innovative ways to capture and captivate London Underground users. DE-Ps will both enhance the consumer’s experience of advertising on the Tube and offer revolutionary new creative opportunities for our clients to connect with this audience in a more creative and tactical fashion.”

With London Underground’s recent statement about introducing mobile phone coverage at tube stations, we wonder how long it will be before some bright spark suggests bombarding long-suffering tube passengers (sorry, ‘customers’) with interactive videoscreen/Bluetooth advertising.

Viacom
London Underground

Analogue Switch-Off Starts In Wales Today, DTV Starts

First UK Homes Go Digital TV Only History will be made in a small corner of Wales today when the residents of two Carmarthenshire villages – situated on either side of the River Tywi – switch to digital-only TV.

Around 450 households in Ferryside and Llanstephan will become the only areas in Europe with digital-only TV signals (along with slightly more glamorous Berlin).

Closing down the analogue television transmissions marks a milestone for the government in its quest to install digital TV in every British home.

The government is keenly perusing its pledge to switch off the analogue TV signal and replace it with digital by 2008 in Wales.

A provisional timetable for the UK-wide switchover has earmarked ITV’s Border region – covering south-west Scotland and Cumbria – as the first to lose its analogue signal in 2008.

The government has said switching to digital would provide a major one-off boost for the UK economy, leaving Chancellor Gordon Brown free to flog off the lucrative old analogue frequencies to telecom companies.

The west Wales households agreed to run trials with the digital set-top boxes when digital transmissions in the area began last November. Each house was given digital receivers for each of their televisions.

First UK Homes Go Digital TV Only To help smooth the transition, a helpline was set up for residents’ teething problems, with one-to-one support made available to the elderly.

After three months, the households were asked if they wanted to keep the digital services or revert to analogue only – and the overwhelming answer was “Ydw plîs!” (Yes please), with 98% voting to retain the digital services (out of the 85% of households who responded).

Project director Emyr Byron Hughes said residents had taken to digital because it provided more services, commenting: “It is such a leap forward even with the basic digital service, they have just taken to it.”

The trial had been run to discover how people coped with the new digital equipment and to learn from any technical problems experienced in the switchover.

Officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and the Department of Trade and Industry, joint co-ordinators of the project, seemed well chuffed with the progress so far, with Stella Thomas, one of the project team members, adding: “People have been more open to change than perhaps we have given them credit for in rural areas.”

First UK Homes Go Digital TV Only There are concerns, however, that these fancy-pants new digi-boxes could be a problem for the elderly and those on poor incomes. The government is discussing with charities about how to protect the vulnerable while promising not to authorise a complete switchover until support measures are in place.

The trial results come on the day that Ofcom publishes its Digital Television Update for the fourth quarter of 2004, examining the latest data provided by the main digital television platform providers.

The update shows that by 31 December 2004 a total of 59.4% of UK households received digital television; an increase of 3.5% from 55.9% at 30 September 2004.

By the end of last year, the total number of digital television households grew by 914,980 to 14,773,881, representing growth over the quarter of 6.6%.

BBC Digital TV

Infosecurity Europe Report: Identity Theft For The Price Of A Ticket in UK

Identity Theft For The Price Of A Ticket Research carried out on by Infosecurity Europe has revealed that 92% of people were willing to freely dish out all the personal information needed to steal their identity in exchange for the chance to win a theatre ticket.

The study was conduced on the streets of London of as part of a survey into identity theft.

The researchers asked passers-by questions about their theatre going habits, telling them that by taking part in the survey they would be entered into a draw for theatre ticket vouchers worth £20.

In a cunning piece of mind-mending double-think deception, the pedestrians were asked seemingly innocent questions about their attitudes to going to the theatre, sneakily interspersed with questions to find out the details needed to steal their identities, such as date of birth and mothers maiden name.

The survey of 200 people on High streets across London was designed to act as a “wake up call” to highlight how easy it is for fraudsters to use social engineering to carry out identity theft.

By revealing how easily people can be duped into giving out personal information, it is hoped that the experiment will raise awareness of the need to be very careful about the information people give to complete strangers, either face-to-face, by post or online.

Researchers started off asking people their names – a reasonable enough question if someone is potentially going to send you freebie vouchers – and every person surveyed gave their names.

Next, the researchers dipped into their evil bags’o’deception and devised a simple yet effective means of finding out personal information.

People were asked a series of questions about their views on the theatre in London, with researchers asking if they knew how actors came up with their stage name.

Identity Theft For The Price Of A Ticket When they were told that it was a combination of their pets name and mothers maiden name, they were asked what they thought their stage name would be. Like a bunch of chumps, ninety four percent (94%) of respondees then blabbered out their mother’s maiden name and pet’s name.

Next up, researchers were tasked with finding out the address and post code of their ‘victims’.

And, once again, they were like putty in their evil, plotting hands.

Researchers simply asked for people’s address details so that vouchers could be mailed to them if they won. And like sheep to the slaughter, 98% of those asked obediently barked out their full address and post code.

Next up, the researchers managed to find out the name of their interviewee’s first school by asking, “Did you get involved in acting in plays at school?” followed by, “What was the name of your first school?”

Once again, almost all those asked (96%) gave the name of their first school.

This information, along with the name of a person’s mother’s maiden name, are key pieces of identity information used by many banks.

Finally, the researchers said that in order to prove they had carried out the survey they needed the interviewee’s date of birth. 92% duly handed over the information along with their home phone number “in case there was a problem delivering the vouchers”.

At the end of a three minute survey, the researchers were armed with sufficient information to open bank accounts, go on a wild spending spree with credit cards, or even to start stealing their victim’s identity.

Identity Theft For The Price Of A Ticket Incredibly, the researchers did not give any verification of their identity, offering only a trusty clipboard and the offer of the chance to win a voucher for theatre tickets.

Claire Sellick Event Director for Infosecurity Europe who took part in the research said, “For the past 10 years we have endeavoured to highlight many of the common IT security concerns and vulnerabilities – such as information breaches via employees and consumers.

This survey showed how easy it is to steal a person’s identity and breach a company’s security – security is only as good as the awareness of the people it protects.”

Chris Simpson, head of Scotland Yard’s computer crime unit, agreed that the results of the survey were disturbing, commenting: “Preventing the theft of your own identity is relatively simple, but it relies on the individual taking steps to protect themselves i.e. restricting the people to whom you reveal sensitive personal data (whether in the physical or virtual context); shredding or destroying personal correspondence before disposing of it and never sharing passwords to access computer systems.”

The Home Office reports that more than 100,000 British people every year suffer identity fraud, with online scams such as phishing, forged emails and spoofed Web pages a growing problem.

There is a happy ending to this story however: all the information collected was destroyed by Infosecurity Europe but – bless ’em – they honoured their word about the draw and three lucky winners were selected at random and sent theatre ticket vouchers.

Identity Theft UK (Home Office)
Infosecurity Europe
Identity theft affecting one in four UK adults (silicon.com)

Lampposts To Access Web And Location-Based Services?

A British company has unveiled its cunning plan to roll out high-speed wireless networks and location-based services using street lampposts.

It sounds as mad as a box of gerbils to us, but Last Mile Communications reckons that the humble lamppost can be used to provide broadband Internet access and also to store useful information about its location.

The company has announced that it will work with security company Qinetiq to commercialise its plans, with trials scheduled later this year at an undisclosed location. The company is confident that its service can be rolled out on a large scale.

Last Mile’s service wouldn’t just turn the humble lamppost into wireless Internet access points – the company is also planning to turn the things into groovy info centres, with installed flash memory storing information about local pubs, coffee shops and retail outlets.

According to Barry Shrier, Last Mile’s sales and marketing director, people who run an application called the MagicBook on a mobile device will be able to connect to their nearest enabled lamppost and access the information stored on it.

In a slightly less than convincing move, Last Mile is also hoping to win the backing from emergency services agencies. The idea would be that firefighters rushing to a flaming building would flip out their laptops and start accessing local information from a handy knowledgeable lamppost.

Ian Fogg, broadband and personal technology analyst at Jupiter Research Europe, said that Last Mile will need the support of the public sector for this ambitious plan to succeed.

“The idea of a local wireless network that emergency services, local utility companies and local government officials can use generally for day-to-day activities is a common one that is used in many places around the world,” Fogg said.

Last Mile believes its lack of reliance on other telecommunications infrastructures such as local telephone exchanges would give their scheme the edge, with the system still working in the event of widespread network failures.

Shrier believes that revenue could be generated by persuading companies to store their information on lampposts, paying Last Mile whenever someone accesses data using the MagicBook.

“Say you operate a petrol station….The results of Last Mile’s proposition, developed in partnership with Qinetiq, would allow you to communicate instantly, quickly and very cheaply with motorists who need petrol and are near you,” Shrier said. “This is a profound advance in how the Internet works, and the benefits it provides.”

We’d think these petrol-seeking motorists would be more likely to flip open a map, use a GPS device or make use of the many location based services available through WAP and mobile phones, but the real killer blow to MagicBook’s plans may come from the increasing proliferation of Wi-Fi hot spots.

Pubs, railways stations and airports and cybercafes are all falling over themselves to offer free and paid wi-fi access in the UK, with even the roadside restaurant chain Little Chef announcing free access.

Ian Gogg shares these doubts, “3G manufacturers are building location-based functionality into handsets and base-stations today. “There are also a tremendous number of Wi-Fi hot spots in place already, for which the demand is relatively weak.”

Last Mile reckons it would cost around £500 (US$933) to upgrade one lamppost to provide their service. We think it’ll be some time before we see gangs of laptop-flipping consumers hanging around their lampposts.

Lampposts to provide location-based services (news.com)
Last Mile Communications

BPI: UK CD Sales Beat The World

BPI: UK CD Sales Beat The World New figures released by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) confirm that UK music fans are the numero uno, mad-for-it music buyers in the world, with each tune-loving Brit buying on average 3.2 CDs per person per year.

The announcement comes after the UK record industry announced its best ever year for album sales, with British-signed newcomers the Scissor Sisters and Dad-pleasing rocksters Keane topping the album charts in 2004.

The figures confirm that the UK rules the sound waves with each resident buying on average 3.2 units in 2004, followed by the USA (2.8), Germany (2.2), France (2.1) and Japan (2.0).

Incredibly, the UK releases around 26,000 albums per year – second only to the US in the number of releases – with the UK market recording an overall 3.0% increase in volume sales over 2004, helped by a robust albums market.

With a record 174.6 million units sold, the UK CD albums market continued to outperform its international counterparts in 2004, growing by 4.5%.

These latest statistics follow recent BPI research showing 55.4% of the UK population between 12 and 74 shelled out for at least one album last year.

After a massive increase in online and offline unauthorised access in recent years and doomsayers lining up to predict the end of record companies, this represents a significant achievement for the UK recorded music industry.

BPI: UK CD Sales Beat The Worldeater It also raises questions about recent BPI lawsuits against alleged P2P file-swappers and the promotional role the networks may be playing.

BPI Chairman Peter Jamieson says: “The strength of the UK market in the face of worldwide decline is a testament to the skills and courage of UK record companies who have never stopped taking risks in signing and developing some of the best talent in the world.

Improving prospects for recorded music internationally is also good news for the UK since after the US we remain the world’s biggest exporter of music.”

Jamieson added: “The UK is a nation of music lovers, so it’s not surprising to see the UK at the top of this list. A slew of great new British artists have met UK music fans’ demand for great music.”

The growth in digital sales has played a major part in helping the global music business tackle its five year slump, with 200 million downloads sold in the world’s four leading digital markets (US, UK, France and Germany) last year.

The arrival of high-profile legitimate digital music services such as iTunes helped lift UK single-track sales by 4.0% in 2004 with 5.7 million downloads sold, breathing life into the British singles market.

BPI: UK CD Sales Beat The World With album bundles and sales of digital EPs also doing good business in the UK, the Official UK Charts Company estimate that the total UK market for downloads topped 9 million units in 2004.

Peter Jamieson commented: “The main choice today’s music fan now has to make is whether to get music legally or illegally. As these figures show, more and more music fans are now making the right choice and helping make great British music.”

These trend-bucking figures reflect the UK’s huge enthusiasm for music, and although the industry must be chuffed with the growth of legally downloaded music, we wonder what impact the exponential growth of broadband in the UK may have on future sales.

BPI

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five Channel Five yesterday became the first UK broadcaster to launch a legal video download store, offering DVD-quality downloads of some of the most popular features of its flagship car show, Fifth Gear, from its Web site.

Fifth Gear, produced by North One Television, is selling downloadable high-resolution videos of 12 supercar reviews, including the Porsche 911, Ferrari F430 and Mercedes McLaren SLR, all for £1.50.

Payment can be made by debit or credit card with a provision for ‘younger car enthusiasts’ to pay by mobile phone.

To get the ball rolling, the company is offering four free videos available from their Web site.

Car fans will also have access to a selection of Fifth Gear shoot-outs – one of the programmes most popular features, whereby two similarly priced or similarly powered vehicles race around a track to find out which one is fastest.

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five Powering the UK’s first legal video downloads store is a system developed by 7 Digital, the company behind download stores for a raft of leading music companies including Universal and EMI.

7 Digital’s Managing Director, Ben Drury said: “Broadcasters have seen the revenues attainable from music downloads and are eager to do the same with their own content. TV footage can work so much harder for broadcasters, with the Internet now a commercially sound distribution channel.”

Richard Pearson, Executive Producer of Fifth Gear said, “Ever since Fifth Gear launched in 2002 viewers have regularly asked whether it’s possible to purchase content. It’s great that we can expand the Fifth Gear brand in this way and give people an affordable opportunity to acquire high quality downloads of their favourite moments from the archive.”

Legal TV Downloads Offered by UK Channel Five Legal music download sites have become hugely popular in recent years, but TV companies have so far not used the same technology to put programmes online – despite British viewers being the biggest downloaders of copied TV shows.

The BBC has already run trials with what it calls its Interactive Media Player (iMP), which allows surfers to use the Internet to download and watch programmes from BBC TV and Radio

Channel 5
7Digital
Fifth Gear

London Tube Users To Get Underground Mobile Coverage by 2008

Underground Travellers To Get Tube Mobile Coverage Commuters on London’s Tube network could soon be able to bellow out, “I’M ON THE TUBE!” if trials to introduce mobile and wireless Internet connections underground from 2008 get the green light.

London Underground (LU) is planning to install technology that will give commuters mobile phone coverage in the concourse, ticketing areas and platforms of underground Tube stations – but not on trains rumbling through underground tunnels.

LU will be chatting to suppliers shortly and aims to undertake a trial of the technology at one underground station in 2006 with a view to extending it across all tube stations by 2008.

Tube bosses say there is strong support among passengers for mobile phone access across its network with plenty of companies interested in getting involved, commenting that suppliers faced “unique practical challenges” around space, power and ventilation constraints.

Underground Travellers To Get Tube Mobile Coverage LU director of strategy and service development, Richard Parry commented, “The process we launch today is to start getting information from the market about how we could best provide a mobile phones service”.

Although execs haven’t revealed how revenues would be generated and split between the operator and the Tube, any income generated would be re-invested in the Tube network to fund further improvements for passengers.

The proposals were announced by London Mayor, Ken Livingston, who said in a statement: “We know that many Londoners would like the convenience of being able to use their mobile phones at Tube stations throughout the Underground network. We also want to see how the technology could be taken even further, for instance wireless internet so passengers could receive up-to-the-minute travel information via their laptop or mobile phone.”

Underground Travellers To Get Tube Mobile Coverage An LU spokesman added “Passengers would like to have mobile coverage at Tube stations but they are less keen to have it on trains”.

Photos copyright urban75

Transport For London (The Tube)

3G Real-Time Multiplayer Gaming From 3 In UK

3 Launches Real-Time 3G Multiplayer Gaming With a long parp on their PR trumpets, 3 notched up another first with the launch of “over-the-air” real-time multiplayer games over their network.

The service will go live in April and allows up to four gamer dudes to frag the feck out of each other in real-time over the 3 network.

The first real-time multiplayer games to be made available will be No Refuge, an explosion-tastic, tank battle war game supplied by Mobile Interaction.

Next up will be Synergenix’s Lock ‘n Load, a shoot’em up game with even more explosions, followed by the turn-based multiplayer game, Cannons Tournament, a shoot and fire cannon game supplied by Macrospace. With explosions, naturally.

The real-time multiplayer gaming environment is supported on Terramove, a gaming solution from TerraPlay, allowing publishers to develop multiplayer games for the 3 network.

3 also announced advanced games boasting “near console quality”, which will, apparently, “bring the real gaming experience to UK mobile for the first time”.

The “near console quality” games will be made available to customers through the ‘Today on 3’ service and will include Rally Pro Contest and Lock ‘n Load, both 3D games.

3 Launches Real-Time 3G Multiplayer Gaming These console-esque games are being supported on the 3 network by the Mophun gaming engine that is being supplied to 3 by Synergenix.

Gareth Jones COO of 3 was on hand to big up the offering: “3 has consistently been the first to deliver the very best on 3G. As the fastest growing UK operator, this is an exciting new development in our service offering. Combined with our great value and market-leading handset portfolio, 3 continues to set the benchmark for the other operators to follow.”

Graeme Oxby, Marketing Director of 3 was quick to join the quote action: “As the success of our music service demonstrates with over 10 million downloads in 6 months, 3 has learnt how to package and deliver compelling products over 3G. In Gaming, we are doing the same thing – picking the right games for 3G and delivering services that are immediate, fun and accessible at affordable prices.”

3 is currently the only UK operator to offer customers the choice of buying and renting games. Game-junkies can either pay 25p for a one game fix or double their money for up to three days of play on a game – this lets them see if they like the gear on offer before buying it.

With the ‘buy’ option customers make a one off payment, of between £3 (US$5.7, €4.3) and £7.50 (US$14.25, €10.8) and then have continuous use of the game on their video mobile till their fingers are reduced to stubs.

The ‘near console’ quality games will initially only be available on certain models and cost £7.50.

3 Launches Real-Time 3G Multiplayer Gaming The announcement of these advanced handheld games would suggest that 3 is pro-actively targeting the lucrative console market, and looking to lure potential Gizmodo, DS and PSP customers.

We suspect that their success will depend greatly on how the games match up to the ‘near console’ quality claims.

After all, the Sinclair C5 was nearly a great idea….

Synergenix
3
Mobile Interaction

IF… TV Goes Down The Tube – The Media 2016

I was asked to be lead technical advisor to a TV show, that was originally called IF … Media 2012. Over the last six months of script alterations and shooting the direction has changed, but finally the docu-drama is airing at 11:20pm BBC2.

It’s part of the highly respected BBC’s IF … series and it examines where TV may go in the next seven years. The piece is designed to give you some further background.

There’s little doubt that the media is changing significantly … and we haven’t even reached 2012.

Computers turned office life upside down. Now they’re focused on changing entertainment.

Each stage of the process – creation, distribution, and consumption is being altered, apparently inextricably leading us to the realisation of the long-held digital mantra (repeat after me) – What You Want, When You Want, Where You Want or WYW3 as it’s may become known as.

For those of you who haven’t downloaded and faithfully listened to the podcast of this chant on your media player, let me clarify – you will be able to access/consume any piece of media (text/audio/video/etc), on what ever device you have handy, no matter where you are.

Sadly the dream starts to falls apart at this point, because your commercial music or videos will only play on equipment approved by the owner of the content (more on that later).

Change is Afoot – High Definition

The Consumer Electronics companies have been spending a huge amount of effort promoting High Definition TV (HDTV) around the content production industries. They’re telling everyone that 2005/2006 is the year that HD will start to become a major driver for buying new TV equipment.

For those who haven’t watched HDTV on a large screen – let me tell you, it’s impressive. It looks far more real that Standard Definition (SD) and makes a return to watching SD difficult.

Will the dazzle of HD blind the buying public to the loss of control they will have over what they previously thought of as “their media”?

What do I mean, loss of control? Well, there are changes underway which mean that what you previously did without thinking (eg. recording a TV show, backing up a DVD) will become difficult, and in a lot of cases illegal.

Encrypted to the Eyeball

The companies that produce/own audio recordings, video, TV shows and films don’t trust the general public (a director of a large film distributor used those very words to me). Because they don’t trust you, they want to ensure that throughout the value chain (their words – meaning from production, to you watching it), the content will remain encrypted. The only time it’s not encrypted, is when it leaves the screen or speakers and hits your eyes/ears.

This way of locking the content, called Digital Rights Management (DRM), can also restrict other factors such as, whether you can record or how long a recording can be kept for.

DRM protection is intrinsically flawed. It can be broken and traversed. Aware of this, Governments have been lobbied and they‘re making it illegal to examine how a DRM scheme might work.

In Europe this legislation is called the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD), and in the US, it’s the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act ).

Given this, it will be illegal and you will be open to prosecution, if you use a program to take a copy of disc if it has copy protection on it., unless you use an approved application. What you can do with your media will be directly controlled by its rights holder.

If you want to watch films in HD resolution in the future, you will need to ensure that your equipment (Set Top Box, screen, etc) all have a HDMI interface and are able to support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection).

After 1 July this year, it will be against US law to manufacture or sell equipment that is capable of handling/recording HD material, if they do not recognise what is referred to as the Broadcast Flag – a copyright flag that is controlled by the broadcaster. Indeed to qualify for a European “HD Ready” label equipment must support HDCP.

Old equipment might have problems. All those who have bought their dream 42” plasma screen, had better check around the back. If you don’t have full HDMI/DHCP support, your £5,000 screen will be of no use for HD content.

The Content Explosion

While content created by the current commercial entities, like studios, will become more restricted, the good news is that the places that we’ll be able to source media from will increase substantially. It won’t just be from what are currently thought of as “normal” sources.

With a TV connected to a broadband connection (and they will be broad by 2012), you will be able to access the content from around the connected world. Any subject you imagine will have content available about it.

If you’re finding it hard to visualise, think WH Smiths in 1970. Back then the whole range of magazines available to you would have been about 20. These days the groaning shelves take up half of the shop and there are 100’s of regular magazines available to you.

User Generated Content

We are in a period of an explosion of User generated content. It’s no news that this type of content is going to be huge, but it will also be diverse, plentiful and importantly, quite well indexed.

The first few rungs on the Bandwidth Ladder have been reached. Blogging tools, essentially word processors for the Web (they print Web pages not paper), have enabled people to simply generate huge amounts of content online.

Audio content is currently seeing a lot of increase through Podcasting. Already the breadth and depth of the programming available is impressive.

Video is less prevalent and some way off. The delivery and receipt of it are all possible. It’s the generation of original content that is very time consuming, as it is currently cumbersome.

The public creating programming by using pre-made segments of content, is far more achievable. But where do the segments come from?

The BBC Creative Archive is important

The Creative Archive – started as an inspirational idea. The BBC has thousands of hours of content (audio & video) in its archive, This content has already been produced and paid for by the licence payers of the UK.

The inspiration of pioneers of the project was to make this archive content available for people to be able to download, watch, re-edit and create new programming from, to share with the UK. Ideal.

Since the project was floated the BBC has been very good at making the right sounds about it – and have generated interest in the idea around the world.

I hope that the loss of Paula LeDieu a joint- head of the project will not be too big a blow. I also hope the BBC delivers what it has spoken about – a wide range of free programming, which can be freely edited.

To maintain its highly regarded position in the world, the BBC must not continue to make bold new media statements, only to not deliver them. Failure to do so will reflect badly on the whole of the BBC.

Ofcom – Hands off the Internet

Given the restrictions that will be hoisted on to users of media, it is all the more important that there is no restriction on flow of information that can come down your Internet connection. By 2012 this will include your radio and TV.

Having been technical supervisor for the show, seeing the script going through the twists and turns before coming to life – the decision to bring the dark side of IPTV (Internet delivered TV) to centre stage disappointed me.

I felt the programme helps the argument of those who want to control and restrict the Internet and the video/audio it could provide, missing the opportunity to highlight the many great advantages about having a free IP-based media.

I feel it’s important that the limitation of what people can access over the Internet is decided by the individual or household, not an external, overseeing Quango like OfCom.

Conclusion

As with any massive change, there are going to be advantages and disadvantages. I think the advantages of a new form of media, where everyone is able to contribute is a good thing. Any objectionable programmes like The Cage, while they may generate a lot of headlines, are ultimately insignificant when weighed against the advantages against a freer media.

It is vital to a healthy society that expressions are freely available to all, without restriction.

If you see the show, it would be great to hear your thoughts simon(at)Digital-Lifestyles.info.

>BBC IF …