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alanogilvie

Listed below are comments made by alanogilvie between Tuesday, 16th September 2008 and Thursday, 26th November 2009.

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Identifying your Internet Radio services 5:23pm on 26 Nov 2009 "RTMP is now available as an open specification to create products and technology that enable delivery of video, audio, and data in the open AMF, SWF, FLV, and F4V formats compatible with Adobe Flash Player."
LiveText-via-IP upgrade and other synchronously delivered content 3:10pm on 16 Nov 2009 @Sam Starling - when we began the work we considered many possible push notification systems. These were assessed with the same metrics that I outlined above - open source protocol, community support, pedigree, flexibility and scope. During the delivery of our project, it became possible to evaluate initial drafts of RadioDNS's RadioVIS specification which suggests use of STOMP (and COMET).

@Start spreading... (is that your real name?): I will get someone to take a look at that.
RealMedia - an update 6:56pm on 29 Oct 2009 I wanted to just refer a few of you to the 'Further Help' section of the post - the stream links for current RealMedia and Windows Media streams can be found in the 'Where can I find...' FAQs.

My reports suggest that Reciva based devices can listen to Radio 4 live and listen again, even in Finland. ;-) Reciva have a very good customer forum that you might like to have a look through, or contact their customer support if you are still unable to access the streams.

I'm going to be posting an update soon on our relationship with Internet Radio devices.

I also see a couple of comments around the new 48kbps Flash simulcast streams - if you could include in your comments information about specific devices, and you might like to test your connection speed. If you have specific issues - check the help section mentioned in the post.
What happens to The Proms after the Royal Albert Hall? 4:29pm on 20 Oct 2009 Web iPlayer - 'HD' content - audio is presented as 192kbps stereo AAC-LC.

iPlayer 'HD' on Virgin Media is presented as 256kbps MPEG1 Layer 2 audio.

So - in answer to @rhughes2832 - the Web iPlayer 'HD' is equivalent of the R3 Simulcast stream.

Interesting comparison between 192kbps AAC-LC and 256kbps MP1L2 - in prior listening test we've done (so not a specific test for this comparison) I would find an 'average' ear not hearing much difference between those two. Although a 'golden' ear would hear certain compression artefacts.

Alan
RealMedia - an update 12:09pm on 13 Oct 2009 @BobBoring - in the post we mention that Windows Media audio is available globally. The previous mixed solution of some streams being available to UK audiences only in Windows Media has been eradicated.

If we turn off RealMedia there must be an alternative for those listeners - the alternative is Windows Media. No devices only support RealMedia codecs. Windows Media is a commonly supported alternative, which also comes with an infrastructure that is clear and scalable for all our listeners.

We are committed to a mixed economy of formats because of the differences in platforms that our audiences use. We prioritise these in terms of RQIV.

Alan Ogilvie
BBC Audio & Music, Interactive Platform Producer (IP)
My Street View of shame... 10:31am on 23 Mar 2009 It's interesting that more is said about this than about 'oblique aerial photography' (OAP). An excellent example is Microsoft's 'Live' Maps - which have a 'bird's eye' using OAP. Here's an example of Broadcasting House - http://tinyurl.com/w1a1aa

Apparently OAP is used by many councils to monitor for offences of the planning laws. Like looking for new extensions to housing, additional windows... etc.

Streetview certainly goes a step further, but why should anyone panic... it's a bit like the people that panic over 'id cards' ... doesn't anyone realise that they are already there, it's the mobile phone that everyone carries!

Giving up some areas of privacy in order to get something useful.

Big Brother? It's a little late to complain.
How we make websites 1:26pm on 31 Jan 2009 In my days as a web-developer I remember giving a presentation at the Design Council about 7 years ago with colleagues from information architecture and design. We presented how important it is to make sure all areas are represented when starting to build a website.

Michael's presentation, as I understand it, is from a stage further on from the beginning - as there obviously has to be input from engineering about what is possible.

By maintaining collaboration effort between the disciplines during development - engineering, design, information architecture and the 'business' - successful delivery can be achieved. In the same way as one wouldn't wish to end up with something that looks fantastic, but performs so poorly that is unusable - we wouldn't want to have something that has all the amazing engineering to make it top-performing but the interface is unusable.

I remember working for an agency where we worked on a key implementation of a new CMS system for a big organisation. If it hadn't been for engineering work with information architecture we wouldn't have used all the facilities that CMS had available as the engineers were able to interpret the CMS and explain those features to the Information Architects. In the other direction - the IAs pushed the engineers to make the CMS 'sing' so we could implement, what was described by the CMS company, the most innovative use of their technology at the time.

Team work.
BBC Radio in iPlayer - sounds even better, with more to come 3:18pm on 11 Jan 2009 Don't manage to get to posting much, but I look after much of the relationships with device manfs who make WiFi Radios and the like, whilst trying to maintain the overall strategy of where we are going for distribution of our content via the internet. So I thought I'd answer a couple of recent comments...

@ian_heys:

It is right to question licensing of aacPlus in the device world, as it is any 'recent' codec. It always takes some time for manfs to see the need for support of a codec - having broadcasters make a commitment to deliver streams in that codec helps manfs see how necessary it will become. By us providing aacPlus-based streams, alongside our other offerings is our way of putting a stake in the ground and saying "this is an important codec". When we originally identified the requirements of Coyopa, approx 4 years ago, we came up with a flexible infrastructure that will allow us to provide multiple codecs in a variety of streaming protocols. This was designed to allows us to change and react to emerging trends out there. (AAC-LC, traditionally just referred to as AAC, is something we are implementing - as we are looking at the aacPlus 'family' as a whole which includes HE-AAC, AACPlus v2, AAC-LC...)

@minker1:

If you are referring to the Live streams, which I think you are, then I can tell you that all those RealAudio streams are coming from the pre-Coyopa infrastructure. If you've spotted a distortion that hasn't been fixed, please do contact us here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/contact/

Fixing certain aspects of the older infrastructure is a lot more difficult, hence Coyopa.

Once the Coyopa infrastructure comes online for RealAudio then this is a situation which will be resolved.

GENERAL:

Reading through your comments, I realised that there is something I should comment on - the bitrate/offering in the UK streams is different from Non-UK streams.

We aim to make sure that confusion is reduced about the availability of radio channels on the internet, and that anything offered in the UK retains a comparable offering non-UK where possible.

Unfortunately, I think it goes without saying, that the phrase 'where possible' is annoying but I'm sure some of you will understand that things certainly aren't plain sailing in deliver of Internet Radio. I can only remind you of the BBC 'Public Purposes' which help inform us whilst setting strategy and decision making - http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/purpose/public_purposes/
XML feeds for Listen Again content 10:41am on 14 Oct 2008 Radio 4 feed has been fixed.

Also - now everything has the correct XML identifier.
XML feeds for Listen Again content 8:14pm on 16 Sep 2008 Thank you all for your input - whether it is the comments here, or the emails you send. I do read it all, apart from the stuff that ends up in my spam filter.

As I said previously - supporting 'non-web page listening' is something we are more than keen on. But in order to do it properly - we need feeds to support our device manufacturers, aggregators and developers.

In order to create the feeds we have to 'break a few eggs', it's a difficult time for us - but we hope to have a beautiful [egg-based?] product at the end that supports us for the future.

We've not exposed the data in this way before, and we expected some 'airing of dirty laundry' (can I 'air-punctuate' any more? doh).

In exposing the schedule in this way we have posed ourselves quite a few questions - for example: are we seeing things that were wrong before but it was difficult to track down. There is so much of our audio available that it simply wasn't practical to check everything. The key term there - wasn't. With the feed we are also using it as a monitoring loop to check other possible points of failure.

There many other questions, and we are trying to knock each of them into shape. Honest.

I had sleepless nights over our avid listeners on RadioPlayer getting a worse experience. But I convinced myself that 'breaking the eggs' (yes, again) was the way forward and we'd all be in a better position.

...and we are, you may feel that it isn't - but trust me, it's getting there.

The amounts of audio content we deal with, the way that it's encoded and delivered is immense and we have to enact change within the boundaries that our BBC places around us.

If you contacted me, I have recorded your comments and it helps us focus our plans where necessary. I can't reply directly to everyone all the time, so if you feel that I should have replied - my apologies, I hope you can understand and please don't stop feeding me your comments.

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