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andrew646

Listed below are comments made by andrew646 between Wednesday, 22nd April 2009 and Monday, 28th September 2009.

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Desert Island Discs comes to iPlayer 11:39am on 28 Sep 2009 Excellent news indeed! Any chance of repeats, on Radio 7 perhaps or a late-night Radio 4 slot, or of hearing some of those moments you mentioned on the new website?
BBC HD: Autumn Schedule 00:33am on 24 Sep 2009 I'm rather confused about the references to Strictly Come Dancing clashing with Match of the Day; only 10 minutes (from 7.25 to 7.35) of the football this Saturday clashes with Strictly Come Dancing (which could easily be postponed by 10 minutes).

The real clash is with Hole in the Wall (which is scheduled from 6.10 to 6.40pm).
Freeview HD Copy Protection Update 10:30am on 23 Sep 2009 @HD1080: The Wotsat blog post I posted the link to quotes Ofcom's reasoning:

'Ofcom said: "If AVC level 4.2 were to be adopted, manufacturers reported that they would then feel compelled to bring only 1080p50-compatible products to market. This would have the effect of delaying availability of DVB-T2 / MPEG-4 products by at least one year, possibly more, and would probably result in a material cost uplift.

"We now feel that while the setting of an AVC level of 4.2 at this point is desirable, its adoption would also represent a significant risk to the early launch of the DVB-T2 platform."'

It seems pretty clear to me that Ofcom has decided that the cost of delaying Freeview HD by a year (or more) and making the receivers considerably more expensive is not justified by the benefit of having 1080p50-capable Freeview HD receivers. Ofcom has made its decision, and what the BBC does on copy protection won't affect it.

Also, I think you have misread the BBC blog above. Graham Plumb is arguing that it was a choice between delaying the launch of Freeview HD or launching Freeview HD on schedule with a copy-protection hack (encrypting the look-up tables). He is clear that they have chosen the latter option to avoid delaying the launch (although he confusingly says that Freeview HD will launch in 2010, whereas before we had been given the date on this blog as 2 December 2009, which is when the Granada region completes its switch to digital: http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/when_do_i_switch/granada/winter_hill ).

Finally, I just wanted to say that I agree with all the previous commenters who said that this won't affect the availability of unauthorised content on the Internet at all; that it will however inconvenience (at the very least) those wanting to build their own Freeview HD tuners (especially in open-source software); and that it is a worrying development that the BBC is putting the interests of content owners before the interests of the licence fee payers and the BBC's commitment to free-to-air television.
Freeview HD Copy Protection Update 02:19am on 23 Sep 2009 @HD1080: 1080p50, or more specifically AVC 4.2, was ruled out by Ofcom for Freeview HD for the current generation of receivers back in February:

http://blog.wotsat.com/page/whatsat?entry=freeview_hd_won_t_have
BBC HD: Autumn Schedule 7:33pm on 20 Sep 2009 @paul_geaton: Yes, it's not perhaps as obvious as it should be, but once you get to the 'G' page ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a-z/by/g ) this only shows 'Current' programmes ('programmes from the past week and the week to come, or available now on BBC iPlayer') and then you have to click 'All' (to get to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a-z/by/g/all ) and then scroll or CTRL+F to find the programme you're looking for. Unfortunately for some letters more than others, there are a lot of duplicate programme entries which makes the lists much longer than they should be. S for instance has 2318 (!) 'brands' in the list: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/a-z/by/s/all
BBC HD: Autumn Schedule 1:23pm on 20 Sep 2009 @paul_geaton: Do you know about /programmes? It's a very useful way to find out when a programme or series is going to be broadcast (in the next seven days or so) and when it has been broadcast in the past and on which channel(s).

So for Getting On, for instance, you can find it by going to http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes and then either searching for it or by browsing through the A-Z list. For Getting On specifically though, it's easier just to Google it:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q="getting+on"

Click on the first result, which takes you to the 'brand' page ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lpnr4 ) and then you can click on Episode 3 for example and see all the broadcasts ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lszq0#broadcasts ), which tells you that it was shown on BBC HD on 22 July and 28 July.

I agree though that the promotion and marketing of what's on in HD can definitely be improved, but unfortunately I think many of the problems are caused by not being able to simulcast most programmes in HD when they are first broadcast in SD, due to everything having to be squeezed onto 1 HD channel.
Interesting Stuff 2009-12-05: BBC iPlayer round-up 4:07pm on 26 May 2009 Might be a good idea to change the title of this post, "2009-12-05" implies 5 December 2009.
Subtitles on BBC iPlayer Update 3:23pm on 26 May 2009 I have noticed that the majority of live programmes on iPlayer now consistently seem to have subtitles, e.g.: The Daily Politics, Working Lunch, Newsnight, The One Show, Watchdog, BBC News bulletins on BBC One, etc.

Well done, and keep up the good work :)
Experts concerned about potential flu pandemic 5:10pm on 26 Apr 2009 @terblogger7: From reading some articles on Wikipedia (yes I know, but these ones have references to reliable sources) I think the term is "cytokine storms":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza_pandemic#Spanish_Flu_.281918.E2.80.931920.29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cytokine_storm#Role_in_pandemic_deaths
Buyer's Guide on The Archers Website 2:37pm on 22 Apr 2009 This seems like a good idea, and I hope you expand it to cover DVDs and books soon.

Some comments:
* I think you should give a "From" price for each format on the main product page (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/buyersguide/product/99 ), so that you can get an idea of price without clicking both of the links.
* On the specific product page (e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/buyersguide/retailers/9781405687850 ) for CDs and other physical products that you may include in the future, I think you should add a column for total price (i.e. including P+P).
* Also on the specific product page, the columns should be sortable (ideally with JavaScript so you don't have to reload the page) which would mean you could click the Total Price heading (suggested in previous comment) and easily see where the price is lowest. It's obviously easy to see at the moment, but once you get up to 5 or 6 retailers it becomes harder.

And I assume you meant 'kbps' instead of 'kbpm' in the FAQ: http://www.bbc.co.uk/buyersguide/faq#compression and http://www.bbc.co.uk/buyersguide/suppliers

Also there's a typo on the Suppliers Info page: tehir

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