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Andrew

Listed below are comments made by Andrew between Saturday, 6th September 2008 and Wednesday, 9th December 2009.

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Round Up: Internet Radio 10:05pm on 09 Dec 2009 On the Internet radio front is there any ETA on making the low bandwidth (WMA) radio streams available to international users? The current WMA streams appear to be geo-restricted to the UK, which is causing some issues for overseas Internet radio users in particular.
RealMedia - an update 10:20pm on 07 Oct 2009 I'll second Paul's comments. I still get hundreds of hits every day at www.iplayerconverter.co.uk from people needing the RealAudio version of BBC radio programming (many are Internet Radio users, some use mobile phones which can't run Flash) so it would be reassuring to hear that you'll continue to provide access to direct streams via the XML feeds, or even consider opening up the current obsfuscated AAC/MP3 streams for access by third parties
"How about one-and-a-half?" Torchwood on Radio 4 10:49pm on 08 Jul 2009 The BBC didn't make the BBC7 Doctor Who radio plays. They were made by a company called Big Finish which has had the license to do Doctor Who audio adventures on CD for donkey's years, and was commissioned by the BBC to make the BBC7 radio plays. I've bought a number of them and the sound design is excellent with a proper use of sound effects and music to enhance the drama without being distracting. Perhaps if the BBC do more Torchwood they ought to consider outsourcing it in the same way?
The new web site: one week on 11:34pm on 13 Apr 2009 For those that are struggling in the absence of a Listen Again type page I suggest you try http://www.iplayerconverter.co.uk . If you choose Browse Audio on Demand / Listen Again listings and then Radio 4 you should get a list of all radio content that's available on iPlayer, with clickable links to play the content in RealPlayer.

I'm afraid the site doesn't have the historical content that the old Radio 4 site did, as that's not in the BBC Backstage XML feeds that power the site.

Disclaimer - I'm the author of the above site. It's not a BBC site but it is done under the auspices of their Backstage project that allows sites like mine to reuse BBC content.
Better audio for BBC Radio online 10:42pm on 18 Feb 2009 Now you've launched AAC streams is there any news on the Windows Media Audio version of Listen Again programming that was supposed to be launching back in January? As I understand it one of the great benefits of Coyopa is that it's now relatively easy for you to transcode programming into pretty much any format you want to.

Also, on a geeky point, any reason why you're running all the AAC through Akamai, therefore making it pretty difficult to use the streams outside of iPlayer? It would be fantastic if you could expose individual URLs in the same way you do with the RealAudio version of programmes.
BBC Radio in iPlayer - sounds even better, with more to come 11:21pm on 15 Dec 2008 Glad to hear it's all coming together nicely.

I'm interested to hear new audio streams are coming for internet radios - there have been quite a few problems recently with existing Internet radios not being able to pick up the existing Real streams properly in the last few weeks (presumably since Copoya was let loose) - any plans to make sure the manufacturers actually test their shiny new products this time before the entire country buys kit that turns out not to work reliably?

Just to clarify this is no criticism of the Beeb, but rightly or wrongly you'll probably end up getting the blame if Joe Public gets a new wifi radio and finds it doesn't work reliably!

PS - whilst you're at it now you've got Copoya out of the way can you fix all the missing views on the /programmes XML feeds!

Andrew
The latest on Coyopa, the Mayan God of thunderous noises 10:55am on 04 Oct 2008 It's not just mobile devices like the N95 where people are struggling with the new iPlayer service; spare a thought for people with Internet radio devices as well.

Don't get me wrong - I think iPlayer is a fantastic idea - but it's not a panacea. The reason the BBC used RealAudio for so long was because for many years it was the nearest thing to a 'standard' for playing audio, as it was available on just about every computer platform you can think of, plus mobile devices, embedded devices, etc. Flash is going to take years to reach that level of ubiquity outside of the PC/Mac market, so there's going to be a role for RealAudio for some time to come! I just hope the BBC's contract with RealNetworks isn't running out any time soon!

Shameless plug to end with - as a keen radio addict I cobbled up http://www.iplayerconverter.co.uk to provide Real links for BBC radio. The main difference with beebotron is that they use screen-scraping whilst I use the /programmes XML feeds the Radio Labs released a couple of months ago.
XML feeds for Listen Again content 4:51pm on 08 Sep 2008 Alan - I'm the author of iplayerconverter . Although the first version (up for about a week) screen-scraped, the current version uses a combination of the /programmes XML feeds and the new mediaselector XML. No screen-scraping here!

I think the big problem is not so much the feeds (which we're all very keen on and grateful for) but the fact that there appears to be something seriously wrong with the underlying audio data (particularly the Real data). I think the ra files are OK - to my humble eye it looks like the generation of the .ram files (which of course the mediaselector XML points to) that is going wrong.
XML feeds for Listen Again content 8:51pm on 06 Sep 2008 It's great to see the Audio on Demand feeds are finally working. The documentation has been quite useful as well.

Sadly you do seem still to be having quite a lot of problems with the audio behind the feeds, particularly the Real Audio versions of programmes. I hope you're able to fix that soon.

In the meantime, I've whipped up some new pages based on the new XML data at http://www.iplayerconverter.co.uk and I look forward to seeing what else the you chappies in Radio can offer.

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