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2Bdecided

Listed below are comments made by 2Bdecided between Monday, 16th February 2009 and Wednesday, 21st October 2009.

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BBC Red Button Changes on Freeview 11:00am on 21 Oct 2009 "Reason to get freesat".

Not really. You get more interactive streams on Freesat than on Freeview, but there's no little weather video loop etc etc. You need Sky to get the complete service (an old sky box, no subscription, will do fine).

Also, you can set most Freeview PVRs to record the interactive streams, as they were also listed as normal channels (301, 302). It doesn't work this way on any other platform.

I suppose the problem is that Aunty has never explained that the Freeview service is limited and crippled - but in reality it _always_ has been, and now is more so.

I wonder if this current move, ahead of when it was really needed, and dropping more than necessarily needed to be dropped, has been calculated to cause maximum upset in the hope of pushing OfCom's hand. After all, it was OfCom alone who said "lets fit HD into the same space we originally allocated for SD - we're not giving any of the "spare" old analogue TV spectrum that we're about to clear back to TV broadcasting - we want to sell it to mobile phone/internet companies instead!".

Cheers,
David.
BBCHD and DRM: A Response to Cory Doctorow 4:20pm on 12 Oct 2009 "But I'm reminded of the concerns that were expressed about DRM and iPlayer two years ago. Well the DRM is still on it..."

...not on the streaming version - which is precisely why it has such good cross-platform support, while the download version doesn't.

Cheers,
David.
BBCHD and DRM: A Response to Cory Doctorow 4:17pm on 12 Oct 2009 "As I stated in my previous post, this is simply incorrect. Standard definition outputs from HD receivers will be unaffected, so existing DVD and VHS recorders can be used to record all HD programmes in standard definition."

...but whereas a DVD recorder can record the nice quality SD RGB version from any source now, the new boxes (Freesat, and presumable Freeview HD) only allow an SD composite version to be output from the HD channels - no RGB.

Which in English means the HD channels look far worse than they should.

Even on SD TVs or recorders, the HD channels _should_ look better than the SD channels (because the SD channels are often really sub-SD!) - but with this restriction, the nice quality HD channels will look really horrible on SD TVs or recorders - far worse than the existing SD channels.

That aside, we have two extreme views arguing here. Proponents of "free software" are often wrong, and the BBC is often wrong.

You should see what's happening in Germany - the (previously) free-to-air channels are _encrypting_ their HD broadcasts. Not just the EPG, but the actual video and audio.

Cheers,
David.
Welcome to some new initials - DRM, HDCP, DTCP and AACS! 12:36pm on 17 Apr 2009 I love the assumption in this discussion that everyone involved will (or should) act rationally.

Since when did the world work like that?!

Cheers,
David.
Welcome to some new initials - DRM, HDCP, DTCP and AACS! 7:21pm on 16 Apr 2009 I wonder if the rights holders understand what free-to-air actually means?

(I know the answer to this: some understand perfectly, others understand very little, and their lawyers are a pain in both cases!)

However, I wonder if they know that, outside of licensed systems like Sky and Freesat, manufacturers are completely free to make FTA capable boxes which completely ignore all flags, and output everything in the clear via any connection that has been (or will be) invented?

So it's not just PCs with DVB-S cards that ignore these flags on FTA channels - it's every piece of equipment which operates outside of a licensing regime - and of course, as the content is FTA, every manufacturer is free to build such equipment - it's fully within the law.

As you probably know, some Freesat boxes already have an option to drop into a generic receiver mode, where they still receive the FTA channels, but ignore the Freesat licensing restrictions, and output everything completely in the clear.

Good move though BBC - allowing one copy. It shows you're having the right conversations.

(If the channel was FTV through a real CA system, it would mean more - but I for one am glad that BBC channels are FTA!)

Cheers,
David.
Coyopa's guts 3:15pm on 25 Mar 2009 It's great to hear it's a serious resilient broadcast system - I'm sure the day will come when your on-line delivery becomes more important than your traditional broadcast delivery.

However, if there's so much fault resilience, how come days of radio content go missing on the iPhone?

Don't believe me? Try listening on-demand to anything from Friday. I've only tried Radio 4, but several things just aren't there: Feedback, Something Understood... I had to visit my PC(!) to catch the last two episodes of book of the week (from the foothills).

Is Coyopa responsible for this? Or does it go somewhere else?

btw, the iPlayer on-demand Radio 4 audio sounds quite rough on the iPhone, whereas Radio 3 programmes sound good (sometimes very good), so it's not faulty hardware at this end.

Cheers,
David.
Better audio for BBC Radio online 09:56am on 05 Mar 2009 There are drop outs in this one:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hs6lj/Im_Sorry_I_Havent_A_Clue_26_02_2009/

e.g. at 05:59. There are lots throughout the whole programme - nothing to do with buffering, connections etc - they're on the iPlayer recording, in exactly the same place if re-played.

The programme will probably have expired by the time anyone read this ;)

Cheers,
David.
Repeats 2:35pm on 20 Feb 2009 I love Radio 4. Having (almost) the entire output available via iPlayer is a revelation.
Better audio for BBC Radio online 1:48pm on 20 Feb 2009 @James,

Your dynamic range compression shreds some kinds of music.

It's not a subtle "oh the loud parts aren't quite as loud as they should be" - it's a "it sounds like something is badly broken here".

The worst example I've heard is here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00hjzr9/Nigel_Ogden_The_Organist_Entertains_17_02_2009/
Listen to 27:04. In fact, listen from 26:00 so you hear just how badly it goes wrong at 27:04 when the loud part kicks in.

You don't have to be some kind of obsessive audiophile to notice the problem here - this piece of music gets played at most weddings, so most people have heard it on a live church organ - sounding absolutely nothing like this!

There are plenty of similar examples across Radios 3 and 2 on non-pop music - the _very_ loudest parts crash against some kind of hard limiter, and get shredded.

Cheers,
David.
Better audio for BBC Radio online 12:44pm on 16 Feb 2009 @ James,

I really pity you. The fact that some people can't understand "it's a test" is a bit worrying. Switch the streams on and off at random - that'll get the message through! ;)

However, you said "(In this way, it's easy to compare Radio2/6music, or Radio4/Radio7, which is similar audio from the same broadcast location)"

I wish it was that easy. Those pairs of stations have never sounded the same to my ears (whatever platform), even when playing identical content.

A simpler comparison to gauge 128k vs 96k would be helpful - e.g. two feeds of the same station, or two versions of one on-demand programme, one at 96k, the other at 128k. Then people can listen, and draw their own conclusions. You could even label them "A" and "B" rather than 96k and 128k and then find out if people can really hear a difference, or are just imagining it. It depends whether you really want to know what people really hear.

Cheers,
David.

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