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Christopher Woods

Listed below are comments made by Christopher Woods between Tuesday, 12th August 2008 and Thursday, 14th May 2009.

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Nostaligia-fest on PM tonight! 2:12pm on 14 May 2009 Oh wow, I've just listened to the old recordings... The 1996 one takes me back! (I was a little older than 11 in 1996 and Radio 4 was always on)

To be honest I maintain that a dubstep remix of either the first version (from the 70s) or even the 90s version would go down exceptionally well with your 20somethings who are into that kind of thing ;)

Maybe offer up the stems for remix? That'd be an interesting Creative Commons project.
Nostaligia-fest on PM tonight! 07:05am on 14 May 2009 If you've got time before 5pm, you might do well to 'snazz it up a bit'. Perhaps do a dubstep remix (or for those who are a little less adventurous, get Brian Eno on the phone, he's already done The Archers' theme).

Having never heard the original (and not wanting to go researching myself before I hear it this evening), I'd like to think that it's a rousing march-tempo tune with a hint of more serious authority to it (such as the circa-early-90s TV News theme)... Although as long as it's not like the post-apocalyptic soft-rave music that is today's TV news theme I'll be quite happy ;)
The greatest car chase in the world 6:00pm on 04 Apr 2009 Just thought of one other thing that'd be totally ace - multi-camera, full length replays of the race (or even a live equivalent to the red button interactive options). I had great fun last weekend toggling between the main feed, the in-car and main and the various audio soundtracks. No Commentary was a great inclusion to really get a good listen to those wonderful V10s!

It might be a massive job to make all that available (and in-sync) with just a Flash player for the live broadcast, but given how well the other mixed-media interactive features have been executed, I wouldn't put it past the interactive team to be able to produce a capable player. To allow the viewer to effectively become their own producer for the length of the race, picking the camera angles and audio commentary, would be great fun (and highly engaging).

Not everybody can experience all the red button interactive features during the live race, so to have some of those multi-angles and alternative commentaries available again for on-demand replays would be an excellent addition.
The greatest car chase in the world 5:53pm on 04 Apr 2009 I have to congratulate the Beeb on their F1 coverage - I saw the site evolving over the first weekend, and it's now really good. A massive breadth of content, loads of video content to flesh out the reports (it's great to see all of the available multimedia leveraged on the web site)... And the new features, such as the Flash Track Guides are officially a Very Cool Thing. Being able to toggle between a 3D flythrough at your own pace, or Mark Webber commentating over a flyer on the same track, is a very enjoyable way to waste a few minutes.

The aggregated video and audio content makes it far easier to see all the various tidbits of media without having to scour around for it, and all the other stuff just adds more to the initial stories and reports.

My only criticisms: make the banner at the top of every F1 page clickable to return you to the front page of the BBC F1 portal - a big omission from a usability standpoint! But when the only thing people are complaing about is that they can't click the top banner image to go back to the front page, I think on the whole the BBC F1 webteam are doing pretty well. Can't wait to see what goodies arrive in the next few weeks for us F1 fans!

@The_Phazer - as it's been explained to me on the Backstage mailing list, the red button content is harder to capture and digitise because of the way it's broadcast. I guess it's because they use standard receivers hooked up to the digitising equipment to capture the audio and video, and the red button features (as interactive extras) aren't as easily tuned into by the automated systems.

John O'Donovan explained it thus:

"It's more of a problem with access to the media and the different workflow around Red Button which means content coming through this route (especially live) is not so easy to record and deliver to iPlayer.

You will find these programmes on the Sport Site and there are plans to allow these to appear in iPlayer."
U2 - Live from My Office 4:44pm on 01 Mar 2009 So, er, does this mean that the Beeb is going to start doing more rooftop gigs to help promote new artists? What would be far better are some rooftop gigs for (truly) upcoming, quality artists who could do with some good free publicity far more than U2 does - I'm sure sales figures for their latest album would be just fine even if they didn't have a licence payer funded gig to help. ;)

Just seems a little hypocritical of the Beeb flying their "In New Music We Trust" flag, then little more than a year later giving a free gig in a coveted setting to a band that's been around for twenty years... Or is this just the start of a whole series of rooftop gigs? That would be genuinely exciting to see.
BBC HD DOG Level: Your Comments 00:15am on 08 Sep 2008 Some comments about BBC HD first - I've heard that when comparing the BBC HD feed of the Olympics to the Eurosport feed, the Eurosport feed far surpassed the BBC HD feed in terms of PQ and SQ. This worries me; although I watched the opening ceremony on a friend's TV on SkyHD, it did look alright - but not standout spectacular. I did flick infrequently between Eurosport HD but I wasn't in "analytical" mode - but I've heard more than a handful of people saying similar things. I hope that the PQ of BBC HD will continue to be improved as the service matures, because having a Public Service Broadcaster whose flagship HD broadcast is bested by a commercial FTA sports channel is embarrassing to say the least.

On to the DOGs now... I find it very interesting that, once again, this discussion has gravitated towards DOGs - it's something I feel strongly about myself. (cue massive coment on DOGs)

Contrary to what some in the industry may argue, particularly at broadcasters, DOGs are becoming increasingly unnecessary in this multi-channel day and age. People tune to the BBC channels because they want to - and it's hard to mistake a BBC channel for a.n.other commercial station (for starters, there's no ads! - and then, simply bringing up the search and scan banner will quite clearly indicate which channel you're on).

DOGs should be minimised as much as possible, or ideally be rid of entirely. They do nothing to further my viewing experience, they do not increase brand loyalty nor do they promote the brand. The new BBC Three logo encodes horribly and displays horribly on some boxes due to the shocking pink used (some chipsets don't do well and you get horrible blocking around the edges of the letters) - and to have a DOG on BBC HD is totally unnecessary altogether.

In the interim, while the DOGs are kept, for once the BBC should follow Sky's idea - they've moved their DOGs for Sky1, Sky2 and Sky3 right to the top-left corner of the screen, making clear their intention to drop the facade that people still watch the channels in 4:3 mode. I applauded (and thanked) them for their choice, and the BBC should do the same.

Going further, the iPlayer video content should be deDOGged altogether - I seriously doubt that anybody would seriously sit there and screenscrape the Flash Video file (or download it, it is possible although very tricky) just to reupload it to a public video sharing site! The quality would be abysmal and the picture almost unwatchable.

There's also little danger of similar happening to DRMed WMV files, because if you tried to upload them to most sites they would go "WMV isn't supported" - and YouTube wouldn't have the licence to decode the DRMed video anyway! The BBC dog is unnecessary, it decreases the efficiency of the codec and wastes valuable bits. I could have higher quality video but instead I have to put up with a blocky, poorly encoded BBC logo right up in the top left corner of my screen on all my iPlayer videos. Why?

The DOG is a leftover from the halcyon days of 1990s satellite broadcasting - the BBC haven't DOGged BBC1 and BBC2 because they know there'd be uproar. BBC Three and Four are only DOGged because they're comparatively niche (yet popular) channels, but even so the choice is still an unpopular one.

Having a DOG on screen is verging on insulting in this day and age - almost like treating the viewer with contempt, as if to say, "hey, we don't think you're clever enough to know which channel you're currently watching, never mind the fact that you probably tuned the digibox to this channel yourself and you've probably been watching since you did so... And never mind the fact that at the touch of a button you could see which channel it is on your digibox, and then you could close the box and return to unfettered viewing".

DOGs across the BBC should be put to sleep for good. The only exception to this is BBC News, because it forms part of the screen furniture - but that's it. On the Radio stations you have your occasional idents, but you don't have someone announcing "you are currently listening to Radio 4.... you are currently listening to Radio 4... You are currently listening to Radio 4..." over the top of whatever programme is currently being broadcast - but that, to me, is the equivalent of a DOG on a TV channel. They should be had rid of post haste.
Open Industry Standards For Audio & Video On The Web 4:55pm on 12 Aug 2008 Positive rumblings... I like the overall sound of this, but I look forward to more concrete steps being taken in the near future. Very encouraging to hear pro-Open Standards noises from Mr. Huggers, particularly given his employment history (something I know many others are also keeping a keen eye on). Is this Mr. Hugger's attempt to show us all that he is actually he's not just Microsoft's "man inside", and that he's not going to be naturally biased towards a Windows-based solution as a result of his past work?

Is this the first sign of Mr. Huggers taking the open standards baton and forging ahead towards free, open standards on a viable platform to the benefit of all in the UK? Thinking ahead, taking an important step like this can only be beneficial in opening up the BBC's programming to the many people who wish to create something more from it; PVR manufacturers, individuals coding their own mashups for the benefit of other web users?

I'm sure some people have some amazing ideas which we can't conceive of right now, but by providing this stepping stone the spark will be provided for other peoples' ideas... (Maybe iPlayer on my Pocket PC phone isn't too far away after all, either?)

The cynic in me wonders whether what we'll end up seeing is H.264 being wrapped in DRMed Windows Media filetypes, which is not really progress at all - just a sidestep. That would be a step in the wrong direction, but hopefully something like this will never happen. Equally, H.264 inside a FLV wrapper won't be much good either - would we be too optimistic to hope for plain old video files in plain old H.264? (Flash fallback would of course have to stay for people who aren't ready to migrate... but will we have the option?)

Either way, I look forward to seeing what happens from here. Let's hope this is the start of something really good!

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Christopher Woods