About the AV Showcase
- What is the Showcase?
- The Showcase is a one-stop shop for all the BBC's short form music clips. For the first time it brings together a whole load of audio-visual music clips into a simple, easy to access playback experience.
- Who is it designed for?
- The Showcase has been designed for a wide audience including time-pressed users looking for the freshest, most popular content; people who would like recommendations from BBC Music Guides or users who already know what they're looking for.
- What kind of content can I watch or listen to on the Showcase?
- Content is mainly clipped content from BBC Radio live music sessions, concerts and interviews. There's a good mix of audio and video clips. Where we can we are also including clips from television programmes such as Later… with Jools Holland and others where live performances are filmed.
- How is content organised in the Showcase?
- Content is packaged in a variety of interesting and accessible ways. These include Collections (see section below), 'Just Added', 'Most Popular', 'Last Chance', 'More Like This' and 'Elsewhere on the BBC'. For users who know what they’re looking for or just want to browse the content, we also have the 'Artist Quick Find' tool and 'Browse Clips' function.
- Why is it labelled as an 'alpha' release?
- This is the first version to be released to the web and, although the site has been rigorously tested, it still has some known issues and bugs. There may also be intermittent performance issues typical of an 'alpha' website release. If you believe you've encountered a bug whilst using the Showcase, please let us know at www.bbc.co.uk/music/feedback
- Why is the BBC Music site still in beta?
- The Music site remains in Beta as we are in the process of rebuilding and re-engineering our music service. In 2011 we will gradually start to add the Showcase to the current Music site and update the visual identity and design of the new product.
- Where can I use the Showcase?
- Right now the Showcase is available to UK and International users. Audio clips however are currently only available to UK users. This is a temporary situation and we are working on making audio clips available to International users in spring 2011.
- Can I use the Showcase on my mobile, on consoles or other devices?
- Right now the Showcase is recommended for desktop and laptop users. This means it has not been optimised for use on mobile web-browsers. We are investigating bringing the Showcase to a range of mobile devices and to other internet connected devices like IPTV.
Collections
- What are Collections/Featured Collections?
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Collections are clusters of music clips (audio and/or video) that have been bundled together and editorialised by our presenters, DJs or staff.
Often they will relate to an artist, programme, event, genre, location or other musical theme.
By adding additional context such as descriptions, quotes and images, Collections can help you discover new music, more about the featured artists, influences, history and so on.
We’ll be regularly reviewing and refreshing them in line with the BBC’s music calendar and broadcast schedules.
Clip browse and playback features
- What's the 'Play-Bar' at the bottom of my screen?
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Whenever you play a music clip, you will see a grey ‘Play-Bar’ appears towards the bottom of the browser window.
The 'Play-Bar' provides you with some standard media player controls including: play/pause, rewind, next/previous clips, volume control, clip title information, guidance notes and the auto-play switch.
- Can I remove the 'Play-Bar'?
- There is a 'close button' to the upper right of the ‘Play-Bar’ which, when clicked, enables you to stop whatever is currently playing. Selecting another clip to play will start playback and the ‘Play-Bar’ will reappear.
- Why can't I play or pause a clip by clicking on the clip itself?
- Currently you can start play-back by clicking on the clip. All other media player controls are accessed via the ‘Play-Bar’. In 2011 we will be introducing alternative play back that will appear over each clip giving you a choice to use the ‘Play-Bar’ or not.
- What is 'Auto-Play' and how does it work?
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The 'Auto-Play' toggle switch looks like this
'Auto-play' is switched to 'ON' as your default setting. To switch between on/off states simply click on the toggle switch.
With 'Auto-Play' on clips will play one after the other through to the last clip in your current context.
Current context means either all clips in a Collection, in a Play Queue or on any single page of Clips accessed via the Browse Clips view. However, 'Auto-Play' will be interrupted if one of the clips in your context has a 'Guidance Warning' attached. Some clips may contain flashing images, adult themes, strong language and so on. Where a clip has a guidance warning it is up to you to decide whether to continue or not by clicking the Play button in the pop-up message. 'Auto-Play' will then resume and clips will continue playing until the next clip that has a 'Guidance Warning' is reached or the current context ends.
- What is 'Browse While Play' and how do I use it?
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'Browse While Play' is an innovative Showcase feature that allows you to browse other clips in the Showcase while simultaneously being able to watch/listen to whatever is in your current context.
Your current context is defined as a Collection or any single page of Clips accessed via the Browse Clips view.
Whenever you 'Browse While Play' you'll notice that clips will continue to play in a smaller media player that is docked on the left-hand side of the 'Play-Bar'. To restore the clip to the main player window, simply click on the icon on the frame of the docked video or audio items.
Note: 'Browse While Play' only works while you are browsing the Showcase. If you click (via links) away from the site (e.g. to BBC Programmes or BBC Music pages) in the same browser window, your 'Browse While Play' experience will stop.
One option to maintain your playback experience is to right-click on any links and select either 'open link in new window' or 'open link in new tab'
- Grid, Expanded and List Views
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The Showcase features a number of viewing options to improve your discovery and playback experience.
The view grid/expanded/list view toggle switch looks like this
'Grid' view arranges clips into several (up to 10) rows of three. It is the default view for Collections, Just Added, Most Popular and Last Chance.
'Grid' view allows you to view all the clips in a Collection/context in a single page. It enables you to play the audio or video in situ and is ideally suited for browsing and sampling content before deciding what you would like to listen to.
'Expanded' view provides an enlarged audio/video playback area in a theatre-like experience. It is recommended for continuous watching/listening experiences in conjunction with the 'Auto-Play' feature.
'List' view is used for presenting longer lists of clips. You’ll see it when using the 'Browse Clips' function or accessing the 'Play Queue'.
Quick Find, Recommendations and Linking
- 'Artist Quick Find'
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In the top right hand corner of the Showcase you'll see the words 'Artist Quick Find' with a small magnifying glass icon to the right. Click on the either of these and your quick find box slides open.
The 'Artist Quick Find' tool looks like this
Use 'Artist Quick Find' when you're looking for artist pages or clips by a certain artist. The system uses predictive text to quickly locate your favourite artist(s) and to view clips featuring the artist(s) in the Showcase.
- 'More like this'
- 'More like this' can be found under many clips in the Expanded View. 'More Like this' provides you with access to clips from featured or similar artists. We use data provided by The Echo Nest, a music intelligence platform, to order these clips.
- Elsewhere on the BBC
- 'Elsewhere on the BBC' takes the first two featured artists from each clip (in the order our system receives them) and looks up the latest news, reviews and blogs related to these artist. It then provides a link to the content on the BBC websites.
- Linking
- When linking out to the BBC Music website you will notice that the look & feel of the Showcase and BBC Music are very different. We are looking to re-design the BBC Music Beta site in 2011.
Known issues
- Non Music content
- On rare occasions you may notice that non-Collection views (Just Added, Most Popular, Last Chance, Browse Clips) feature non-music clips. This is a known genre inheritance issue and we are working on a fix to be in place by spring 2011.
- Page Load Times
- You may notice, on occasion, some grid and list view pages take longer to load. This is a known issue and we are working hard with our media publishing colleagues to improve performance across the Showcase.
- Clips skipping or looping
We have noticed intermittent issues where some clips skip intermittently after the first 30 seconds of playback. We are working to resolve this issue by spring 2011.
Very rarely you may notice clips looping back to the beginning of the clip after the first 30 seconds of playback. This is also something we are working on for early spring 2011. If you do encounter this issue, you may find it occurs repeatedly with other clips in the Showcase. Testing has shown that carrying out a hard refresh in your browser can help mitigate the issue and we recommend you give this a try if you encounter the problem.
- Minor page rendering issues
- You may on occasion notice minor & intermittent rendering issues consistent with an alpha release. These are being worked on and should be fixed very soon.
Providing Feedback
- Providing feedback
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We welcome all feedback on the service. This will help us prioritise known issues, surface new features, make improvements, discover great ideas and build the service you're looking for.
To provide feedback direct to the development team, please complete and submit the bbc.co.uk/music feedback form, available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/feedback/
