Daily Mail v. the iPlayer

Back in January 2008, Ashley Highfield claimed that:

...the number of homes that currently have no television licence, but that do have broadband subscription is currently estimated to be infinitesimally small.

It didn't take a genius to recognize that this group would increase; in fact I said as much in December when I no longer needed a TV licence myself (although I still buy one). Unsurprisingly, as the 'infinitesimally small' group shows signs of increasing suggestions are being made about needing a licence for iPlayer content. According to the Daily Mail:

BBC technology chief Erik Huggers said: 'My view is that if you are using the iPlayer you have to be a television licence fee payer.

'I don't believe in a free ride. If you are consuming BBC services then you have to be a licence holder.'

A fairly reasonable position in my view. In the changing world of television and news production and consumption we rely increasingly on services like the BBC to produce high-quality content; the commercial models are increasingly failing. In fact I would personally go further, arguing for an increase in the licence fee.

However, such a position puts me in opposition to the always-irrational Daily Mail. Until the BBC replace the ONE show with 'Asylum Criminals: The truth about illegal immigrants', the Daily Mail will always hate the Beeb. Huggers suggestion that iPlayer viewers pay a licence fee quickly gets expanded upon:

If he were to have his way, possible changes to the fee could include:

* Viewers having to buy an extra licence just for the iPlayer
* Increasing the cost of the current TV licence to include the iPlayer
* Forcing viewers to pay a subscription to use the iPlayer service

If Huggers was suggesting any of these changes the Daily Mail failed to include the appropriate quotes. It would be equally meaningful to say possible changes could include "Hanging for watching iPlayer without TV licence"; possible, but highly unlikely. The second suggestion "Increasing the cost of the current TV licence to include the iPlayer" is particularly stupid as the current TV licence already includes the cost of the iPlayer!

Obviously the Daily Mail readers read the article rationally and take the Daily Mail bias into consideration:

Obviously not.
[Disclaimer: As a licence fee payer interested in quality TV and news I have a vested interested in the BBC. As a human being I have a vested interest in pointing out that the Daily Mail is a piece of crap written for idiots.]

Blog on 2009

The choice of January 1st as New Year's day always annoys me, but as virtually no one else in the Western World questions the choice I reluctantly go along with the general concensus (albeit in the most miserable manner possible). It is, therefore, an appropriate time to think about the year ahead and like so many other bloggers make a few predictions/uneducated-guesses/pointless-meanderings about the world of technology. [Basically a long rambling random selection of my current thoughts on technology summed up in a simple list].

The Good News
1. The N97 takes Nokia back to the top of the pile
At the end of this month my N95 contract will finally be over. The problem I have is that there isn't really a better phone on the market:
- The improvements on the N96 are negligible, and are not worth another 12/18-month contract.
- The G1 is missing a decent camera, GPS, and most importantly a large enough user base to create all those extra applications I want.
- The iPhone...well I just don't understand why anyone would get such an over-hyped, locked-down, touchscreen-only phone.
Whilst the N97 is likely to be the best smartphone on the market in 2009 (whenever it emerges) that is no guarantee of success, but hopefully a move to more austere times in 2009 will be a set-back to Apple, the epitome of style over substance.

2. Distributed social networks will shrink Facebook traffic
I am hoping for a distributed future for social networks; one where I am in control of my account, my data, my applications. Be it a desire for photos of breastfeeding mothers, playing games that infringe intellectual copyright, or pretending to be the president of Guyana. Whilst I don't disagree with any of the decisions Facebook has made on these particular issues, there may on occasion be times that I do disagree with Facebook. If you are on Facebook you have to abide by Facebook's arbitrary rules and the rules of your own country; if you are on a distributed social network you only have to abide by the rules of your own country.

3. Project Kangaroo will hit UK desktops
It was back in 2007 that I first heard about the proposed single on-demand player for BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, and whilst it all seems to have been bad news in 2008 with the Competition Commission complaining about a lack of rivalry, I think 2009 will be the year it moves/jumps forwards. The idea that a rivalry between the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4, is driving innovation in video-on-demand in the UK is best described as 'bollocks'. Obviously the organisations will make comparisons with one another, but they are equally concerned about comparing themselves with international competitors (e.g., YouTube). 2009 will either be the year that the Competition Commission realises this, the Competition Commission fails to realise but bows to public demand for a single player, or the BBC freely share the technology in such a way as to circumvent the Competition Commission's ruling.

The Bad News
4. The general public continue to ignore QR codes
It was also back in 2007 that I first discovered QR codes, and the Sun told the masses all about them. During 2008 the masses have continued to ignore them, and I think 2009 will be much the same. Whilst the Pepsi Max campaign will, no-doubt, increase QR code awareness amongst certain sections of the population, there is not yet a killer application for the mass of the population. The question is whether QR codes will be able to carve out a niche before RFID tags become more widespread, if not it may be a technology that just passes the UK by; the moment of truth probably won't come until 2010.

5. No Google alternative will emerge
I have been disliking Google for many years now, and I don't expect 2009 to see a change in my attitude: no single company should have so much control on what people see on the internet. Yahoo will continue to shrink, Live will slow their loss of market share by throwing money at it, but eventually Google will know everything and control everything you know. Alongside this pessimistic view, it is worth noting that if a markedly better search engine does emerge, and spreads virally as an embedded application in a social networking site (the only way to compete against the Google-do-all-portal), then the Google fortunes could fall over night.

nb. I do realise that January 1st would have been a more appropriate day for such meanderings, but yesterday was spent lounging around watching 'family' movies....why I never went to the cinema to watch "The Shaggy Dog" will forever remain a mystery.

De-branding my N95 for the BBC iPlayer

I have had my N95 for over a year, but until yesterday I had left it as a crumby T-mobile N95 with the appropriately out-dated branded firmware. I had tried to change it once, but the required software refused to recognise my phone. It was annoying but I put up with it, until yesterday's announcement on All About Symbian that the BBC iPlayer was available for the S60.

I have been waiting for an S60 version of the iPlayer since it was made available for the over-hyped iPhone back in March. Unfortunately the iPlayer application (which can be downloaded here) takes the form of a Nokia Web Runtime (a Nokia Widget) rather than an S60 application, the difference being that the Nokia Web Runtime framework comes with the Nokia update software that wasn't yet built into the T-mobile firmware. Whilst I have put up with missing out on lots of exciting developments because of the T-mobile firmware, the BBC iPlayer is not just any old new software, its a new way to access the greatest television on Earth! (I may have mentioned previously that I am possibly the BBC's biggest fan). This time when I tried to de-brand my phone it all went smoothly.

If you have yet to de-brand, and want access to the iPlayer on your N95, then there is a detailed post on how to de-brand over at Simply Symbian.

As for the S60 iPlayer, my only criticism is the "Sorry, television programmes can only be watched over a wifi connection". My 3G connection is often faster than my wifi connection, I pay for an 'unlimited' data plan and it's about time there was a program that could make use of it.

Firmware offered for T-mobile phone yesterday: 14.0.001
Firmware offered for de-branded phone yesterday: 30.0.015

When will ITV.com join Virgin Catch Up TV?

Whilst having a look at the new Blinx Remote this morning (via The Guardian), I suddenly realised that I no longer watch ITV (with the exception of watching the over-paid tax-dodging Formula 1 drivers). Over the last couple of years my TV habits have changed beyond all recognition, and ITV has failed to keep pace.

First I started watching TV programmes online. Whilst 4OD and the iPlayer both offered downloads, ITV offered streaming which was not particularly practical as I started to suffer from my old ISP's throttling measures.

Then I subscribed to Virgin TV which has given me the iPlayer and 4OD programmes on my TV with Virgin's TV Catchup: Anytime with no download problems. Unfortunately ITV hasn't signed up, and despite my best efforts I couldn't find any indication online that they plan to.

Whilst I find myself streaming the BBC on my Eee PC whilst doing the cooking, catching up on the TV, and even watching live for those can't wait programmes (such as last night's Summer Heights High), ITV has been relegated to point where I don't even know what is on anymore.

Whilst I have never been a fan of ITV, it is important to have a competitive domestic market, so they need to start catching up!

Virgin TV...extremely tempting

After finally having enough of my old broadband provider, I got Virgin Media installed yesterday. However, the free Virgin TV has quickly become very expensive. Whilst you can theoretically get the medium package installed for free, it was only a matter of hours before I had convinced myself to upgrade to the XL package!

Whilst I have previously managed to resist the temptation of subscription TV, when it was made so easily accessible I quickly succumbed, especially with all the added bits and pieces:
-TV Choice On Demand- a lot of TV series that you can watch as and when you want.
-Music On Demand- the important leverage in persuading my girlfriend that she needed the XL package too.

Access to the BBC's iPlayer makes Virgin TV a great service, but unless you have better self control than me, you're better-off accessing it online.

iPlayer on the Wii: Now where should I put my Wii?

The BBC's iPlayer can now be streamed on the Wii, currently through the Opera browser, but eventually with its own channel. Whilst the public will generally welcome the move, the ISPs will continue their whinging after selling packages that they can't afford honour properly. Suggestions from the ISPs that the BBC should help pay for the rising costs are idiotic; services like the iPlayer will help push the UK's internet infrastructure to higher standards and shouldn't be penalised.

My own problems with the iPlayer will be less costly than it will be for the ISPs. My biggest problem is that I don't know where to put my Wii now. I currently can't get the iPlayer on my TV as the files refuse to be routed via the Netgear EVA 700, but at the same time I like my current PC/Wii all-in-one set-up. Nonetheless I think the latest platfirn has partly placated my wrath from when they rolled out on the iPhone before the N95.

Whilst I have found that the iPlayer on the Wii isn't as good a picture as on the PC, this is probably due to it being routed via a TVBOX to my PC screen, and will probably improve when it gets its own channel.

iPlayer on the iPhone: Does the BBC believe the hype?

I am probably the world's biggest BBC fan, and think they have made some great moves on the internet, especially with the rolling out of the iPlayer. But now they have managed to annoy me. Just catching up on my RSS feeds, and found that yesterday the iPlayer became accessible on the iPhone. Whilst I look forward to the BBC rolling out on mobile devices, choosing the iPhone first is just annoying.

I appreciate that they have to roll the services out across the different systems one at a time, but I don't understand why they chose the iPhone over the S60 based devices, specifically the N95 which would have made the service available to many more times the customers. It is not a repeat of the Linux/Apple/Windows debate as Windows was always the dominant platform. The iPhone is only the dominant device in the minds of certain sections of the blogosphere.

"We started with iPhone because it is the device most optimised for high quality video currently available"...seems a pretty lame excuse to me, especially as the N95 would have allowed for true mobile viewing as it could utilise 3G rather than being limited to Wi-Fi.

Obviously part of my annoyance is due to my having an N95, but in my defense I haven't moaned about the lack of access on the Wii or the fact that when I try to access BBC files on the Netgear EVA 700 it refuses to give me a picture (unlike the Channel 4 programmes which work perfectly). I think this time it's a legitimate whinge.

Dailymotion offers HD Videos

TechCrunch are reporting that Dailymotion are starting to offer HD videos, streamrate 2 megabits per second. Whilst it is great that these services are starting to be offered, we are a long way from the ISPs being able to deal with any sudden surge in traffic. Currently the UK ISPs struggle to deal with the bandwidth-friendly streaming of the iPlayer!

BBC iPlayer gets people interested, but are the ISPs up to the job?

I have just been reading the BBC's post about the success of the iPlayer since its official Christmas launch. Although, whilst I am extremely happy for their success, I fear that there is little room for growth, in fact after a couple of months there may even be a slow down in usage, especially with streaming programmes, as the ISPs start to throttle people's internet.

As a user who has been using the iPlayer for months, my broadband seems to be constantly throttled these days. It got to the point the other night that I was downloading a file at an extremely feeble 6k rather than the supposed 2Mb (unlimited) I am subscribed to! The fair use limits can not be considered fair use in any true sense of the word, as they have failed to respond to changing habits in internet use. Although in truth I can't say that they are "unfair" as it is extremely hard to find out exactly what they are, and you are given no warning the throttling is coming.

Whilst we have been hearing a lot about the government's concern with broadband speeds not living up to the advertised speeds, they really need to be stepping in and knocking some ISP heads together. Leave it to the market when it works, but the ISP market is not working.

Whilst it will probably all be sorted at some vague point in the future, it really doesn't help with the missed episode of Kingdom that is currently only available in a streaming format on ITV.com (although ITV.com have noticeable improved the finding of programmes I can no-longer stream).

BBC iPlayer Flash streams: Linux friendly

The Beeb have been promising flash streams for a while, and when I went to download some programmes on the iPlayer tonight, I found it had already rolled out. This should go some way to placating the linux hoardes who have been complaining. As the picture below shows it now works on firefox/linux, even on the much maligned Eee PC/RM Minibook (the rather poor quality is because I sent the picture to myself via MMS rather than messing about with a wire or bluetooth).

(nb. its Peggy and Phil in the Queen Vic kitchen).

Single on-demand player for BBC, ITV and Channel 4!!!

The BBC's iPlayer, Channel 4's 4OD, and the streaming content from ITV.com have fundamentally changed my TV habits; about the only programme I now watch when broadcast is 'Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip' (available from 4OD, but for a price). Unfortunately however the iPlayer and 4OD don't work perfectly, with the iPlayer being especially erratic (occassionally having a frenzy that eats up all the processing power), and the two downloaded services often rub each other up the wrong way as they use similar technologies. Hopefully a single player will solve many of the current problems and will increase adoption of video on-demand.

Whilst a Mashable posting has a little bit of a whinge about the use of DRM, compatibility, and UK only access, it seems be missing the bigger picture, as TechCrunch states "Ultimately the biggest winner from the deal will be the British viewer who will have unparalleled access to legal TV content online in the one spot."

DRM is a necessity in the world of broadcast television, as is the restricting of access on a national basis, overcoming these boundaries are years away and will require unprecedented international cooperation (DRM-free music is a piece of cake in comparison). Compatibility will come with time, but it makes sense to start with the dominant system.

I did notice one comment on the TechCrunch site whinging about the BBC TV licence (and I am sure there will be more to come), so in the interests of keeping the balance, I would like to point out that I would willingly pay an increase in the TV licence!

BBC Flash Player Starts to Roll-out

Less than a week ago the BBC announced that it had come to an agreement with Adobe allowing it to stream programmes with Flash. Whilst there are no exact dates as yet, the BBC doesn't seem to be messing around. They announced in their Archive Newsletter last night:

We're also launching a new media player that uses Flash instead of RealPlayer or Windows Media. We have to stress that as this is more to help us with technical aspects of the trial, it won't be released to everyone, sadly. We'll be e-mailing a selection of triallists soon with more information. We're sorry, but we won't be able to extend this group of triallists, but we thought you'd like to know that it exists, even if we can't give everyone access to it.

At this rate the streaming should be completely rolled out by Christmas, and come Christmas Day the Queen's speech will fit into my schedule...surely that must be treasonable!

BBC: The Best of British

If you had to create a list of the best things about Britain only a fool would ignore the BBC, and despite being in existence for over 75 years, in various forms, it continues to be at the forefront of the latest technologies. Last night its news site (probably the best news in the world) announced that the BBC site would be accessible at The Cloud wi-fi hotspots throughout the UK for free, but even more interestingly it provided some further details of the future of BBC TV on the internet.

Key points:
- A streaming Flash version of the iPlayer
- Downloading to portable devices (such as N95 and PSP)
- Not commited to offering download version of iPlayer to Linux and Mac

Whilst the streaming version will be a more inclusive version for the whinging Linux and Mac users, I am sure there will still be complaints that they can't have a download version, but as the BBC says "It comes down to cost per user". Of course I personally welcome the proposed addition of the N95 version (especially as I have numerous trouble connecting to my Sky Sports package), and hope that the Flash version will be compatible with the Wii, but I also realise the need for the BBC to be cost effective.

The biggest probably I have at the moment with the BBC is finding time to watch and listen to all their programmes. The iPlayer is slowly filling with programmes I will probably never have time to watch, my N95 is filling with podcasts faster than I can listen to them, and I am constantly battling with the wi-fi radio to utilise the 7-day catch-up before we reach day eight! The change in the media landscape is best expressed through a comparison of launch of the Channel 4 twenty-five years ago, and the launch of Dave on Freeview yesterday. Where one was launched with a blaze of publicity that everyone was talking about, Dave was launched with little more than a whimper. As yet I haven't even bothered to re-tune my digi-box.

BBC iPlayer has changed my life!

There is a lot of talk at the moment about the BBC iPlayer in both the blogosphere and the traditional media, with arguments raging about the suitability of the P2P technology, the fact that it only runs on Windows, and that it is gobbling huge amounts of bandwidth. In my opinion the entry of the iPlayer can only be a good thing for British broadband users: it will increase uptake of high speed internet connections, and force the ISPs to provide better services to meet the increased demand.

Whilst the iPlayer is not the first of the main UK television companies to make their content available online, the BBC's world renowned brand means that when it makes a move more people pay attention; even within the UK's vast collection of television channels, and despite its public self-flagellation for minor indiscretions, the BBC is still an important institution that the public feels they have a vested interest in. It is not surprising therefore that the wrath of the ISPs is being vented at the BBC's entry into the market, an entry that is likely to substantially increase the number of people using the internet for video-on-demand. But does the BBC really deserve to be the focus of their attention? Or should the ISPs really be living up to the promises they make in the packages they offer and stop whinging about it?

The ISPs make a lot of money by offering high broadband speeds and the promise of 'unlimited' downloads by relying on the fact that the majority of their customers will never utilise the high speeds or the unlimited downloads. Those that have been getting the best value for money are those who have already been using video-on-demand from less legitimate sources, and their broadband has been subsidised by those of us who have been biding our time for the legitimate sources to appear. The introduction of legitimate video-on-demand was seen to be coming for a long time, especially the BBC's iPlayer which had to jump through a million hoops to prove that it was in the public interest, and nonetheless the ISPs continued to offer 'unlimited' downloads with the caveat of a fair use policy. Well surely downloading from legitimate sources should be considered fair use, after all that is what the average user will expect to be able to use it for.

The iPlayer and other high quality video-on-demand web sites creates a market of users wanting higher broadband rates than before, and they are probably willing to pay a bit more for it. But if an ISP offers 'unlimited' it should be unlimited, and if they do include 'fair use' policy then it needs to accept that video-on-demand is fair use. The showdown between the ISPs and the BBC will force the ISPs to upgrade their services, and hopefully provide the UK with the best internet infrastructure in the world. Personally, the majority of television I watch is now online, after all they don't broadcast the likes of "The Sky at Night" at 6.30 in the morning, and if my ISP decides that I am in breach of their 'fair use' policy I would move to a new ISP without a second thought.