Steve Jobs rescues freetards from BBC iPlayer wilderness (for now) Enterprising Linux hackers have built a new way to download BBC iPlayer programmes that lets online viewers store shows indefinitely - and it's all thanks to Steve Jobs. Last week, Auntie launched the streaming version of iPlayer for the Jesus Phone and iPod Touch. It's meant transcoding shows to the H.264 format used by Apple …
I'm not an evangelist I don't run around mouthing about the perils of M$ and that true freedom is the only way to go but I do use FOSS and if I cant get a free version of BBC iPlayer I just won't bother, the fact that they are using my license fee and ignoring my needs is a separate issue.
What I take issue with is being called a "freetard" would you write an article about Downs Syndrome etc and publically call them "retards"?
Bravo the BBC. That's more like IT and its Motto. How dDeep into Virtualisation do you want to Go?
And IT is always Best 42 Insist, Nothing Less than All the Way in Order to XXXXTract Full Benefits from ITs AI Programming and Advanced Beta Protocols/Special Application of Programmings.
I suppose Steve is chuffed too..... although who would have thought he was into Virtualised Jumping .... Quantum Leaping. He must be a Newbie as we haven't heard anything to identify his Presence. Maybe it was a step too far?
Or one he hasn't come down from yet, would be the AI Beta Bet Option, though :-) As would it always be.
Nice to know of this little hack.
Unfortunately they also use geographical restrictions based on the IP address including trailers or interviews. Fortunately DVB means that some kind soul puts the programmes on the interweb so the rest of the world can see what all the fuss is about. But now I might just see if I can't get an ssh account somewhere and let wget do the work!
There are a number of utilities on the Mac that allow video screen capture including Snapz Pro X 2 which circumvent any iPlayer DRM - which makes it all rather pointless. All you have to do is press a few keys, drag a marquee around the area to be captured and start running iPlayer. The video is saved to the hard drive as it appears on the screen to be watched at any time.
Even better, with EyeTV, I can record any program at full video resolution to my hard drive just like a video recorder at any time of the day and keep it forever if I want.
What's all the fuss?
Interesting that the BBC neither consider it unusual or surprising. In that case it was clearly intentional that they'd use such a comically incompetent way of securing content as they don't really mind people downloading it on things other than an iPhone. I do wonder how long it'll be before they pull the plug...I'm guessing now the iPhone SDK is out they could conspire to deliver some crapware on par with the Windows iPlayer download manager.
If h.264 is ok for iPhone why is it not ok for Linux? Do iPhone owners pay more for their TV Licence than Linux users?
It seems to me from the statements from the BBC that they intend to close this "hole" (and did already once by adding sessions to the page which thwarted the original method of using wget to grab the file). So what they are actually saying is they are now going to actively try and block Linux users from accessing the iPlayer service by closing the hole they created with the iPhone page? If no DRM is ok for iPhone users, why is no DRM no ok for Linux users?
Also, I know I am not the only person thinking this, but I do seem to remember the BBC saying they haven't catered for Linux yet because they are a minority market. I suspect there are a lot more Linux users out there than there are bloody iPhone users, so why the Apple Love?
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You can copy anything you want if you really want to. No amount of DRM can ever stop this, and from day 1 release of BBC iPlayer on Windows you could copy any show by running it in an XP VM running on Mac OS X, then running a live video capture screen at the same time, recording and leaving you with a DRM free copy to watch as you please.
If the Linux freaks we're such loosers they could try beg Apple to make them a version of iTunes and Quicktime, but hopefully Steve Jobs will ban that forever.
Chris,
You seem to imply that everyone who runs a non-Microsoft operating system, and might therefore benefit from non-Windows iPlayer streams, is a "freetard".
Obviously its brilliantly witty to combine "free" and "retard", and use of the term guarantees you never-ending Christmas cards from Andrew Orlowski, but there's no need to wear out the tedious schoolboy joke through misuse.
John
This proves the BBC is overrun with moronic PHBs.
* Waste millions on a stupid DRM application. You can't let people download ordinary files because they will steal them, so you force DRM down their throats.
* They next say something stupid like "there are only 400 Linux users in the country!" - in your dreams MS PHB...
* Then when MPs wake up and notice something fishy is going on, and a Flash version appears overnight
* We're told the flash version gets over 90% of the downloads - where did the millions wasted on the Windows DRM application go?
* Lord Jobs says flash isn't good enough for his people (he is actually right) and magically anyone with 2 brain cells can get a plain MP4 file
* Finally El Reg tells everyone and the BBC will disable the service...
Hopefully this will do the opposite. It nails the lie to the BBC's dual claims that their content *must* be DRM protected, and that they were trying to attract the biggest audience.
There's now no need for the BBC wait for DRM on Linux, Mac, Wii, smartphone etc as they've now published it DRM-free out on teh internet - unless they're in some breach of contract with the content providers?
Second, the BBC claimed that there were ~100k Linux users visiting the BBC site, and that 5% of all traffic came from Macs. Given that there are only around 30k unlocked iPhones in the UK they can't be in any way claiming that they're looking at market penetration.
Here's the deal - it's one rule for us, another for iPhone-owning-numeeja-types.
Starting to get more than a little fed up with every article about Apple on The Register being yet another excuse to come up with "witty" back handed digs at Apple, Jobs and the iPhone.
Its been said many many times, if you don't like it fine but at least try and report on matters without acting like a 10 year old kid.
As to those moaning about "DRM" free on the iPhone. Try reading the actual articles once in a while, you can only stream on the iPhone from iPlayer so DRM isn't an issue as you can only watch the programmes as long as the BBC has them on their website which is usually about a week.
But then again, why let the facts get in the way of a good rant.
You do know that you cannot use the BBC iPlayer Download Service outside of the UK. Certainly its Programs are not available from/in Holland.
Which all sort of rather makes the Internet a bit of a joke/con/Radical Trojan in ITs Own Right.
Anyone would think that they were making IT up as they went along? And if they aren't, then who's writing the Script they're Following and deciding on Strategic Lead Support Services.
My Flickr page is linked to at the end of the article. I take it, therefore, that I'm a "freetard" - oh, so clever. The Purlitzer prize will come knocking!
@Neil Hoskins: I'm not a childish nerd, thanks. The MP4 streams are better quality than the Flash ones and are easier to handle on my Asus Eee which, coincidentally I paid for (so not "free" - I guess El Reg just want to call me a "retard") because Flash doesn't go fullscreen. Plus by obtaining the MP4 I can watch things on my iPod Classic as well, which remains a shiny Apple product (again paid for). To be honest, if they'd done more for desktop machines before leaping on a fad product like the iPhone, this would probably not be an issue.
@"mac fanboys v linus freetards?" I fail to see your point, not least because your ability to spell and use grammar seems to get left at the door when the red mist comes up at the thought that anyone uses anything different to you. Also it seems that most people doing this (looking at referrer logs) are - shock! - Windows users, probably sick of the state that Kontiki leaves their bandwidth in. Maybe the BBC should just throw in the towel altogether then?
Here's the bottom line. The BBC are supplying programmes that can be downloaded and viewed by anything capable of understanding and parsing a standards compliant media player, but do so at a significantly lower resolution than a DVD. I think they should leave it at that - if you want to watch something, do so freely - I'm not going to go out and buy a DVD because I missed an episode of a programme, but I would download a lower resolution copy to watch. If I were a fan of the show I might well go out and buy the DVD because I'd want the best version available. It's a win/win situation.
Of course, what they'll do now is anyone's guess. I can't see them licensing FairPlay from Apple though - imagine what the board of directors would say about taking on another DRM product - they might recognise it as snake oil. They're not going to drop the iPlayer for the iPhone because they'd have egg on their face after trumpeting how great it is and rushing around making deals with The Cloud. The best option is to be honest about it and treat us like adults for a change.
Now that I am able to use the iPlayer service in Linux I was just watching Question Time from last week and David Davis seemed to be stating that because Microsoft is driving the National ID Register it will be vulnerable and attractive to criminals.
However...and this is the good bit, it looks like that part of the show was edited to try and remove the word Microsoft, there is a jump in the audio and I had to rewind it three times to actually figure out what he was saying.
I am sure this is not the case, because given the BBC's transparency and adherence to their charter I could never imagine that they would obfuscate a negative reference to Microsoft in a video being delivered by a service run by ex Microsoft executives.
Maybe a few of you can watch the same video and see if you have the same experience, it at about 30m20s.
Mine's the one with the picture of planes with no windows hitting the twin towers.
Hi John,
It's only used (and affectionately) because if the Steve Jobs angle. I encourage you to read Fake Steve Jobs if you haven't already - he coined the term and is probabaly the best non-news tech read right now.
Operating systems, free or not aren't really my bag, but how about I promise not to do it again if you promise not to take things so personally? Cheers,
- Chris
P.S. Andrew hates Christmas.
I kind of feel a lot of people are missing the point here.
WHY DO WE NEED DRM IN THE FIRST PLACE?
DRM is a failed model. Everyone knows it. The only people trying to prop it up are those who either profit from it or are technologically illiterate and are advised by those who profit from it.
Give up and give us our content. We, the British people, have already paid for it.
Mine's the one masquerading as an iCoat.
I really don't understand all this iPlayer shite.
I've got a PVR with HDD & DVR, If there's a program that I want to watch, but am not able to watch it live I set the PVR to record the program, this can be to hard drive so I can watch it on the big TV, or to DVD if I want to watch it elsewhere.
Neither format is encumbered with DRM, and won't expire after 30 days.
Yet more money being spent solving a problem that doesn't really exist...
im still totally failing to see why some shiteware client needs to be used by 4od and iplayer, would it be to hard to make it work like the old edonkey links, or hell even just a leaf out of the porno industry (note to beeb and c4, they know shit loads more about delivering content that users want, in a format they want that you do) and protect the files with a subscription based cirtificate/password, would allow me to use any browser i wanted.
why not couple entering the serial number of your tv license with account creation, e.g. the beeb asks for license no during sign up, check against the license payers db. if valid has a right to the content, revoke access with expiration of license...
>>why let the facts get in the way of a good rant.<<
Because you're wrong. Essentially what the BBC have is a website where you can download reasonably high quality video, DRM free and watch them back at your leisure. But for some reason, those of us without iPhones have to make do with either:
a) crappy low-res flash implementation
b) crappy p2p drm application if you're fortunate enough to have a supported OS.
It's on the web, it's DRM-free!
Jeesh - the Beeb comes up with a truly innovative product that works. Gives it to license payers for free and everyone bashes them for it.
Linux users need to chill. A version is in the pipeline and I don't see anyone else getting flamed for not producing a Linux version of their *free* software.
@NB
We the British people haven't paid for it. We've paid for the bit that gets aired on BBC1/2/34 and then cast on iPlayer for a week. The programmes are then resold on to other countries or sold on DVD, Apple TV downloads, etc. This pays a substantial amount of the production cost. Remove this revenue stream and your license fee will either soar or the quality of output will plummet. Just because someone's taken TV programmes and placed them on the Internet doesn't mean they should be free for everyone to pinch. DRM does sometimes have its place.
Firstly, it wasn't innovative. Many TV Broadcasting companies have been doing downloads on their website or through desktop applications for a long time. Furthermore, what is it you believe they have innovated? They are using 3rd party tools to deliver a 3rd rate service. I say 3rd rate service because that's what it is, until such time as it uses open standards which any member of the licence paying community can access with any device capable of going online; whether that be a smart phone, a Linux Desktop, a Microsoft Windows Desktop etc.
As for "a version is in the pipeline" etc. utter bollocks. If a version was in the pipeline they would have a much clearer deadline. The whole "available within 2 years" crap is a clear indication of this. It does not take 2 fucking years to come up with a Linux solution when it only takes 2 bloody minutes to come up with an iPhone solution. Get real. The BBC are not currently working on a Linux solution other than talking about how long they can fob us off with the "within 2 years" bullshit. If the BBC are working on a Linux solution why has there so far been absolutely zero evidence to support this claim? There is no evidence because at this time there is no solution being worked on, it is that simple. If you believe anything else you are bloody naive.
As for why isn't anyone else getting flamed for not producing Linux versions, nobody else is (yet) funded by the TV licence, they are all commercial ventures running on private money not public. They have zero responsibility to commit to the Linux community, the BBC however do and have been told so by the BBC Trust and various politicians and even admit as much themselves.
As for your comments directed @NB. Yes we have paid for it, iPlayer is funded by the TV Licence, there is no dispute of this from the BBC.
If you must post a comment using what I presume is your real name, at least get your facts right before forever tarnishing yourself by name as a bloody idiot.
"Also, I know I am not the only person thinking this, but I do seem to remember the BBC saying they haven't catered for Linux yet because they are a minority market. I suspect there are a lot more Linux users out there than there are bloody iPhone users, so why the Apple Love?"
C'mon, dude. The BBC fellate Apple at every opportunity. I thought it was just the person that ran BBC news but it seems to extend throughout the whole organisation. Whenever an Apple product comes out, it appears on BBC headline news. No other products I can think of get that free publicity simply for being from Apple. Whenever they offer a download, they call it a podcast, refer to the player as an iPod rather than a DAP, and keep the iPod elevated above the others - "download this to your iPod or MP3 player." They spend vast amounts of money putting the iPlayer onto the iPhone *before* they put it on platforms that are much more widely used. Why? It's from Apple! Simple as.
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"the Beeb comes up with a truly innovative product that works"
No they didn't. They bought in a Microsoft solution, hence the XP/IE was the only supported platform at launch. It was only when "freetards" (WTF - I've paid my licence fee?) complained at the lack of support for other platforms that the BBC started to shift. But why should I have to wait for the BBC to develop and release a player for mac/linux/PSP/XBox/Smart Phone/Fridge/Fanboy device of your choice?
What the BBC should have done was launch an open service using a fully documented format and let individuals choose what platform/player they want to use and if there isn't a player for their device, they can write their own!
Neither Kontiki's malware nor the flash player will stream to the XBox 360 I have hooked up to the telly. As I don't want to sit in front of the PC to watch TV, this is a Godsend.
Plus, since my entire setup is running OSes designed by Microsoft, I'm officially not suffering from a mental disability according to El Reg.
"Just because someone's taken TV programmes and placed them on the Internet doesn't mean they should be free for everyone to pinch. DRM does sometimes have its place."
This is such a stupid argument. The BBC broadcasts these programmes, radiating them out across the country at the speed of light, DRM FREE. Literally, every water molecule in your body is vibrating with DRM free BBC programmes right this minute and every minute of the day. So how come a few fibre-optic cables and DSL lines carrying the internet are such a problem?
Its clearly because iPhone/iPod Touch's are optimised for decent video content and are much easier to support than Archos/Creative/(insert inferior player type) Plus the iPhone is nicely shiny and attracts the most publicity than the dull fiddly handsets out there. Its clearly a play to get more publicity. I'm saying that if they released it on, say the HTC touch or other iPhone wannabe, nobody would care.
As an iPhone owner I'm very happy about the situation and am especially happy that its managed to pee off the sandal wearing, never shaved, badly dressed, stinking techs that probably created the app in the first place. Andy M et al at the Beeb/Siemens who actually did develop this, no I don't mean you! ;)
One more reason to own an iPhone unless the mountain of obvious reasons haven't convinced you squatting freetards already.
I watched about half of the first series, and decided to watch it all in order before getting stuck into S02. I was lazy and torrented the first series, which was in high quality, full screen, well arranged and without DRM. I finished watching last night and went to 4od to get the first 5 episodes of S02 and had to install the 4od player, update my DRM, all in order to download some fuzzy low-res videos which expire 2 days after first watching them. n1.
Actually, most people refer to MP3 players interchangeably as iPods, because most people have bought one, its not just the BBC and pod casts as...umm...podcasts. Why would they choose to use language which people are not au fait with just to please the teeny tiny in-bred minority who choose to saddle themselves with a brick sized, and oh-so-desirable Archos player? When I see somebody on the tube watching video on one of those things I just want to drop kick it to the other end of the carriage lol. If they use the word "Hoover" (as in "Hoovering") that's also because the product became synonymous with its function. When they report on Apple product launches on the news I and the rest of the civilized world enjoy it and want to know about it, so why shouldn't they report it just because you despise it? If enough people cared about any other manufacturer's dull launches they would report on them too, which says it all really.
Linux guys, calm down a bit. iPlayer works on Linux, on the streaming mode, just point your firefox to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
It's the download with DRM part won't work on the Linux destop. Let's face it, if you are developing any software for a mass consumer market, you probably will cover Windows first, Mac second and finally Linux.
This's the market we have to live with.
OK, here is a Linux command line iPlayer with cached menu...Requires perl, curl, mplayer. It also generates an html index page when you run it. Sorry - quick hacky script...
http://linuxcentre.net/get_iplayer
BTW: if you switch on VALIDATE it will check if the links are broken (of which up to 25% seem to be on the iplayer site)..
- Phil
The term Freetard makes me laugh, are you amazingly smart because you pay full wack for stuff that can be downloaded for free ? WOW YOU ARE REALLY SMART I WISH I WAS LIKE YOU.........................
Maybe you can do research and work out ways to pay money for all free services so that you can become a money wasting PAYTARD, keep listening to the entertainment-industry-blood-suckers who program you with advertising I'm sure they love spending your money, I know i would you TARD !
I don't know about you, but I like watching my TV on a TV. Which isn't something I have a Firefox (or other) browser for, but I do have a multitude of video players, some of which have H.264 support, and the rest can play DVDs that are easily created from H.264 files.
Not something I'd want to archive for later release, but it's still easier than faffing around with P2P solutions.
The reason they've not bothered DRM'ing the iPhone vids is because you can't download anything on an iPhone, I repeat, Nothing, nada, all download links are disabled, and the reason is because there is nowhere to save anything you might want to download*. As such all you can do is stream video, if you lose your connection or the Beeb takes it off-line it's gone for good, no downloading and watching on the tube to work.
Mighty nice of them to trust user agents to identify iPhones though, I'd have expected more people would have been happy with this rather large loophole instead of seizing the chance for another pointless rant about DRM and Linux, kids these days eh?.
*Subject to change without notice, may not apply to jailbroken hardware.
I only downloaded one program, but I was able to remove the DRM from it with next to no effort using tools I found on the web. I didn't have to re-encode anything either.
I haven't actually booted into my XP partition since then. It holds no attraction for me whatsoever.
Surely only license payers should be able to watch bbc programmes this way, not the whole of the planet? I can basically get rid of any TV equipment I have, stop paying the license and still be able to watch bbc progs (and 4od, and the major US channels) on demand over the internet, from any place in the world i happen to be (geo-ip verification is worthless), albeit at a lower quality.
Why should the rest of the world get for free what we must pay a licence fee for?
The license is a load of bollocks, they need to either ditch it or make iPlayer available only to licensees.
It's not even as if I can sit watching a two-hour film with a can of lager (or mug of tea) without a toilet break anyway, at least on itv i can go during the ads without missing anything, which privilege costs me nothing.
Anyway, humourless rant over now.
A few things need to be settled.
Firstly, there's acres of comments like this:
"They are still broadcasting this stuff, sans DRM, in a [relatively] high quality format.
"You could always watch it on a televisual decoding device. Or, record it on a video capturator thingy and convert it yourself. Or ask Smithers to do it, if it's too technical.
"It is amazing the lengths some will go to to get a poor quality version of something they already have. This is only out-amazed by the whining of those that already have something and can't get a poor quality version of it."
Surely the point is to use iPlayer if you miss something, rather than to replace all your TV viewing with it? I distinctly remember David Attenborough saying, "If you missed the last episode of Life In Cold Blood, you can watch it now on BBC iPlayer." Not, "Why not watch this on iPlayer, Freetard?"
So YES! The BBC broadcasts in glorious SD and dabbles in HD, and yes, you can set your generic PVR to record things. You can also drive a Reliant Robin on a motorcycle licence - it's literally THAT relevant to what's being discussed here.
Another thing - there's this idea that by supplying a Flash stream, Linux is catered for. Tell that to anyone using a non-x86 distro, like people with AMD64 processors, or Linux on PPC, or on a GP2X. It's merely catering for anyone Adobe has decided to supply a Flash9 player for.
Finally, Linux downloadable iPlayer - it's not in the pipeline. There's no programmers assigned to it, there's just a vague commitment to consider doing it for a 'niche' operating system once some niche products that are easier to monetise are catered for instead.
I just tested the process and it does indeed work. However I did notice that I got a 300k bytes per second download rate. This is obviously far in excess of the rate that an iPhone would take while streaming and IMHO is likely to piss the system manager off by maxing his bandwidth out if lot of people do it and also provide a method of detecting it. Both of these are likely to cause the process to get blocked quicker.
I did a quick bit of maths and would like to suggest adding --limit-rate=65063 to the wget command arguments. This will give a download time within a few seconds of real playback time.
I'm in the UK.
Bought and paid for my Laptop (running Ubuntu)
Got a current TV Licence
So i feel it's within my rights to use this "Procedure"
Since the BBC say that iPlayer is for UK License payers to D/L shows for a limited time period from them.
I usually only have them on my comp till i've watched them then they get Deleted.
Hmm, I think you've managed to prove the theory about "mactards" - why does it offend you so that other people don't want to use a bloody iPod? I mean, just because someone would prefer to use an Archos (personally, I prefer my Zen) you feel that you need to call them an "in-bred minority" and drop kick their device simply because it isn't "Jobs Approved"? And just a note, if the genre of item got it's name from the device that became synonymous with it, we would be calling them Nomads, since that was the "player du jour" back in the day.
You also say that everyone calls RSS feeds linking to MP3 files podcasts. Well, actually, they don't.
And to your comment about the civilized world wanting to know about Apple launches - seriously, not everyone does. I care as much about Apple launches as you do about Microsoft launches - I imagine that you'd be one of the first to complain if the BBC covered a Microsoft product.
Summed up, you're a jerk.
No it fucking doesn't.
When the hell will people stop saying that streaming iPlayer works on Linux when it doesn't. It only works on 32bit Linux. Since the majority of architectures nowadays are using 64bit this is fucking useless.
I run 64bit, I can't use streaming iPlayer, why? Because BBC decided to yet again go with a steaming pile of proprietary shit and the owners of that technology refuse to release a 64bit plugin.
And before you go on about gnash or ndiswrapper of chroots...NO. Gnash doesn't work, ndiswrapper solution is littered with problems and no I won't setup a chroot to run 32bit Firefox because I have a 64bit system and don't want to run 32bit software or waste my system resources trying to fix the failings of Adobe.
Perhaps I've missed an extra point or two, here... It is 2:30am, here in the states, after all. But, I seem to recall installing the h.264 codec on Kubuntu64. And I've run some MP4 files on here. To that end, why all the whining?
Furthermore, considering the typical self-styled outsider stance of the Linux community, why the shock and overwrought indignation that the 3rd most popular OS among consumers is being prioritized as exactly that? You seem to forget you're dealing with an entity that survives by appealing to demographics. Thinking outside the windowpane does have disadvantages.
Finally, on the offence taken at the nebulous 2 year timeline for a linux version... When did Linux users actually expect shit to be made for them by anyone other than themselves? I sure as hell don't. And when the HELL did they conceive that their small numbers are socially irrelevant to their choice to snub the vastly more embraced behemoth? I've been waiting and waiting to see someone lend some gravity and momentum to this OS, so as to break the stagnation of duelling distros. But, until such time as one definitive, superior flavor of Linux emerges (pun somewhat intended), any public entity looking to appease the growing masses of penguinistas has to identify the best, most distributable installation format. So, what's the best one to go with? .deb? What about rpms? Ooooo, wait. I've got it! E-builds... No. Wait... Oh, hell. None of them are universal across all distros of Linux. Binary? 'Cause I'm sure all the users out there are that damn good...
Now, I know it's not THAT damn hard to make installer variations from decent source code. But, that says nothing of creating universal code that can comply with all versions of Linux out there. It's also likely to take them a while because nobody is that good at writing shit for Linux except other Linux users. And that's because most coders, especially ones getting paid public salaries, probably stopped learning somewhere in the vicinity of Visual Basic. Most colleges stateside still defer to Windows 2000 for IT training. Taking that into consideration, what damn distro of Linux should any college teach for development? For IT, that question is less than a challenge. But, for programming, there's no clear choice. It's not unlike arguing for a school uniform, but falling into debate over the shirt: arrow collar, tabbed or oxford button-down. All the while, the process has been halted until something shakes out... Think of what effect this phenomenon has on outsiders.
It might be worth pointing out, that in order to view BBC iplayer, you will need some kind of device with a display and a tuner or a connection to broadband to receive the picture. If you live within the UK and can satisfy the above criteria, you will, by law require a TV license regardless of wether your device is a T.V. or some form of computer.
It is also worth pointing out to anyone else who is about to shred the TV license and drop the T.V. in a skip, that wonderful though all this download T.V. is, has anyone checked their download thresholds? It doesn't take long to reach your max data usage and then start being charged for it.
Paul Warne:
Simply possessing a device with a display or tuner does NOT mean you require a licence by law. The Communications Act 2003 states that a licence is required if television receiving equipment is installed or used for the purposes of receiving television programmes (i.e. broadcasts).
If you don't receive television broadcasts, you don't need a licence. Using a TV for watching videos, computers and games consoles or monitoring, say, a CCTV camera is exempt. It does help if the equipment isn't tuned to any station, mind, should the enforcement officer visit and you let him in for a poke around.
Receiving television over the internet is something of a grey area. The consensus is that services such as the iPlayer (on-demand programming) does not require a licence, but broadcast television (like streaming News 24) does.
There *is* a unified package management system for all Linuxes (for that matter, all Unixes) and even all architectures: it's called GNU Autoconf. You can package up your Source Code and generate a configure script which will then detect various things and generate a Makefile (a file containing metadata which controls the compilation process; saying where to find various necessary files and where to place the eventual binaries and config files).
Somebody at your favourite Linux distro will -- in time, If the package is deemed useful -- take the source package and make a set of RPM or deb packages especially for that distribution on each supported architecture, containing pre-compiled binaries, dependency and conflict information for automatic resolution and digitally signed to prove that the contents have not been tampered with. Until that happens, if you really can't wait, you just have to learn to use
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install
and remember one crucial piece of information: Wherever the Source package asks for another package such as libfoo, you need to install libfoo-devel (RPM) or libfoo-dev (.deb) as well (if there is one). This is all for boring historical reasons that are no longer valid but persist anyway.
The Linux community would *gladly* write our own iPlayer client, if it were not for the fact that certain important information is being withheld from us.
Neil Hi,
The second line of your second paragraph is absolutely true and I am totally in agreement with you.
However tour last paragraph is somewhat contradictory, to say that on demand viewing does not require a license but streaming viewing does, leaves me with the notion that most computers attached to the internet, will be able to facilitate and display either method of viewing, thus rendering them all liable to the license fee.
...............Neil further to the above, I have just phoned T.V. licensing to confirm the position, I read them you last paragraph word for word, and they say absolutely you WILL need a license for anything such as and including iplayer, C4od, News 24.
TV Licencing wants the public to believe that they're criminals simply for not having a licence - all the scare-tactic advertising and thinly-veiled threats through the post support this. It seems evident that they believe their own FUD and are no longer sure what requires a licence. Take this comment from the BBC itself:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/01/iplayer_does_not_require_a_tv_1.html
It states quite unambiguously that watching on-demand programming does not require a licence, yet you've just heard from the company contracted to deal with it that it does! Maybe it's down to poor staff training, but it's much easier to tell the concerned that they require a licence (and, of course, collect the fee) than it is to request clarification of the law and risk loopholes being made common knowledge.
So let's say for sake of argument that we do need a licence to watch iPlayer streaming.
Why are we the British alone in having to pay for content the rest of the world gets free? They need to have some sort of validation dependant on physically having a license, and they could charge a fee for foreign usage. The point I was making, was that I could just move abroad, watch all the uk tv I want on the interwebnet and not pay a thing over my connection fee which I would be paying anyway.
In answer to Paul Warne, I do not currently have any download thresholds.
Hey, it's all about INTEROPERABILITY.
Even Adobe has embraced H.264 for future versions of Flash. It's not technically or aesthetically better than On2 VP6 but it *is* an open, non-proprietary standard.
In other words, H.264 will be Flash Video, Real Soon Now. Actually I think the latest version of the Flash player can handle it already, but the Flash video encoder is yet to be updated.
This means it's possible to make a video file which will play on youtube, on any MPEG-4 compliant set-top box, and on the iPod. That's pretty cool, no?
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