BBC goes live... over Wi-Fi No telly in your office? No problem, because the BBC has launched a live TV service for smartphones. BBC_Live_TV The BBC's Live TV service (left) also supports live radio (right) Although still in beta, the Live TV service is designed to let you watch a selection of TV channels, including One, Two and BBC News, live over a …
"If the statement about watching TV on the phone is policed anything like the TV licence, then possession of a smart phone is as good as signing yourself up as a criminal!"
Unless, of course, you just buy a sodding TV licence and worry about the more important things in your life.
Bring on the 800 comments from the BBCtards.
Since when did (or should) the connection methodology or the platform used matter? Why suddenly is it important to stream TV to wirelessly connected smartphones but still not a good idea to stream to wired PCs?
Let's see if we can't come up with a slashdot car analogy... Isn't this like selling petrol which will only power blue cars?
Oh, and when will iplayer-dl have a version to handle the live stream?
...they've put a very desireable service online, and then you're breaking the law if you use it (assuming you don't have a TV licence). Isn't that "Entrapment"?
Haven't managed to get further than the "only works on Wifi" thing 'cos I'm running over 3G at the moment, shame it doesn't support 3G but I guess the beeb doesn't want to ruffle the phone companies' feathers just yet.
I assume it will support Windows Mobile? Sorry, I meant "Windows Phone".
Once again like the iPlayer this doesn't work on the Nokia N82 or the N95 it seems. 2 devices that are more than capable of running live TV. I'm gonna take a wild guess that this crap works on the N96, a device which is less powerful than the N82. So it seems the BBC have teamed up with Nokia to make it work on only the newest devices. So much for unbiased.
Rant Over..
When you get the warning about WiFi only, you just hit "continue" and it takes you through.
And to those complaining about support on earlier N-series devices; it's the same problem they have with iPlayer. You have to admit the access point handling on FP1 devices is crap, and how long do you think it would be before assorted numpties who don't realise the RealPlayer setting is different from the global setting ring the Daily Mail because they've run up a £3000 data bill? Although I'm an N95 owner myself, I do rather sympathise with the BBC on that one. Thankfully, the access point handling on FP2 and S60 5th edition is much better, but you've then got the DRM stuff to consider.
With the trend being toward larger and larger screen size at higher and higher resolution, why anyone would want to forgo such a thing and watch TV on a teeny tiny phone screen is beyond me. What's that you say? "Watch while away from home"? That's what DVRs and Slingbox are for, you twit.
Until they can wirelessly transmit images directly to my optic nerve, I'll pass, thank you.
You do not need a license if its not live. So iplayer is exempt (at the moment) I would have no trouble if they made you need a license for iplayer as us license payers pay for that content you want. However I do think if you don't view live bbc or iplayer on your PC the bbc are entitled to nothing even if you watch 4od.
Also wit hregard to battery power devices being excempt. False: They are different in that wherever you watch them you are covered by the persons licenses not where you are, but a license is still needed somewhere.
The TV license is used to pay for all the BBC's UK services - TV as well as radio. At some point in future they may be able to adopt a subscription model, but because they're still the UK's premier PSB, they could only do so if free subscriptions were handed out to the poor / elderly etc. who couldn't afford the £200+/year (accounting for inflation and a bit extra for those that decide not to subscribe) - besides which, you can't easily do encryption on analogue services.
As for the alternative - allowing advertising - one of the reasons those who like the BBC like the BBC is that programming isn't interrupted every 10 minutes by 5 minutes of advertising. OK, so they fill the space between programmes with about 5 minutes of trailers, but that's a policy also followed by the majority of TV / radio channels - including non-BBC commercial offerings (e.g. 4Music / TMF).
The BBC currently has to walk a very narrow tightrope between PSB commitments (which politicians like but only attract a small audience share) and populist programming (which politicians hate but attract a much larger audience share) - hence the recent 'brainwave' of wrapping science documentaries up in dramatic reconstructions, thus killing two birds with one stone. But one thing the BBC can do much more quickly than a commercial broadcaster is interrupt the schedules when there's an event of major (inter)national importance (e.g. WTC attacks, Di's death), because they don't need to worry about losing revenue from the adverts in between programmes that have been dropped.
With the recent controversy over BBC Worldwide (err...how big is Lonely Planet's market share amongst travel books? How could the BBC owning it impair competition, when competition presumably wasn't impaired when it was in other hands?) they could perhaps stop advertising BBC Worldwide publications on air, and / or if necessary increase the price of some magazines to make them less competitive (e.g. the Radio Times is significantly more expensive than most other listings magazines - but then again it is a more weighty tome than most...)
Bear in mind that the license currently costs a meagre £11.88 / month or 39p / day - significantly cheaper than most subscription packages, and you get 9 TV channels, 10 national radio stations, 9 regional radio stations, and numerous local radio stations.
Although controversy and non-payment could be significantly reduced if it was possible to buy a license to cover all residents in a house of multiple occupation (e.g. student halls of residence) - evidently the cost would be higher than a standard license but it could be recouped by an extra few pounds on the rent :)
And just before I sign off, another potentially good idea: charter renewal should be carried out by a completely independent body rather than the government of the day. The BBC is supposed to be independent of government interference, but as its charter is renewed by the government of the day, it tends to toe the government line in case their charter is meddled around with too much at renewal time (e.g. forcing them to hand over part of the license fee to rivals - the fee is already subsiding digital switchover).
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