The Beeb's controversial decision to roll out its iPlayer TV-over-IP platform on Windows only seems to have been overruled, presumably by its own governing body. More than 16,000 people (or accounts, anyway) signed up to a petition posted on the Prime Minister's e-Petitions site, saying that:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prevent the BBC from making its iPlayer on-demand television service available to Windows users only, and instruct the corporation to provide its service for other operating systems also." That would, of course, be a pretty naughty move by the PM, as the Beeb is supposed to be independent.
View: The full story
News source: The Reg
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prevent the BBC from making its iPlayer on-demand television service available to Windows users only, and instruct the corporation to provide its service for other operating systems also." That would, of course, be a pretty naughty move by the PM, as the Beeb is supposed to be independent.
View: The full story News source: The Reg
I still think that it was stupid to begin with support for one platform and gradually add support for others. I think someone at the BBC was heavily influenced by someone at Microsoft for that to happen. I would have been far more sensible and much more in the public interest to begin with using a system that supports as many platforms as possible and then gradually move to add extra support to specific platoforms.
Long story short: The BBC should have started by using Real Video because it supports the widest range of platforms, including many mobile phones and then they could have added Windows Media support later on.
Last edited by Spielo on 07 Sep 2007 - 16:14
too bad that "decision" never existed
Glassed Silver:mac
Cry me a river dude!
Well... if you simply avoid Microsoft's proprietary software and use an open-source codec you automatically get universal support on any platform without any performance penalties or licensing costs. Macs, Linux, cell phones, consoles, media players, etc. You wouldn't even need a custom player.
The real problem is that the BBC wants a player that supports DRM, otherwise there would be no problem distributing the shows online in numerous suitable license-free formats.
oh well, other sources on the internet are better.
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