bbc iplayer drm failiure

Haveing downloaded the bbc iplayer a pere to pere based service for catching up on missed programs i have been able to watch only 3 programs in over a month. why? DRM! for all the media companys talk of drm as enabling technology and all that it just doesnt work. you download a program its a bit slow and needs a restart ocasionaly but it works and as its a beta thats forgivable. than i want to play it and thers a 10 minnit wait while wmp trys to downlaod a licence before telling me thers no coonection. this i eventualy relised may be to do with me useing a router not surported by my isp so the old usb moden is fished out and instaled. then this wont coonect because i have some noise on my line and the usb modem seems to be especilay sensitive to this (more than my good qulity router) but coonection is achived after hours of trying and then a message saying i dont have a licenec apperas in the window wher the licenece down load is happening or a mesaghe saying ther is an erore and to redownload so of the 20 programs ive tried to watch only 3-4 have actually been seen and the software has been reinstaled over 4 times and all of these problems are avoided if there were no drm not to mention the other implictions of drm and its limiting factor on choice of os and media player and web browser. So in short this product has been made useless by drm and is not reedy to be in public beta let alone billed as a releas as the bbc did.

Road prceing UK

ok just read this artical on the bbc http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6678915.stm basicaly the government in the uk are planing to GPS track every car in the country and use the info to charge you different prices for road use depending on where you are and what time it is. Aside from the civil libities aspect of that which i haven't got time to go into it seems to me to be utterly pointless as way to reduce congestion as planed it will deter unrequited travel at rush hour but the long delays do that already so will serve the purpose of charging you more if you live in a conjested area than in a quiet rural area to me thats fine living in the country as i do when i have a car if this scheem combines with lower fule duty that will be just fine. however asumming thats the intention to redistribute road tax to thouse who cause more congestion and pollution it a nice idea for those on the reduced price side asuuming they do that wil probly just put it up but anyway as a way to reduce congestion it wont work. and here's why the transport systems full. the roads are full , the trains are full and the buses are full or just to painfully slow. Lets assume for a moment that everyone on the road at rush hour are not on public transport due to , cost ,or inconvenience. Now if the train (or buss) is less convenient than the hours stood in traffic they probly arnt going to use it. for those who are on the road because its cheaper the new priceing will probly level that off so they would get on the train but thats full so they cant so even if this would convince people to get off the roads they can't so its pointless. encorageing a deep social change in terms of flexible work hours and home working would work far better or just build more roads or improve public transport. for example more high teck tracking of trains would allow shorter gaps between trains I.e. more trains for more people that could be done and would proberly work (disclaimer not a expert so might not not sure what they have at the min but they got something like that in India where they know her every train is and how fast its gooing in computers so less margin for human error needed. )
So basicaly as transport network over capacity at peek times and people will still want to work road pricing just additional tax.

So very true!

hi just had to post this image i saw while stubling through the net.
just thought id put that up there cos i found it funney and makes a chnage from rants on big media as is the norm (btw i probly have one of those sooon on internet stuf i cant watch from outside USA) any way copliments to http://www.xkcd.com/ who must take credit for this image and the rest on her very funney site.

Quicksilverscreen

Livving in the uk as i do and without a tv due to the need for a tv license which is hardly worth it given the quality of much of the moder programing i have found myself vewing the website quicksilverscreen.com which has experienced much legal turmoil over the last few months havening to move to non us servers and eventually be given away after fox first issued ceases and desist orders then prevented it being auctioned. While it is true that the linked files were most deffiantly ilegal and that the links themselves were a Grey area, the fact remains that alot of people are willing to put up with the inconvinence of dead links slow buffering and dropouts in videos.

This one would assume has nothing to do with wanting to steal content as it is only watched, nither is it in my opinion to avoid advertising as this can easily be done with regular television through a dvr, or even vhs or simply just leaving the room to make a cup of tea. The reason why people watch these programs online is simple they want the content at a time to suit them and even at a place to suit them. I could for instance get my laptop sit in the park in range of the university conection and watch the latest episode of what ever im watching with realitive ease insted of tuneing in at the specific time i am told to watch by the broadcaster.

I have no interest in taking money from the broadcaster or company in question, I am quite happy to watch adds before and durring the program to no excessive levels as on tv if and if i wanted the content on a permanent basis i would buy the dvd. Why then are media company's sticking to brodcast and forcing on demand content to be through illegal up loading. These companys have more than enough resorces to provide content through the internet either add supported or subscription but these sytems are not provided or are done very poorly. For example comedy central's motherload is a very clunky interface that i can only get worrking with IE and the shows provided are devided in to small chunks that buffer slowly and idividualy. The interface could by made into a much similar mor basic approach with easy. Clips of shows ,such as the daily show, could be linked togeather and accessible as a single show (the clips can be kept im sure it dosent take a lot to have them play smothly after one another with adds interspersed) and the whole thing could buffer as one you can leave a tab open in firefox for 20 mins to get a buffer with little problem but waiting a minute wathing 2 then waiting another for the next one is ver inconvenient. Also alot of the vidieo services ofered by company's on the web are only avlible in the US (which im not) if they no wher i am surly they can get advertising for that region surly some third party in the relevant country would be able to provide advertising that could be put into web video feeds. Basicaly the US media Needs to get the act togeather and relise that an ad basied busines model can waork on any distribution platform, the same goes for all other media companies , except the bbc who need to start makeing better programs so some one pays a licence fee, because if wee all wathc tv through the internet thers no tv licence and they are in big trouble

Left in the could at sheffield univercity

Ok heer's the deal this blog is basically my pointless attempt to bring atention to stuff that annoyes or inconvineces my in my daily life, this is usually Microsoft or big media but today its the accommodation department at Sheffield's university and their penny pinching form the maintanance budget. Heres my problem i'm at uni i'm in halls and for that last to two days there has been no heating! it freezing here as the heating isn't working and its not the first or last time its happened. Basically the university knows the boiler isn't working but are not fixing it was only a few weeks ago wee got the radiators bled and enjoyed heat for a while. now it would seem its shut down completely as even the pipe feeding the radiator is cold to the touch. Its all because the uni are to cheep to fix the boiler properly as the halls i'm in are soon to be got rid of, but surely they have some obligation to keep comfortable temperatures i shouldn't have to be putting on warm socks and coats indoors really. Bassicly its a disgrace and i really hope its resolved before jan cos its hardly like i can light a nice fire in here.

Ok alttle disjointed as i pasted half in from my other blog but you get the idea im paying good money for acomodation and they are failing to provide basics like heating. If anyone reads this please leave a comement as to if you think its right for a large istitution to have such a blatent disrgard for the comfor of its students.

IE7 triple restart

right1 im in a ranting mood now aimed especially at Microsoft! Basiacly im sat her minding my own business listing to infection by scot siglar its his previous podcast novel he's on to the Rockie now but thats all bout American football in a intergalactic way so i dont get that at all. Back to Microsoft they've released IE7 which id ont really care about because i use the far superior firefox but anyway i updated to IE7 2 weeks a go because comedy central uses an active x thing for its mother load player and it doesn't work well in Firefox and i don't really want to have a security hole like that running all the time i brows the net. But basically you cant get rid of IE and its such a scurity hole you want it as new as possible. so basically for that reason and partly out of curiosity i downloaded it the day after it was released. After a restart it was done , a restart that was not needed for fierfox 2.0. And now the point the Microsoft update popped up today and decided to install IE7 so now has removed the previous version (also IE7 minus the 50 or so security fixes that properly been released already) and now has to restart to get rid that then restart again to install it again so thats 2 pointless restarts to archive absolutely nothing. What on earth are Microsoft doing they design the OS surly they at least should be able to install a program while the computer is on but no they tie IE so into the operating system that even they cant do that. thats it really got that out they way btw switch to firefox 2 now its far beter than anything microsoft can manage.

BBC - Radio - Download and Podcast Trial

The bbc podcast trial! Why is it still a Trial? It works ther are several good podcasts on here as sad as it may seem Radio 4 has some of the best podcasts with less music to cut out. However the BBC are such sticklers to copyright and licencing isues that you listen to the podcast u miss bit that would have been on the radio. WHY! Are you going to listen to an entier podcast every week just incase u can ilegaly copy a bit from the arces if evre it is made fun of? (not retorical question so please leave me a answer) Personaly im not and it brakes ur listing. This is material they brodacst to everyhome in britan that anyone with a casset radio can record how is letting the few people who listen online here it going to make a difference. Ican see why there never going to let the chriss mnoyls show out with songs in it, thats just asking for trouble but to stop someone hering a parody mix of some of ther own material is plain rediculous.

p.s.
Just found that the bbc offer full version radio versions of the their sowhs online acesible to everyone anyware in the world so why is the podcast cut?

Read more at www.bbc.co.uk/radio/dow...