Nick Reynolds highlights and links to:
The BBC Trust published the conclusions of its review of the BBC's on-demand services, including the BBC iPlayer.
The BBC Trust also began a consultation about the BBC Executive's proposed approach to on demand and syndication.
Check link below for some select quotes and links to relevant sites.
Paul Murphy pointing out highlights:
- April 2010 was the best performing month for BBC iPlayer with 123 million request for BBC TV and Radio programmes, up from 118 million in March 2010
- Online requests also hit an all time high at 104 million, up 3 million from March 2010
- The new series of Doctor Who also chalked up a new record of the highest number of requests a single programme has received, with 1.6 million requests for Episode 1. Outnumbered and Russell Howard's Good News also performed well
Round up of iPlayer beta coverage, by Paul Murphy.
Morten Eidal:
We decided that the best route to implement our video and audio player was playback using the html5 video tag. This allows us to integrate the native player into our site, where we serve two H.264 flavours, one 1500kbps for the high quality video (default), and a lower 800kbps you can use if you are bandwidth constrained.
In any case, the result is the Beta version you can see right now – we really hope you like it – delivered by a small team of 5 within just 4 weeks and with the generous support of our FM&T colleagues despite being already busy with the UK election, iPlayer V3, and now the World Cup.
And don't forget, soon we will embark on incorporating the iPlayer V3 features for Bigscreen.
But that is chapter two.
Robert Andrews:
Rose acknowledged it may be used only by early adopters but said it’s “the best feature” of the upgrade: “If i see Erik is watching EastEnders, I can join in and watch. The integration of chat with live TV has been the holy grail. This, for some, could transform the way they watch television.” The feature has missed today’s beta for Rose’s third-generation iPlayer, but is due in two to three weeks.
Shame that chat facility will be powered by Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger (or whatever it's called now).
Robert Andrews interviews Huggers and Rose about iPlayer launch:
The highlights…
—Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) for iPlayer IM: “Windows Live Messenger is one of the most popular right now,” said ex Microsoft exec Huggers. “Let’s try it first with the biggest out there.”
—HTML5 vs Flash: BBC has a strategic relationship with Flash maker Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE), but: “I can guarantee you that, in the labs, there’s plenty of activity with HTML5.”
—Canvas still relevant:“Everyone is building (connected TV) as a closed, proprietary environment.” “It’s very different from Google (NSDQ: GOOG) TV, which will just search the web.” “We need to build the damn thing.”
Anthony Rose:
Now, today iPlayer does a fine job of satisfying the time-shifted desires created by the scheduler: the BBC schedulers create the desire to watch a programme; iPlayer lets you see it at a time that's convenient to you.
But what if you no longer watched linear TV? Who becomes the tastemaker then? Right now this is a largely theoretical problem as very few people watch no live TV at all. However, for a small but growing number of people this is indeed the case, and the fundamental problem that I sought to address was "who becomes the tastemaker for such people in a world without schedules?"
Erik Huggers:
The BBC wasn’t the first mainstream media company to offer a video-on-demand service, but I do think we were the first to get it right. Some important early decisions contributed greatly to its appeal with audiences.
He then goes on to describe simplicity of access (i.e. streaming), quality of content, clarity of message, and platform neutrality as those important decisions.
Bringing the benefits of emerging technologies to the public is in the BBC’s DNA as its sixth public purpose, and the idea behind BBC iPlayer was to give audiences greater control over the programmes they enjoy, guarantee subscription-free access to BBC content in an on-demand world, and provide better value for the content they have already paid for.
Too often people forget that technological innovation is part of the BBC’s public service remit…
"The BBC has refused a freedom of information request to reveal how many people watched its TV drama about freedom of information campaigner Heather Brooke."
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