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BBC to Offer Videos Online?

IP Blocking today

J@ffa said:
...They'll restrict it either by IP or make you enter your license fee code, or something along those lines.
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J@ffa has a point they already restrict some of the replay video on their site by IP address. When I was away working in Sweden I could not watch the BBC news as my IP was non UK. Despite continuing to pay licence fee, be a UK resident etc.

I hope they find a way to offer their programs via iTunes. Could they not offer to licence video by using peoples licence numbers. Non UK TV licence holders could pay for the videos.
 
I heard about this early last year, I thought you had to pay and subscribe and only certain shows would be available?
 
giveup said:
that's nice. i can threw my TV away and get refund of TV license.
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Hmm... I hope they don't let folks without TV licenses download BBC content. Not just because I'm mean minded – though of course I am – but because, if people started doing this, then eventually the BBC's one source of income would dry up and all British TV would by like ITV (shudder). Awful American buy-ins (sorry, no offence, but I hate reality shows) and detective shows.

(That said, The West Wing was American, and shown on a commercial station over here... no, that's no excuse, I hope the new detector vans will hunt down video iPods too)
 
This would be amazing, I always forget to watch programmes on BBC, so I could just download them, and watch them the next day on the bus or something :D
 
jrober said:
I hope they find a way to offer their programs via iTunes. Could they not offer to licence video by using peoples licence numbers. Non UK TV licence holders could pay for the videos.
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Hey, Brighton. Good for you. me too. But anyway, Apple aren't excatly cooperative when it comes to localisation and they're hardly likely to put BBC-only features into iTunes (not without the beeb coughing up a huge amount of license fee on the technology, at least).

As for selling their content aborad, that's easy enough, just use one of the other regional iTunes stores. And you can bet they will in time – the BBC makes a huge slice of its revenue from foreign sales now. The problem there might be not upsetting much more valuable deals they already have with foreign broadcasters.
 
That's great!

Hey, as a non-UKer I'd be glad to pay the $20/month license fee if I could download the content legally. Doctor Who and Spooks alone would justify much of it, there's enough good stuff.

For the meantime, uknova will have to do.
 
Does anyone remember this story recently?

"With QuickTime 7, BBC Motion Gallery will offer previews that are approximately four times larger, with no performance degradation. (Linked progressive download QuickTime 7 specs are 720 x 579 [PAL] or 720 x 486 [NTSC], H.264/AVC codec, 2 Mbps quality.) Notes Albright, “H.264 will give us far superior quality at the same bit rates and suffers less from artifacting."

http://www.apple.com/pro/video/albright/index2.html

It may be a coincidence, but encoding all that archive material and never-before-seen footage? Sounds a bit like how music videos are turning into money-spinners...

I think there is more to this BBC/Apple deal than anyone suspects...

Nig.
 
I'm on the BBC iMP trial :cool: Only was finally sent the link to download the app last night, and haven't had much chance to have a play. The downloads are pretty quick though, and the quality looks good.
 
littlejim said:
The BBC is NOT a government funded organization and does not broadcast governent information etc. The BBC makes all it's money from the Licence fee and it's commercial operations.
In fact, the BBC has a great history of kicking our government (of all colours) in the
goolies!
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Thank you for making this important point!!

The BBC is a excellent service and the license fee means it does have to show programs in the public interest rather than the rubbish you get elsewhere. BBC is excellent when it comes to Drama, Comedy, News and documentaries. No other provider in the world can match up to the engaging, highly polished documentaries they produce.

The BBC should offer their programming to the world at a cost. They really do add richness and quality in a increasingly bland tv industry
 
To all the readers of this thread, please stand up.

God save the BBC
Long live our BBC
God save the Beeb

Send it your licence fee
Happy and advert-free
Long to broadcast me
God save the Beeb

You can sit down now.
 
As a UK licence payer I'd be actually quite happy if they allowed me to pay for shows instead of paying the licence fee. It would then more accurately reflect on what I wanted out of the BBC and they could change their shows accordingly although I'd hate it if they only then put on the shows that people paid for and not the less popular shows.

Plus I'd get to watch the digital channels that I still can't get because they don't broadcast to my area and almost certainly won't for another couple of years.

It'd probably work out cheaper for me too since I don't watch TV so much.
 
As of access restriction to the content, they're network is split into 2, UK and non-UK. The BBC only peer there UK-Only AS with UK net providers. As you can see here, theres AS-BBC and AS-BBC-LONDON, AS-BBC-LONDON for there london and UK links, AS- BBC for the rest.
 
edesignuk said:
I'm on the BBC iMP trial :cool: Only was finally sent the link to download the app last night, and haven't had much chance to have a play. The downloads are pretty quick though, and the quality looks good.
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What kind of programmes are you initially trialing?
 
restriction is a defininte - because of the licence fee. one great way to help this service would be to offer the licence to non-uk residents, giving them access and still keeping the requirement of a licence. i, personally, don't have a TV at home, just a nice HD projector hooked up to my PMG5 for watching DVDs etc. i'm not a big fan of the TV now shown in the UK, with the exception of Lost (and even that's imported :( ). i got that on DVD from the US. if there was an online service for the BBC, i'd be happy to pay the licence fee. currently i think it's overpriced for the crap you get all the time. i'm not trying to start an argument, that's just my personal view.
 
Please BBC, let people outside the UK pay a subscription to get the programmes...

.. I'd sign up immediately!

Any know where there is a feedback page for IMP?
 
The licence fee is a neccessary evil, and there is a lot that the BBC produces that I have no interest in, but I don't feel hard done by because of it.

I pay just under £10 a month to the BBC, and in return I get nine (or is it ten?) national radio stations, covering everything from current affairs to drama to comedy to documentary to news to sport to classical music, world music, pop music, urban music, easy listening music, and pretty much every other kind of music there is...

Plus local radio stations, plus I can listen to pretty much everything that was on the radio over the last week ehenever I want via their internet service...

And there's their websites, that are fantastic resources for all kinds of info...

And that's without even starting on the TV programming!

If people had the choice of picking to pay only for what they watched, we would see the BBC loose its public service broadcasting ethos, as it would have to produce almost entirely commercially viable programming. Niche programming on radio and TV would all but dissapear, and the depth and breadth of content that is currently available would be dramatically reduced.

And then we would have a broadcast media not unlike the US, with lowest common denominator programming that panders to as wide an audience as possible winning out (mostly) over more intelligent and challenging material.

However much people here moan about the offerings of ITV for example, the very fact that the BBC exists in its current form pushes the commercial broadcasters in the UK to keep their standards up.

Free downloads that are at least compatible with iTunes for UK residents? Great idea. Selling the same content via iTMS to other parts of the world? Great idea also.
 
cheekyspanky said:
Would Apple even want BBC content on the UK iTMS? Surely all it would do is detract from the actual paid content if all the BBC videos were free?
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The iMP system only allows programmes to be viewed for 7 days after broadcast, so, in theory, there could be a situation where it was free via iMP for 7 days, then appeared on the iTMS as a paid download after that.
 
brilliant. a move like this from the BBC is pushing me towards getting a video enabled iPod. I cant imagine watching the new doctor who in that mini resolution on my PowerBook.
 
cheekyspanky said:
Would Apple even want BBC content on the UK iTMS? Surely all it would do is detract from the actual paid content if all the BBC videos were free?
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I don't think Apple makes much money from content. Sure it makes some. But the point is that the more content that is available, the more attractive it makes Apple's hardware. Apple should jump at the opportunity ... and so should the BBC! Let's just hope the rumors turn out to be true.
 
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