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View Full Version : Live in the UK? Or, simply use the BBC's services...?



viciouslime
August 13th, 2006, 03:47 PM
http://www.petitiononline.com/bbcogg/

Please sign this petition to get the BBC to open up. We all pay ridiculous amounts for our licence fees, the least they could do is provide ogg vorbis/ogg theora versions of their content.

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 03:53 PM
Nobody really uses vorbis commercial or not but I guess it's worth a shot.

Edit: I went thru my list of podcasts/vidcasts, Rev3 offers a theroa download but it is almost 4 times as big!

Edit2: So yeah, theroa can't compete with the big boys and there is really no reason to use vorbis.

viciouslime
August 13th, 2006, 04:11 PM
Are there any better free video codecs then? As for vorbis, that's definitely worthwhile. Virgin radio provide vorbis streams and I use them all the time.

Terracotta
August 13th, 2006, 04:14 PM
Are there any better free video codecs then? As for vorbis, that's definitely worthwhile. Virgin radio provide vorbis streams and I use them all the time.
xvid for video? you can even have ogg xvid as video and ogg vorbis for sound.

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 04:22 PM
XvID is still patent encumbered and vorbis on it's own is pointlesss.

FISHERMAN
August 13th, 2006, 04:40 PM
Vorbis is the best for streaming audio(and some commercial radio's use it), both for the user(free format) and for the Radio(because Vorbis is better you don't need as many kbs over the net to get the same result=>You won't have to pay as much for bandwidth).

Theora's quality/compression isn't as good as other semi-free/non-free codecs, but this does not necessarily mean it's bad. It's still good enough to be used for video's over the net.

In the future we might have better formats(like the BBC's Dirac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirac_%28codec%29)) but Vorbis and Theora are the only 2 mature free formats without legal problems(*).
So all GNU/Linux users should support Vorbis and Theora over other formats.

*(Xvid, despite being GPL, has legal problems in some countries(software patents, USA to be precise) with patented MPEG-4, and the combination in which it is usually used AVI(container)/Xvid(Video-codec)/MP3(Audio-Codec))

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 04:56 PM
Why would somebody use theora when you can get better quality with 1/4 the size? MP3 is to far spread to start adopting vorbis.

FISHERMAN
August 13th, 2006, 05:08 PM
Why would somebody use theora when you can get better quality with 1/4 the size?Cause it's a free format.
BTW, This is ***, while it is true that the Quality/Compression rate isn't as good as some other formats, But that doesn't mean that you'll have 4×the original size.

MP3 is to far spread to start adopting vorbis.
Then why do some commercial radio stations change to Vorbis?

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 05:12 PM
Cause it's a free format.
BTW, This is ***, while it is true that the Quality/Compression rate isn't as good as some other formats, But that doesn't mean that you'll have 4×the original size.

I took that number from a real comparison.


Then why do some commercial radio stations change to Vorbis?

Because their comsumers never touch the file?

FISHERMAN
August 13th, 2006, 05:15 PM
I took that number from a real comparison.
Link please.



Because their comsumers never touch the file?
If the average user can install a codec for Xvid he can install a codec for Theora & Vorbis. All the radio station has to do is place a link where he can find the codec.

beercz
August 13th, 2006, 05:20 PM
Petition signed :-)

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 05:23 PM
Link please.

http://revision3.com/diggnation/2006-08-03/media
http://dl.tv/blogs/digitallifetv/archive/2006/08/10/18248.aspx




If the average user can install a codec for Xvid he can install a codec for Theora & Vorbis. All the radio station has to do is place a link where he can find the codec.

or they could use MP3 which is on almost every computer in the world.

.t.
August 13th, 2006, 05:31 PM
I think you miss the point, bjweeks. This is about using a free format. MP3 is not such, and is not on any Ubuntu fresh install.

I encourage everyone to sign this petition, as it would show up the rest of the world, and persuade more, smaller, organisations also to open up. The BBC should lead by a (good) example, since it's the world's largest broadcasting corporation.

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 05:33 PM
I think you miss the point, bjweeks. This is about using a free format. MP3 is not such, and is not on any Ubuntu fresh install.

I encourage everyone to sign this petition, as it would show up the rest of the world, and persuade more, smaller, organisations also to open up. The BBC should lead by a (good) example, since it's the world's largest broadcasting corporation.

MP3 is free but not free... :rolleyes:

FISHERMAN
August 13th, 2006, 05:47 PM
http://revision3.com/diggnation/2006-08-03/media
http://dl.tv/blogs/digitallifetv/archive/2006/08/10/18248.aspx
Theora scores acceptable when compared to the most used formats.
Only h264 has a clear advantage, but that format is so unknown that people should just wait for Dirac(which will be free) and use Theora in the meantime.

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 05:49 PM
Theora scores acceptable when compared to the most used formats.
Only h264 has a clear advantage, but that format is so unknown that people should just wait for Dirac(which will be free) and use Theora in the meantime.

You heard him, everybody switch to Theora so you can support an extra 0.1% of users at the cost of 4x the bandwith!

FISHERMAN
August 13th, 2006, 06:03 PM
You heard him, everybody switch to Theora so you can support an extra 0.1% of users at the cost of 4x the bandwith!
You're wright.
Websites that only work in IExplorer? What's the problem? over 80% uses IE.
Only support for Windows? What's the problem? over 90% uses Windows.

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 06:05 PM
You're wright.
Websites that only work in IExplorer? What's the problem? over 80% uses IE.
Only support for Windows? What's the problem? over 90% uses Windows.

20% Vs less than 0.1%, see the difference?

G Morgan
August 13th, 2006, 06:44 PM
They can offer things in multiple formats as opposed to just using the closed formats.

//edit - signed by the way. If the BBC want to use closed formats only they can give me my license fees back and get MS to pay for them.//

bjweeks
August 13th, 2006, 06:45 PM
They can offer things in multiple formats as opposed to just using the closed formats.

Ok so use one of the MPEG formats?

Response to edit: Does the BBC not offer Real?

G Morgan
August 13th, 2006, 08:13 PM
Ok so use one of the MPEG formats?

Response to edit: Does the BBC not offer Real?

Still a proprietry format. The BBC exist to serve the public, its in their charter and is the reason for their existence. Supporting proprietry standards to the exception of everything else does not do that. If they don't like it they should go private and let me have a tax cut I can use to support the standards I prefer.

I pay £150 to the BBC pa and I expect certain things from them. If they aren't willing to provide that then I should get my money back. I could donate that £150 to the Ubuntu project among other things.

bjweeks
August 14th, 2006, 03:09 AM
Still a proprietry format. The BBC exist to serve the public, its in their charter and is the reason for their existence. Supporting proprietry standards to the exception of everything else does not do that. If they don't like it they should go private and let me have a tax cut I can use to support the standards I prefer.

I pay £150 to the BBC pa and I expect certain things from them. If they aren't willing to provide that then I should get my money back. I could donate that £150 to the Ubuntu project among other things.

Yes, they should be supporting open standerds(*cough* MPEG *cough*) but asking them to support a codec that 2% of user have and 0.1% of users can't play your media without is kinda dumb.

%hMa@?b<C
August 14th, 2006, 03:17 AM
Singed, but I live in USA, and hardly ever touch the BBC channel or website... oh well.

.t.
August 14th, 2006, 12:41 PM
You should. Some of it is quite decent.

egon spengler
August 14th, 2006, 01:10 PM
Yes, they should be supporting open standerds(*cough* MPEG *cough*) but asking them to support a codec that 2% of user have and 0.1% of users can't play your media without is kinda dumb.

But if a big content provider like the BBC starts to support Vorbis (or whatever the hell it is we're talking about) then more than likely there will be a noticable uptake and so it won't be only 2% of users for long

bruce89
August 14th, 2006, 01:12 PM
The BBC did stream Vorbis for a short time - http://support.bbc.co.uk/ogg/, but then pulled the plug on it 3 years ago.

bjweeks
August 14th, 2006, 01:20 PM
But if a big content provider like the BBC starts to support Vorbis (or whatever the hell it is we're talking about) then more than likely there will be a noticable uptake and so it won't be only 2% of users for long

Almost every computer, all portable music devices, most new cell phones, most cd players, most game consoles, DVD players and some cleverly modified toasters can play MP3s. There are free open source encoders and decoders available for every major OS. Almost all OSs(ubuntu being the exception) come with a MP3 player out of the box.

Expecting a large company/government to offer Vorbis is selfish and pointless.

bruce89
August 14th, 2006, 01:26 PM
Expecting a large company/government to offer Vorbis is selfish and pointless.

In what way is it selfish? Vorbis is much higher quality than patent ridden MP3.

Almost every computer, all portable music devices, most new cell phones, most cd players, most game consoles, DVD players and some cleverly modified toasters can play MP3s. There are free open source encoders and decoders available for every major OS. Almost all OSs(ubuntu being the exception) come with a MP3 player out of the box.

http://wiki.xiph.org/VorbisHardware
http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/Games_that_use_Vorbis
http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/VorbisSoftwarePlayers

LAME is open source, but it can't be truely free, as it is patented technology.

bjweeks
August 14th, 2006, 01:37 PM
Yes, many games use vorbis but the end user never knows it, why should offer something that makes 98% of your users download a player when you could just pay the small fee for MP3?