The cycle of media desire

On Monday Ryan read a book and the book was good
On Tuesday Ryan listened to a podcast and the podcast was good
On Wendesday Ryan watch TV and the programme was good
On Thursday Ryan turned on the Radio and the show was good
On Friday Ryan watched a DVD and the DVD was good
On Saturday Ryan listened to music and the music was good

On Sunday Ryan was shouted at by his wife for paying her no attention all Christmas and it wasn’t so good

Tastes change and mine are no different to anyone elses, one day I’m really into reading while listening to music and the next day I’ll be catching up on the hours of programmes I’ve had sitting in Sky+ for the best part of a month.

Normally my main past time is listening to podcasts and audiobooks - my iPod is great because it means I can hang it around my neck and listen to its bountiful contents anywhere I like - on the toilet, walking to work, washing the dishes or reading a book - I particularly like listening to something overly atomospheric and prenting I’m in a movie with my own soundtrack.

Unfortunately I’ve been iPod free for the past week or two as I managed to overload the power or something - basically it smelt a bit burney and then stopped responding - nothing worked.

Fortunately I got a new iPod for Christmas from my parents who brought it over with them when they visited us this weekend (thanks mum and dad - it’s a great present).

So I’ve been busy filling my iPod with music, videos and podcasts to listen to while walking around - or at least you’d think I would be but first I had to work out why the bloody thing kept asking me to “Insert the Mobile Resource Disk” every time I tried to plug the bloody thing in.

I eventually worked out the problem and for anyone using Windows and having the same problem when trying to install the iPod Nano (third gen) on a Windows XP machine:

Uninstall iTunes AND the Apple Mobile Device Support - in fact the mobile support is the most important one to uninstall - I tried uninstalling iTunes without that and the problem still happened when I re-installed iTunes again.

Now it all works I’ve managed to get a few bits on it and am on the lookout for a decent AVI to iPod video convertor that won’t cost a huge amount of money and won’t fill my system with shit-ware.

This post was supposed to be a look at the cycle of media desire - the idea that what we want changed depending on mood, situation and weather but then the Smiths came on my iPod and I desided it was all too much bollocks to bother writing about.

Happy New Year

(Oh and this blog was down because I lost my password and I’m with Fasthosts).

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Back to basics?

I love my iPod - it goes with me EVERYWHERE. I have it on a lanyard and it sits around my kneck from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed (only coming off when I’m in the shower).

It’s not always in my ear - I take it out when I’m talking to somebody, watching TV, listening to the radio or writing - but do still use it when reading a book or blog post.

But I’m getting really pissed off with it. I’ve had it for two years now and sticking to the general rule of Lithium Ion batteries (between 300 and 500 charges), it’s giving up the ghost. A charge lasts about two hours and it keeps crashing.

So I’m getting a new one for Christmas - or at the latest early 2007 (when I’ve got the money). But it has led me to wonder - is it time to go back to basics.

This is also inspired by the Amazon Kindle and Sony eBook reader - I love the idea of going all Sci-Fi and having a device that I can pick up and use to read any book I want or even have my newspaper or favourite blogs delivered directly too it - when I’m on the bog.

But it will have the same problem as my iPod. In two years its battery will start to die, it will get flaky and I will have to buy a new one. I dont’ get that with paper.

I read a lot of books and have a fairly large library of everything from SciFi to cookery and everything else in between. I can pick up a book, shove it in my bag and know that I can pull it out and read it any time I like - without having to worry about the batteries being dead.

Oh and while we’re on the subject of books - YES I CRACK THE SPINE - a book is there to be read, it’s there to be enjoyed and the best way to enjoy a book is crack the spine, fold it in half and get on with it.

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Torchwood Season 2

iPlayer streaming

My blog seems to have been turned into an iPlayer love in lately - or at the very least a BBC screenshot fest. Well I might as well keep it up for a little bit longer.

Yesterday I brought you a screenshot of the iPlayer Radio - the integration of iPlayer with the old BBC Radio Player. Today, the first screenshot I have for you is the Radio button on the iPlayer website itself.

If you look closely at the screenshot above you’ll see that, instead of the usual small picture and download link you get with the iPlayer (well not in Firefox) you’ve got a big picture that fills the box and a Play button.

That’s because this is the Firefox friendly, streaming version of iPlayer - it’s basically using Flash and it’s not bad quality. Here’s another screenshot for you.

You can see above that you get a large flash video window, the network graphic (in this case BBC Two) and a brief bio about that episode and its duration. As this is in Firefox it tells me the download isn’t available. In IE it would give you a big download button.

You don’t need to install anything other than flash to watch shows on the iPlayer - this is how it should have been from the start. It’s now 100 times better than 4OD and ITV.com - I can just use it straight out of the bag.

The streaming is impressive, the flash video is pretty good quality and a good size as well (much larger than You Tube). You get the channel ident first and then the show itself starts. It takes a while to load properly but it must be a fairly large encode.

You can even share iPlayer videos - you can’t embed them but you can post the video to Dig, Facebook et al and you get a link to e-mail it to people or post it on your blog.

This is something the BBC seem to have been doing a lot on music based website lately - for example the Later with Jools Holland site lets you embed and share the link on social sites.

All in all this is a pretty good achievement - it’s what the Beeb should have done from the get go - I think the flash streaming is good enough that they could even just drop the download version. After all - why wait two hours to download something you could watch right now and will be there to watch anytime for up to a week.

The only reason I can see for downloading a show is if I know I won’t get to watch it for two or three weeks - the downloads will be alive for 30 days as long as you don’t start watching them.

It’s stream all the way for me - that’s why until now I prefered the 4OD and ITV.com - they basically let me press play and watch the shows straight away - even if Channel 4 do make me install their crappy software to do it. And the downside to ITV.com is that its Windows Media and requires me to install a codec or something first.

The iPlayer is now a thing of wonder - I go to bbc.co.uk/iplayer, find the show I missed, press play and watch it - that is how it should work, that’s the BBC working well. That’s brilliant simplicity.

UPDATE

Here is another screenshot of iPlayer working at full screen - just for fun.

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The all new iPlayer Radio

Well the switched has happened - if you use the BBC Listen Again Radio Player today - you’ll find it has become iPlayer radio - although it’s pretty much just cosmetic.

The iPlayer Radio looks a LOT better than the BBC iPlayer itself. They have a similar colour scheme but the iPlayer Radio just seems to feel better.

I’m sure that’s all going to change when the iPlayer Radio is incorporated into the iPlayer full - but then the iPlayer proper may change when it launches officially.

The current iPlayer is a beta release at the moment. It launches properly, complete with streaming on December 25th. Then full integration of the radio player launches later in 2008.

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A chance to Catch Up!

Was just searching for iPlayer Streaming on Google and found a post by ninthspace on why they don’t think the iPlayer is a very good idea - mainly focusing on the fact that shows can be recorded with Sky+ and the like without the risk of download timeouts, without the need for a PC and implied - without the need for DRM.

Well I’ll explain the DRM thing in a minute, and why Sky+ isn’t legally any better than the DRM thing - but first the point of having the chance to download a show is that, if you missed the recording, forgot to record, if it clashed or even if you didn’t know it was on until afterwards - you can still get it.

But first the PC point. Although at the moment the iPlayer is only available for Windows - you’ll soon be able to watch shows (via flash) with a Mac, Linux or even still Windows - you’ll even eventually be able to watch it through services like Virgin and BT.

NinthSpace complains that it will be “a Flash-based version of iPlayer. Streaming only; no downloads.”

Personally I think the BBC should drop downloads from the iPlayer anyway. All the rights holders will allow them to do is offer downloads for a short period of time jammed full of DRM - it’s basically an opportunity to borrow the show for a week or two.

With streaming it makes it much more like actual television and the misconception that you get with downloading (that you put the effort in to download a show means you get to keep it) is taken away.

They can then offer a download to own service (or allow the rights holders to sell the shows online to own through third parties) that doesn’t intefer with the concept of iPlayer (a chance to catch up on the broadcast show).

After all, when the BBC buys the rights to a show (or even commissions a show internally) they are only leasing it from the various rights holders for a specific number of showings - after that more money would need to be paid (to music rights holders, to writers, performers and others).

So the licence fee covers the cost of the BBC paying for say 5 showings of an episode of Spooks and two weeks worth of on demand viewing. After that the rights revert back to KUDOS who can do with it as they please - or the BBC can purchase more repeat rights.

Think of the licence fee as a rental fee - it allows the BBC to rent a show for a specific period of time then they have to return it. This is why they can’t offer proper, all time downloads - they don’t have the rights.

Also - legally if you record a show of the TV (under British copyright law) you are obliged to destroy the copy within 28 days (or thereabouts). Having a tape or Sky+ or even a DVD recording of a TV show doesn’t give you the right to keep it forever - it’s just that most people do.

Well - in the case of Tape most people forget to label it and then forget what’s on it and then later watch it and wonder why the hell they recorded it in the first place. Which is why I say Thank God for Sky+.

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The Cult of 2

BBC TWO has long been known as the home of more alternative programming - it often either creates cult classics or airs shows that are already cult classics - it is basically the home of interesting programming, the opposite of the more mainstream BBC One.

The problem with One is that it has to be all things to all people - the new 8pm, 90 second bulletin can’t have music or scrolling text because it annoys a certain demographic, comedy has to be more restrained and shows have to fill the middle ground.

It is the channel of the popular, the shows that everyone watches even if they’ll never admit to watching it. Shows on BBC One (especially in prime time) are expected to average more than 5 million viewers a week.

The flip side of that (and for the purpose of this blog post I’m excluding BBC Three and Four as they’re really feeder or niche market channels), is BBC Two whose goal in life is to do something different, is to serve a niche, to provide programming for a mass (million+) but not mainstream audience (Three and Four don’t need to serve the ‘mass’).

On BBC One you have Cranford, Waterloo Road, Eastenders, Casualty and Doctor Who. On BBC Two you have Big Wine Adventure, Ben’s Zoo, Nigella, University Challenge and the Tudors.

Oh and Top Gear. But like the Office and Extras, Top Gear is a niche program that seems to be watched by the masses. It has what is approaching a mainstream audience - albeit slightly, and only slightly male skewed mainstream audience.

I write a roundup of Top Gear ratings each week for the FinalGear forums and for the past two series Top Gear has been averaging around 6.5 million viewers and a 23% audience share. Those are numbers BBC One would be pleased with - but would putting Top Gear on the mainstream channel kill the show?

Some hardcore car fans already believe Top Gear is too mainstream and any comedy and cocking about should be removed as it distracts from the car - but over the last five years the show has built another hardcore fanbase of people that watch it as a light entertainment/cult comedy show and that group aren’t fussed about cars and so for them Top Gear on BBC One wouldn’t be such a big deal.

After all if it went to One it would probably get a bigger budget, it would almost be guarenteed the money to convert to HD and in turn would probably also get an inevitable BBC Two ‘extras’ show.

You’d have Top Gear on BBC One every Sunday evening and then when the show finished you’d have a BBC Two version - probably with more stuff about the cars featured/used in the ‘boys own’ stunts on the BBC One show. It could also include news and information about the car industry today.

That might be the best way for Top Gear to serve two masters - but would it kill it? Would moving to BBC One and focusing on the stunts rip the soul out of the car show or is it already that way anyway?

Does BBC One really rip the soul out of shows or is it just the ‘arena’ stage for the television acts that have gone treble platinum or have been around a while? Is BBC One really that mainstream or is it just a worn in perception?

Oh and Top Gear reached a peak of 8.5 million viewers last week (an average of 7.9 million).

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The new homepage of thousands

Well now that everyone else has started talking about it, and you can see it yourself at certain times on a Monday - I figured I’d post a little more of the BBC Homepage and how some of the customisation will look (from someone that hasn’t worked on the page and isn’t on the team that did).

The best way to talk about something is to show it working - so I’ve put a few screen grabs together that show the bits of most interest to me and bits that are most different.

I haven’t included a screen grab of the grey navigation bar that is currently on EVERY BBC website as it isn’t there - the grey bar has been dropped from the homepage - as has the bbc.co.uk logo - replaced instead with the three blocks across the top.

Most of the new homepage can be changed and moved around - the bits that can’t (below the top navigation area) are the main promotional box (that controls the colours of the homepage).

As you can see from the animation above - clicking on one of the promo items (coloured boxes) will not only change the image and text in the box but will change the colour scheme of the whole page - I’m not sure I like that very much. I do like the idea of being able to set the colour scheme but I want to set it permanently - not based on the promo I’m viewing.

Although, changing the whole page does draw more attention to whats being promo’d and should help drive more people to whatever is in that space - thus making it MUCH more valuable.

Which should help given that the directory (currently on the left hand side of the screen) has been moved to the bottom of the page and put in a dark grey box (similar to some blogs I’ve seen).

Now back to the bits in the middle. Every block (apart from the promo space) can be changed, you can turn them off or on and even change whats contained within them.

You can have them all on

Or if you fancy it you can have them all off

But I don’t really see the point in having them all turned off as it looks a bit silly - unless you just want a simple BBC search engine - in which case I suppose it works.

The new BBC Homepage is a sort of Google Homepage come Page Flakes but just for BBC content - although I’m sure there is scope to increase that and open it up at a later date.

Two things that are clearly absent from the current beta release is localisation - being able to pull in stuff from your home town only extends to the Weather widget and elements of news but I think more is coming. The other is the iPlayer - there isn’t a mention of it or much in the way of A/V stuff. Given that the Radio Player becomes iPlayer Radio next week - I’m sure there will be more to come.

Anyway - this also brings blogs to the front of the BBC - there’s a fab range of blogs from really talented people across all areas of the Corporation and the new homepage makes it easier to find them.

And finally the clock - god how I love the clock. I hope this isn’t a short term thing, I hope the clock stays and isn’t a nostalgia trip to mark ten years of Aunty on the web.

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The Queen in High Def

Why the hell would anyone want to see the Queen in High Definition? I mean the first thing I do on Christmas day is look in the Radio Times to make sure I can avoid The Queens Bloody Speech.

This year SKY will be broadcasting the Queens Speech on SKY Movies HD2 (which means I can avoid it as I don’t have HD or Sky Movies) as well as the UK Television Premier of Casino Royale.

In a campaign that will be dubbed (or at least is labeled on the press release) On Her Majesty’s HD Service, the High Def channel will air the mainstays of an ITV Christmas - her Maj and his Bondyness.

The Sky press release says “Sky HD captures every detail, facial expression and movement, offering images that are much more life like with four times the picture detail of standard definition.”

Queen Elizabeth is 81 for crying out loud - I don’t want to see her “every detail” and I’m certainly no interested in her “facial expression” and I can’t imagine anyone actually wants to see her movements.

Thats why I don’t really get the appeal of High Def outside of say sport and wildlife programmes - for everything else normal def does the job just fine. In fact more often than not I watch shows through my computer (streamed to the TV) which is a LOT lower quality than standard Def TV.

I do have a bit of respect for Her Maj, after all she’s had to put up with a lot of crap from her kids - but I do hope she’s the last Monach we have - we’re a modern 21st Century Democracy (despite the efforts of the Labour Party) and I think its time we had an elected head of state.

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