BBC Have Broken GetIPlayer

On 31/10/14 20:11, Brian Gaff wrote:
Apparently there is a new system coming called Nitro, now would you not
expect the bbc to actually leave stuff that works up and running until the
new system is in place and software writers can adopt it? I wonder if the
name is a joke, as I was thinking they need some kind of explosive up their
arses to stop screwing up what works fine.

Their previous API was called Dynamite ...

Sounds like job creation scheme to me.

Bankers, it's all bankers :-(

--
Adrian C

In article , Steve Thackery
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:

However the reality is that the BBC can't actually stop people from
recording. e.g. it is trivially easy to connect a digital recorder via
USB or spdif or indeed HDMI and record the audio if you know how to do
so.

Jim, I thought the HDMI output was encrypted for HD material, preventing
recording the picture or sound. Is that wrong?

I'm pretty sure you'd be able to find an HDMI box that outputs something
else like spdif. Even if it is called a 'TV set'. :-) But my main point is
that there are many ways to skin this cat, depending on the details. These
range from the 'so bleeding obvious even suits should know' class like
using a DVD recorder (then rip the disc if wanted) to ways like using a TV
dongle to capture ts streams for video+audio through using fixes like an
ALSA tee or Audacity to record audio. I lost count of all the ways someone
could make copies years ago. The idea that some kind of perfect lockdown on
iplayer would do more than annoy normal users is a fantasy pushed by
lawyers eager to go on being employed by dumb suits who are easily
panicked.

So measures like 'encrypting' HDMI just annoys and inconveniences many
people without actually preventing someone with a clue from making copies
*if that's what they want to do*. There are other paths though the woods.
Largely 'mechanical' copyright protection is an employment scheme for suits
and lawyers. I guess engineers just sigh and go along with the gag, knowing
the reality full well but also realising there's no point arguing.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article , Chris Davies
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:
1) if access via pid or url will remain possible for get_iplayer or
some derivative and allow recordings to be made.

Some patches are available on the mailing list. (See the thread
"get_iplayer search and PVR functions no longer work - no fix available"
from the last couple of days.)

I just got caught up in this because I happened to install and start using
get_iplayer on the morning of the change! However I found that - with one
exception - using it via pid worked fine with no need for the lost feeds.
For my purposes that's fine as I normally listen via the webpage interface.
i.e. just go to the .../programmes/pid page and use that. So I was
experimenting partly for audio comparisons and in preparation to doing some
HDTV analytical comparisions - FreeviewHD ts tsreams versus getting the
iplayer ones, in the future. If pid continues to work, I'm OK.

*BUT* the risk that get_iplayer and things like it may be put out of
operation does bother me for various reasons. e.g. that many people may be
relying on it. Perhaps particularly those with special requirements like a
searchable and speakable text base. So the feeds clearly *do* matter to
many people, even though I personally haven't needed them. Hence it seems
bad to me for the BBC to remove them with no notice and no replacement.


I also wonder how many people this is going to annoy who have become
used to what has now been broken. Might be more people than the BBC
thought.

Get_iplayer has never been an officially acceptable way to retrieve and
watch content from the BBC, and I can understand that given the rights
ownership of that content.

Yes. Understood and agreed. Its not their job to consciously aid or promote
either home recording or commercial piracy. But AIUI nor is it their job to
go out of their way to *block* it. Although they may have to take some
steps to keep suits happier to help them get in some material to broadcast.
Their charter, etc, require them to make and broadcast material to educate,
inform, and entertain. So far as I know, it doesn't make being an active
anti-piracy agency a primary responsibility in the same way.

Me, I'm trying to work out how to express my frustration without setting
myself up for a straight "don't use get_iplayer" type response.

The response I'd make is to ask for what alternative is on offer that does
the same things and meets some requirements I'd expect the BBC to accept.

e.g. Having already paid for BBC-produced/commissioned items my access
should not really require me to *buy* any other - particularly non-UK -
commercial items or software beyond what I already have. Nor act as a leak
for any info on me to anyone *other* that BBC direct and only.

And for any software to be open enough that we can check and verify this.
[1]

The point is that as fee payers we already paid for the BBC's content and
access to it. And the legal reality in the UK is that 'home taping' *is*
now permitted within specified conditions. You can make and keep recordings
for personal purposes of convenience, etc.

People buy DVD+/-R discs and use them to home record films, etc, etc. No
matter how much the suits grind their teeth, this is happening and will
happen. And so on. If they think that means they can/should charge more for
a TV screening, that's for them to bicker about.

I've listened to more radio, and a greater variety of it, in the last
few years via get_iplayer than since my teens.

I can certainly see why it and similar programs are very handy for many
people. I don't doubt the BBC know that. The problem is the clash of
cultures between suits/lawyers and engineers. The engineers are practical
realists as they know the final test is if the bridge falls down or not.
The suits and lawyers rely on their own myths to keep their jobs. Alas, the
suits and lawyers using think they are running things. :-)

Jim

[1] I know, BTW, that some people at the BBC are not deliriously happy with
methods like flash. They've used it as a result of the clash between suits
and engineers I've referred to. In effect, it was a way to get the show on
the road. They do plan to change to other methods. How much better they
will be in practice, or when, I dunno...

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On Fri, 31 Oct 2014 23:49:05 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:

OK, I stand corrected on that point: I didn't know the BBC
simultaneously streams broadcast TV, but my main point is valid. You do
need a license for the broadcast signal no matter how its received, but
you don't for any stored program that you choose to watch/listen to
after the broadcast has been presented to the viewing/listening public.

I do have a TV, but it isn't connected to anything other than a DVD
player and a couple of games consoles. When I bought it, the shop wanted
me to fill in a form... and a letter duly arrived from the TV tax people
telling me, somewhat rudely, that I had just bought TV reception
equipment but that I didn't have a licence. So on telling them I'd bought
video display equipment and quoting them the bit of their rules that said
I wasn't liable for their tax, they huffily "retained the right" to barge
into my house and make sure I wasn't telling porkers.

Some months later, I was cooking some flash-fried venison top-loin
(extracted from a local Roe), plus chips, and a light red-wine sauce...
when the doorbell went. It was a bloke from the TV tax office:

"Do you have TV"
"Yes"
"We have no record of a licence"
"I don't need one"
"Can I check"
"Yes, but I'm cooking this, and I'm not going to ruin it for you. You can
wait there if you like"

So I left him standing in the kitchen looking increasingly hungry. Then
relented and took him to where younger son was being horrid to some
aliens. I asked younger son to show the TV to the tax bloke.

The bloke came back to the kitchen a couple of minutes later, and
admitted that there was no antenna connection. He started on the usual
stuff about needing to get a licence if I wanted to watch anything live...

.... and was somewhat puzzled when I pointed out that I didn't see the
attraction in paying for the privilege of having my time dictated by
someone else' broadcasting schedule. With things like iPlayer, 4od and so
on I could get things as and when I wanted. And with US download sites,
anything I might want from there, typically months before it got to this
side of the Atlantic. So why should I want to pay his tax ?

He went away hungry. Dinner was nice.

--
Murff...

In article ,
says...

Jim Lesurf wrote:
1) if access via pid or url will remain possible for get_iplayer or some
derivative and allow recordings to be made.

Some patches are available on the mailing list. (See the thread
"get_iplayer search and PVR functions no longer work - no fix available"
from the last couple of days.)


I also wonder how many people this is going to annoy who have become used
to what has now been broken. Might be more people than the BBC thought.

Get_iplayer has never been an officially acceptable way to retrieve and
watch content from the BBC, and I can understand that given the rights
ownership of that content. Me, I'm trying to work out how to express
my frustration without setting myself up for a straight "don't use
get_iplayer" type response.

I've listened to more radio, and a greater variety of it, in the last
few years via get_iplayer than since my teens.

Chris

Me too.

I like listening to Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra content in my car and
get_iplayer allows me to snaffle last weeks shows as MP3s and put them
on a memory stick. I then have comedy shows and plays to listen to as I
sit in the usual morning and evening traffic jams.

I pay my TV licence, I am not selling the content to anyone else and
fail to see any harm in my activities and without this method of storing
BBC shows I would simply not be able to listen to them.

In fact, I fail to see why the BBC won't let me do this directly,
without having to use get_iplayer!

In article , Yellow
wrote:
In article ,
says...

Jim Lesurf wrote:

I also wonder how many people this is going to annoy who have become
used to what has now been broken. Might be more people than the BBC
thought.
[snip]

I like listening to Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra content in my car and
get_iplayer allows me to snaffle last weeks shows as MP3s and put them
on a memory stick. I then have comedy shows and plays to listen to as I
sit in the usual morning and evening traffic jams.

I pay my TV licence, I am not selling the content to anyone else and
fail to see any harm in my activities and without this method of storing
BBC shows I would simply not be able to listen to them.

My POV is similar although my details differ. Particularly for material
made by the BBC or commissioned by them. We paid for it.

In fact, I fail to see why the BBC won't let me do this directly,
without having to use get_iplayer!

I guess the problem stems from when the BBC want to 'buy' the right to be
able to screen things like feature films made by large media companies.
This is slightly different to the above as the BBC don't own the material
in the same way and are asking in effect "can we just show it once or
twice, please?"

The company lawyers then duly obsess about controlling who can access, how
and when, and also use the ways something might be gasp! copied to try
and hike the price *and* want to see the BBC 'clamp down' on such awful
behaviour by paying customers.

No doubt in particular they'll be wanting to prevent non-UK people watching
since they'll be planning to flog the same material in other countries. As
can be seen from DVD and BD 'regions', they like this trick of divide and
rule.

All this puts the BBC in a stress between trying to get the material to
show at a reasonable cost and allowing their fee paying viewers/listeners
to do so as suits the viewer/listener. I have some sympathy for the BBC
here as they want to keep down procurement costs as well as maximise how
much they can make the results accessible. But in the end, its our fee
money that pays the BBC.

IIRC one small-scale example of another kind was that the 'format' rights
to 'Desert Island Discs' was owned by the family of the original creator.
As a result for some years it and old issues were off limits for the full
iplayer treatment. Since then the BBC I guess have established that their
normal commissioning contract allows them to make stuff they commission
available as suits via 'listen again', etc. But chasing up old rights was
presumably a PITA for the BBC lawyers. In some ways I suspect the
Radio4extra listen again is as much a triumph of BBC lawyers as engineers!

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article ,
Jim Lesurf wrote:
However I found that - with one
exception - using it via pid worked fine with no need for the lost feeds.

That was the case a few days ago, Just now I tried again and for three R4 /
R4ex items chosen at random simply using the programme file pid or URL
failed.

So does this no longer work at all?

I'll see if I can find any fix, but a pointer here would be welcome.
Otherwise I'll have to abandon trying out get_iplayer and conclude its a
deceased waterfowl.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 01/11/14 09:40, Jim Lesurf wrote:


Jim, I thought the HDMI output was encrypted for HD material, preventing
recording the picture or sound. Is that wrong?

I'm pretty sure you'd be able to find an HDMI box that outputs something
else like spdif.

To the best of my knowledge HDMI encryption hasn't been broken yet so as
yet you cannot get an HD signal out from any HDMI device. There are ways
of getting and recording SD signals though.




--
Bernard Peek


In search of cognoscenti (again)

On 31/10/14 17:33, Jim Lesurf wrote:


Yes. The basic problem is that many of the large 'copyright owners' are run
by suits who remain obsessed with 'mechanical' ways to 'protect copyright'.

I think you will find that they are obsessed with effective methods of
protecting copyright. I doubt they care much whether the method is
digital or clockwork.



--
Bernard Peek


In search of cognoscenti (again)

On 01/11/14 14:03, Jim Lesurf wrote:
material
made by the BBC or commissioned by them.

I would expect that the price for transfer of copyright, or at least the
right to sub-licence with no additional royalties, for a commissioned
work, would be higher than that for a limited licence to make it
available over the air, in the UK, and available to UK users of iPlayer,
for a 30 days.