BBC response to missing Look North

In message ,
SpamTrapSeeSig writes:
In article , Java Jive
writes

Flash does disadvantage one while *most* of the content that uses it
is worthless.

That is a judgement on the content. It's nothing to do with the format.

1) Having it means that you often have to sit and wait for
irrelevant corporate videos to play, etc.

Not true.

You clearly haven't accessed some of the corporate sites we have (-:

Concerns such as... ?

2) It has been used for security attacks on PCs

So has the operating system. So has Java. So has Javascript. So has
HTML (even!), when Microsoft produced several vulnerable browser

Indeed. However, as the other chap says, I need (varying numbers of)
those to make my computer work at all.
[]
If you want your computer to be wholly safe, why would you connect it
to the Internet in the first place?

Can't disagree with that, but ...

It's just another straw man.

.... there are some standard formats, widely supported by numerous
softwares on most of the popular computing platforms: mp3 for audio, for
example. (Which, to be fair, the BBC do now use for podcasts, at east
the ones I download.) Streaming, as opposed to downloads, is a little
muddier.
[]
3) There are de facto standard file formats that can be played on any
computer using the software that comes with that computer.

That is just ignorance. There are no such things. If you transact with
a web site you receive a datastream. Your computer creates the 'file
format' locally (if it saves the stream as a file at all). It gets
pointers as to what to do with the file, but there are many examples
where what's received is not identical to what's stored.

The usual structure of video+audio encoded datastreams in a 'container'
(e.g. MP4), either as an incoming datastream or a stored file, means
there are a huge number of permutations.

Indeed. But there are some that are a lot commoner than others.

Microsoft and Apple (to name only the two biggest players in the
desktop market by volume) both include media players with their
operating systems, however the supported formats are commercial
decisions for both companies, and only a subset of those two lists are
supported by both, and even then with significant differences in the
presented output.

One good example of this is QTVR. This is nominally a video format
structure, but when correctly displayed by Quicktime, you get spherical
and cylindrical panoramic photographs shown in a 'movable' viewing port.

At the time of writing MS' Media Player, although it claims to handle
the QT container, doesn't read the headers correctly, and tries to
present it as video. Obviously, this is not helpful!

So don't use that format!
[]
Furthermore, the iPlayer activity is important enough for the BBC to
get Adobe's attention commercially. Whatever we think of Auntie's
growing girth, she's nowhere near big enough to convince Microsoft to
change course, for example to make QT support work correctly in its
proprietary player.

A very good point. (See, I'm not disagreeing with all you say!)

Thus the iPLayer/Flash solution is a good one for all concerned.

Hmm.

Whether the BBC should be doing it at all, however, is another
matter entirely...

Indeed! Given that it is an alternative delivery method of delivering
either stereo audio, or 16:9 or 4:3 video (with audio), I don't think
they should be using formats which give panoramic facilities ...

.... or if you mean they shouldn't be doing it at all, you are far from
alone in that view (if that's what you meant): but that brings us back
onto the original thread, of what we think of the treatment of those
deprived of Look North.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)[email protected]+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

Veni Vidi Visa [I came, I saw, I did a little shopping] - Mik from S+AS Limited
), 1998

On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 10:54:17 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

Flash does disadvantage one while *most* of the content that uses it
is worthless.

Well by those standards, most of the content on the internet is
worthless, therefore you should not have any internet software on your
PC.

1) Having it means that you often have to sit and wait for
irrelevant corporate videos to play, etc.

Only if you visit irrelevant corporate websites.

2) It has been used for security attacks on PCs

Extremely rarely. There are far more security attacks against browsers
themselves (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) than against Flash.

3) There are de facto standard file formats that can be played on any
computer using the software that comes with that computer.

Usually all Microsoft file formats.


--

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:10:14 GMT, (Zero
Tolerance) wrote:

Only if you visit irrelevant corporate websites.

That is arrogant and erroneous conceit. *I*, noone else, decide what,
or indeed who, is relevant to me, and, right now, you are looking
pretty irrelevant.

Extremely rarely. There are far more security attacks against browsers
themselves (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari) than against Flash.

However, I need the browser, I don't really need Flash Player.

3) There are de facto standard file formats that can be played on any
computer using the software that comes with that computer.

Usually all Microsoft file formats.

Not at all, most of them can also be played on, say, Linux machines.

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In message , Mike Henry
writes:
[Flash]
1) Having it means that you often have to sit and wait for
irrelevant corporate videos to play, etc.

Not true.

True

Just because you have installed flash, does NOT mean it's somehow
"impossible" to block adverts and other annoying flash objects, leaving
only the flash objects you do want, such as the iPlayer. In Opera you
simply right-click and block the stuff you don't want, whether it's an
animated gif or a flash advert, and the site it's from is added to a
blacklist. In Firefox you can use something like Adblock+, or NoScript
[]
In my work as an electronics engineer, I sometimes find myself visiting
sites where you are presented with a flash video; this of course comes
from the site you are visiting (so blocking that site isn't an option).
The better ones have a "skip intro" button, but certainly not all of
them; even ones that do it is irritating. [Said button sometimes
disappears under the flash presentation itself, if you're not using the
exact browser and window size the designer wants you to.] (I think the
above poster meant this sort of thing, not ad.s from third party sites,
from his use of the word "corporate".)

Needless to say, the companies that do this don't get my attention for
long - and thus my employer's business - if there is an alternative.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)[email protected]+Sh0!:`)DNAf
** http://www.soft255.demon.co.uk/G6JPG-PC/JPGminPC.htm for ludicrously
outdated thoughts on PCs. **

You have the capacity to learn from mistakes. You'll learn a lot today.

Absolutely correct.

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:11:41 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:
]
In my work as an electronics engineer, I sometimes find myself visiting
sites where you are presented with a flash video; this of course comes
from the site you are visiting (so blocking that site isn't an option).
The better ones have a "skip intro" button, but certainly not all of
them; even ones that do it is irritating. [Said button sometimes
disappears under the flash presentation itself, if you're not using the
exact browser and window size the designer wants you to.] (I think the
above poster meant this sort of thing, not ad.s from third party sites,
from his use of the word "corporate".)

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On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:33:59 +0100, Java Jive wrote:

That is arrogant and erroneous conceit. *I*, noone else, decide what,
or indeed who, is relevant to me, and, right now, you are looking
pretty irrelevant.

I will accept no lectures on "arrogant and erroneous conceit" from
someone who seems to fail to grasp the inherent logical error in
complaining that they do not have access to a particular website,
because they will not install the (free, easily available) software
which is necessary for that site's advanced features to work.

--

Then you will confine it to my plonk folder ...

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:02:52 GMT, (Zero
Tolerance) wrote:

I will accept no lectures on "arrogant and erroneous conceit"

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On 18 Jul 2009 10:54:21 GMT, Mr Premise wrote:

This is always assuming you have a machine modern enough for
iPlayer
to work on. It doesn't work on Win 2k for example, which is still
supported by Microsoft.

I'm afraid this hasn't been true since December 2007.

On the iplayer page you get when you click on a download button it
only lists Vista and XP.

At least it doesn't barf straight away telling me I need Vista or XP
when when I try to install it on a fully updated win 2k box. It
chunters through the Adobe Air bit, asks me to install, agree the
T&Cs then just over half way through the installation "it has a
problem" OWTTE and fails to install. There is one possibly useful bit
of information "Error No. 0".

--
Cheers
Dave.

On Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:39:54 +0100, Paul D.Smith wrote:

But surely if you can receive BBC1, you can get BBC2 so why the need for
the change and screwing up all the regional BBC1 programming?

I think everyone is missing the point about this.

No viewers in the Greater London megalopolis missed their regional news
program BBC London News as a result of this switching of Wimbledon to
the BBC-1 network, and that is all that really matters in the minds of
the London-centric BBC bosses and staff at Broadcasting House and
BBC Television Centre.

get a life you sad tw=C2=A3ts....

url:http://myreader.co.uk/msg/124339850.aspx