Wednesday 23 December 2009, AM
BBC iPlayer celebrates second birthday with record breaking figures
With an average of over five million unique users a week, BBC iPlayer is set to have its best Christmas yet. New data also provides a fascinating insight into how users of BBC iPlayer, now available on more than 20 different devices, differ per platform. BBC iPlayer makes the unmissable unmissable, thus reducing the probability of any culinary related disasters. - bbc.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk5483 - Get iPlayer on Freesat now
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blog.wotsat.comTuesday 22 December 2009, PM
The BBCs digital rights plans will wreak havoc on open source software | Cory Doctorow |Technology |guardian.co.uk
Now, generally speaking, the BBC isn't allowed to encrypt or restrict its broadcasts the licence fee payer pays for these broadcasts, and no licence fee payer woke up today wishing that the BBC had added restrictions to its programming. The BBC couched this as a minor technical change, and Ofcom held a very short, very quiet consultation, but was overwhelmed by a flood of negative submissions from the public and from technologists who understood the implications of this move. Fundamentally, the BBC is trying to leverage its broadcast licence into control over the devices that can receive broadcasts. - guardian.co.uk
www.guardian.co.ukBBC News - Project Canvas given green light by BBC Trust
The BBC Trust, the corporation's governing body, has given a provisional go-ahead for a project which could kick-start demand for internet TV. Set-top boxes, expected to cost around 200, could be available next year. The Trust reached its provisional conclusions following more than 800 written responses. - news.bbc.co.uknews.bbc.co.ukMonday 21 December 2009, PM
BBC Trust, press release - decision on fair trading appeal by IP Vision
Please visit the BBC Trust homepage to find the information you want. you may have typed the web address incorrectly - please check the spelling, or that there are no spaces or capital letters. Alternatively, please try the other links and search box on this page. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukMonday 21 December 2009, AM
BBC Trust poised to approve Project Canvas |Media |guardian.co.uk
The BBC Trust is expected to this week give the green light to Project Canvas, the video-on-demand joint venture, albeit with significant conditions attached. Project Canvas has come in for heavy criticism from BSkyB, which has argued that issues exist over membership, the lack of a full market impact assessment and potential breaches of European Union state aid rules relating to use of the licence fee. The question of exclusivity of partnerships is also thought to extend to the manufacturers of set-top boxes that Project Canvas is working with. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.uk
UTV bids for north-east ITV news pilot |Media |guardian.co.uk
Winning bidders will get access to about 7m of public money a year to create a replacement for ITV's news service in the region. Under the government's plans for IFNCs, which are also being piloted in Scotland, bidders are expected to develop a multiplatform local news model. It intends to involve the existing ITV staff in the region. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukSunday 20 December 2009, AM
Britains TV is the best in the world (just ignore the facts) |Media |The Observer
The somewhat more puzzling news examines what all those extra pairs of goggle eyes were watching as repeats on major UK channels have soared from 34.5 to 44.8 over the past five years. Arts programming takes up 3 of TV airtime in the UK, as opposed to 22 in France and 16 in Italy. News rates 14 here, against 20 in Spain and 23 in the Netherlands. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukFriday 18 December 2009, PM
Sky offer old Sky TV Guide back to visually impaired viewers : Tech Digest
Many of you have been complaining that the new Sky Guide isn't up to scratch, either running too slowly, not being particularly intuitive or with text too small to read. James followed up with a similar sentiment I thought I would give it a go for a week before I complained as I thought it would grow on me. Some readers have had such difficulty reading the new guide that they have contacted the Royal National Institute of Blind People, believing the new guide to be an affront to accessibility for the visually impaired. - techdigest.tv
www.techdigest.tv
Channel 4 and Talk Talk sign up to Project Canvas |Media |guardian.co.uk
Channel 4 and the internet service provider Talk Talk have signed up to join Project Canvas, with each committing to invest more than 16m to get the video-on-demand joint venture up and running. According to the BBC, the cost to each partner will be 16.4m in the first four years from the launch of Project Canvas. Following concerns raised by Sky and others about the openness of the Project Canvas service, BBC management moved to allow non-public-service broadcasters to become partners in a change to the original plan. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukHumax HD-FOX T2 - AVReview News and comment
Home networking is taken care of with the T2 able to transmit content from your network to your TV with the usual visual and audio formats catered for. - avreview.co.ukwww.avreview.co.ukBBC - Teletext to close mid-December
Flight arrival and departure information is available through Teletext The Teletext information service on analogue and digital television will close across the UK on 16 December. Limited services including holidays, racing and bookmaking and the subtitles on analogue channels will remain available. Teletext's chat and dating TV channels on Freeview will also be unaffected. - news.bbc.co.uknews.bbc.co.ukTop 10 tech predictions for 2010 | Expert Reviews
They will also gradually become larger, with 11-12in screens and higher resolutions. The current 8.9in models with their low 1,024x600 resolutions will be phased out. Plus, manufacturers of other IT products who have never made a computer before will produce netbooks. - expertreviews.co.uk
www.expertreviews.co.ukBBC defends HD service against criticism over quality | News | TechRadar UK
The corporation has revealed that viewers have been complaining about the HD service since a change in the way the pictures are encoded took place in August. - techradar.com
www.techradar.comFriday 18 December 2009, AM
Misjudging viewers is one of the BBCs least appealing habits |Media |guardian.co.uk
Someone once told me a more vital part of his function involved talent wrangling top-name stars such as Sir Elton John to appear on BBC specials. It seems reasonable to assume he had knowledge of the list. There's nothing wrong, per se, in creating such a list. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukCompanies form HDBaseT cross-industry alliance
The HDBaseT Alliance will invite consumer electronics and content organisations to contribute to creating a global standard for advanced digital media distribution. DTG Staff 16.12.2009 Links open in a new window. The DTG is not responsible for the content of other web sites. - dtg.org.ukwww.dtg.org.ukBBC - Radio Labs: Windows Media - Listen Again - Update
I wanted to give you some information on the status of our tests of the Listen Again service in Windows Media. We are currently in testing stages with the ASX metafiles required to allow the Windows Media Audio files to be linked to correctly. Secondly we need to expose the relationship between our schedule programmes and the ASX files. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.uk11 billion push the BBC's Red Button every week
-blog.wotsat.comA Review of Consumer Complaints Procedures | Ofcom
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www.ofcom.org.ukUK consumers continue to embrace digital communications services | Ofcom
Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries. 4G auction bidders announced December 20, 2012 Ofcom has today announced the bidders in the forthcoming 4G mobile spectrum auction the largest ever sale of mobile airwaves in the UK. npower fined for making abandoned calls December 6, 2012 The conclusion of an Ofcom investigation has today found npower, the gas and electricity supplier, to be in breach of rules on abandoned calls. - ofcom.org.ukwww.ofcom.org.ukRevised Broadcasting Code launched | Ofcom
Independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries. 4G auction bidders announced December 20, 2012 Ofcom has today announced the bidders in the forthcoming 4G mobile spectrum auction the largest ever sale of mobile airwaves in the UK. npower fined for making abandoned calls December 6, 2012 The conclusion of an Ofcom investigation has today found npower, the gas and electricity supplier, to be in breach of rules on abandoned calls. - ofcom.org.ukwww.ofcom.org.ukMedia: 16/12/2009 crime reporting; Simon Cowell's and Radio Times
downloads.bbc.co.ukMedia Talk: BBC gay row
download.guardian.co.ukMonday 14 December 2009, AM
The man who plans to bring the internet to your television screen
The crystal-ball gazer points out the spinning globe used in the BBC's early idents, then a crystal radio dating to 1923, before picking up a fading book from 1942. The Trust is expected to give its verdict any day now. The audience also has much to lose, he claims. - independent.co.uk
www.independent.co.uk
The decade that reality bit |Media |The Guardian
July Big Brother ushers in a decade of reality entertainment shows after becoming an instant hit for Channel 4 with the final peaking at 9.9 million. BSkyB ends the year with 4.6 million subscribers while Carlton and Granada's challenger ONdigital has 1 million. 2001 January E4 launches as a pay channel, with rights to Friends and ER. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukSaturday 12 December 2009, AM
BBC HD Picture Quality: some myths laid to rest
Over the course of the last week, the debate about BBC HD picture quality which has been running since August has entered a new phase. Looking at your comments I can see that there are still areas on which our views differ. No HD channel as a general rule will offer the same quality as bluray, any more than standard definition television offers the same quality as DVDs. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukThe Hitchhikers Guide to Encoding: The Salmon of Style (Or how programmes styles can change you
Friday Programme Styles The last area to talk about is programme style and the techniques used by producers. The HD Channel is expanding the range of programmes made and transmitted in high definition all the time. As the number of programmes grows we are bound to show some that don't appeal to everyone in the audience, just as any multi-genre channel would. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukFriday 11 December 2009, PM
BBC HD boss sticks up for picture quality
-blog.wotsat.comMedia Talk: BBC Trust, Tiger Woods, and the X Factor final
download.guardian.co.ukFriday 11 December 2009, AM
www.microsoft.comThursday 10 December 2009, PM
Ofcom's roadmap for HD TV from 3D to Ultra High Definition
-blog.wotsat.com
Humax talks up next-gen Freesat boxes | News | TechRadar UK
Humax has talked about its plans for new Freesat boxes in 2010 with the company looking to launch a new generation to take advantage of the latest in TV tech. Home network Humax also indicated that it would integrate its home network solution, for content sharing through the home network and USB recording functionality. Both boxes will be 'portal ready' in other words, ready for internet television and should be available in Q3 2010. - techradar.comwww.techradar.comThursday 10 December 2009, AM
Streaming radio on your phone: not for long? - James Cridland
If you work at a radio station, you have a transmitter that reaches hundreds of thousands of people at the same time. When mobile operators are actively moving you off their network, and now contemplating usage-based pricing it might be foolish to count on 3G streaming for radios long-term future. This is an archive site, and comments are now closed. - james.cridland.net
james.cridland.netThe Hitchhikers Guide to Encoding: And Another Test...(Or PSNR and all that...)
It is one of the methods used to evaluate the effect processing has on signals and ultimately picture quality. PSNR is a derivative of the Signal to Noise Ratio comparing the maximum possible signal energy to the noise energy 1. PSNR has been shown to have a high correlation to subjective picture quality eyeballs when a single codec is used and cross-references between sequences are not made 2. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukThe Hitchhikers Guide to Encoding: Mostly Testing (Or how to set up an encoder test)
Wednesday So what testing do we do and how do we do it Removing Variables Ideally the only variable in a test should be the device actually being tested. In a delivery chain with domestic devices from many manufacturers this is not as easy as it sounds and testing every combination of is just not possible. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukGet rid of BBC Trust, says Greg Dyke |Media |guardian.co.uk
He said that the BBC Trust, the corporation's governance and regulatory body, is an expensive, lumbering entity that has found itself hamstrung by the impossible dual role of attempting to regulate and champion the corporation. Dyke argued that it was more logical for Ofcom to regulate the BBC and a new board - with a non-executive chairman and executive and non-executive members - should be responsible for running the corporation. Dyke, who is leading the Conservatives' review of the creative industries, is expected to propose scrapping the licence fee in favour of funding from general taxation or via a government grant. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukRecord audiences for BBCs Digital Services
BBC One remains the UK's most watched channel. Now these channels are enjoyed in the majority of British homes, delivering award-winning public service content to young audiences and a wealth of high quality arts and culture programming that the free market would simply not provide. Being Human was watched by 930,000 6.3 of 16-34s and 645,000 9.4 of 16-34s tuned in to Russell Howard's Good News. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.uk
BBC criticised over HD picture quality -TV Radio, Media - The Independent
The BBC's high-definition HD television service has lost its pin-sharp pictures, viewers are claiming. Hundreds of complaints have been posted online saying that broadcasts became fuzzy and grainy after the Corporation lowered the bitrate of its HD encoding technology from 16 megabytes to 9.7MB. The BBC has been accused of stifling the criticism by closing user forums on its websites that contained negative comments from viewers. - independent.co.ukwww.independent.co.ukE4 Goes HD - but only for Sky viewers
-blog.wotsat.comA decade of BBC Digital
As we head into the next decade and decide what to call it I never liked the 'noughties', it's worth looking back over the last 10 years. Hard to believe, but at the beginning of the decade we didn't have any digital channels as viewers would recognise them today. We weren't supporting the digital channels in a way that would help them become as loved as our terrestrial channels. - bbc.co.ukwww.bbc.co.ukMedia: X Factor; Royal privacy; Geordie Greig - 09 12 09
downloads.bbc.co.ukDigital switch-on leaves parts of Ribble Valley with Welsh TV - Clitheroe Today
Since last week's final stage of the digital TV switchover, some Valley residents were left with Welsh television channels while others had no pictures at all. The cause of the problem appears to be a stronger signal from a transmitter 90 miles away near Denbigh, north east Wales, than the signal from the Winter Hill transmitter near Rivington. Mr David Dugdale, of Dugdales Digital, Clitheroe, was inundated with calls from residents. - clitheroeadvertiser.co.uk
www.clitheroeadvertiser.co.ukCello iViewer TV: hands-on photos! | Electricpig
Weve just got some facetime with the HDTV, so read on for pictures and details. We usually ignore the budget TVs on the supermarket shelves, but the Cello iViewer TV will makes us think twice about that next time. Yes, theyre cheap 399 for the 26-inch, 720p display and 499 for the 32 inch with full HD, not particularly thin, and only have two HDMI ports. - electricpig.co.ukwww.electricpig.co.ukHumax Freeview HD 2010 line unveiled! - mirror.co.uk
- mirror.co.uk
www.mirror.co.ukHumax HD-FOX T2 Freeview HD box hands-on photos! | Electricpig
Skipping through hours on a channel no longer requires a pause very second you can just whizz straight through with very smooth screen refreshes. - electricpig.co.ukwww.electricpig.co.ukWednesday 09 December 2009, AM
Campaign for BBC Alba on Freeview heats up
However the solution could be easier that many people think as the latest idea being considered by the BBC Trust is switching this channel to Freeview. - techwatch.co.uk
www.techwatch.co.uk3view announces worlds first internet connected Freeview HD box - technology news - Stuff.tv
Be sure to check them out and let us know below. - stuff.tv
stuff.tvVIDEO - Find out how to get iPlayer on Freesat
-blog.wotsat.comTuesday 08 December 2009, PM
Media Talk USA: Google, Murdoch and Oprah |Media |guardian.co.uk
Jeff Jarvis is joined by two leading media figures for the December edition of the podcast. And, Oprah Winfrey confirms that she is heading to cable while Howard Stern may be heading to the net. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukGovernment urges BBC to consider Worldwide sell-off |Media |guardian.co.uk
BBC Worldwide the corporation has discovered it is on the list of assets the government is considering selling. According to sources, the BBC discovered just a couple of weeks ago that its commercial arm which had annual revenues of about 1bn last year was on the list. This puts more political pressure on the BBC following a promise by the prime minister, Gordon Brown, yesterday to name and shame publicly-funded organisations that pay excessive salaries. - guardian.co.ukwww.guardian.co.ukpick a page