RSSBBC to Offer TV Programs Online
By Ed Oswald | Published August 29, 2005, 11:07 AM
British broadcasting giant BBC announced on Monday that it would offer viewers the opportunity to download its programs up to seven days after they had aired on television. The new offering is part of a plan to modernize the network.
As well as offering recorded shows, the player would also include live feeds of both BBC 1 and BBC 2.
Director General of the BBC Mark Thompson said the change was essential to ensure the future of the network.
"I accept the premise that if the BBC remains nothing more than a traditional TV and radio broadcaster then we probably won't deserve or get license-fee funding beyond 2016," he said. "That is very definitely not our plan."
It is not clear at this time whether the service would be free or require subscription fee. Also, Thompson did not say whether the media files available for download would include digital rights management to prevent illicit copying.
The feature would likely only be available to users within the United Kingdom, who pay a licensing fee in order to view television programming.
Thompson says he hopes to have the download service launched by next year.
Man ! i miss BBC
i will be more than happy to pay for the service.
BBC America shows 2 yrs old stuff.
fingers crossed.
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I would pay for this service. Simple enough.
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The BBC already offers incredible, extremely-high-bitrate live broadband streams of all their TV and radio stations. The only problem is that the streams are walled off from the entire world, except for those that subscribe to UK-based cable and DSL ISPs.
A few months ago someone at the Beeb screwed up and turned off the firewall. For about a day and a half, we were all able to watch beautiful full-screen HDTV-quality BBC TV (~700kbps?) and listen to radio at far higher quality than what is offered via the standard player (~170-180kbps?).
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HDTV at 700kbps?! Surely not. To be honest I've never seen a good quality BBC video stream. The radio is better quality however.
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There's lots of very nice quality XVID 1.5mbit videos around. 700kbit wouldn't be THAT pretty though....
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I like BBC and watch the online programming that they have now. BBC is a great source of information and I am glad to hear this.
(Wincement are you alright down there?)
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