Now people were happy about there being a flash player for the PlaS3. whoopdy floosits.

I think the takeaway message about iView, like most of what you’ve said is that it’s still locked up.

they redesigned the interface recently.

WOW, THATS GREAT, LET ME CHOOSE MY OWN BLOODY INTERFACE.

I completely missed this post, yet this basically describes about all of my thoughts while using it (albeit not the ABC charter bit).

but yet, I still use it because it’s better than nothing, and I like being able to watch torchwood on a sunday afternoon.

And flash being the ‘least worse’ way for distributing content is running a little thin now, with HTML5 looming, and popular browsers like firefox already supporting video natively.

I’d love to see Sam come back and give us a little talk about why we can’t use HTML.

there’s already a requirement for flash, cant there be another ‘beta’ for HTML5? I know I wouldn’t be the only one who would have said this at some point, what have the internal ABC discussions been around it?

You make very good points about the interface. Too much cruft. Just a clearly-readable list of programs would be good.

Why doesn’t any of them actually bother to have some TV mode?

I can’t access the ABC Playback from the US (stupid thing, ha? geo-restricted internet..), so was willing to give Miro a chance, but even before downloading it- I saved myself the trouble by reading this: http://www.aboutux.com/?p=11

I guess we’re still waiting for a better player…

You’re right to stress that this is a trial. You must be having a hell of a time finding the balance — what with rights issues and, assuming the ABC hasn’t changed that much since I was there, inter-departmental friction. And of course there’s been no additional government funding for this. There should be — and lots of it.

I guess I wrote my piece bouncing off the emotional reaction I had when I fired up ABC Playback for the first time. I live in Enmore in Sydney, and to say that TV reception is marginal is an understatement. Heavy jets flying almost immediately overhead destroy the digital signal, but if we add a pre-amplifier some electronic transmissions from the airport overload the input of our digital receiver. When I thought I might be able to download ABC programs over my ever-reliable ADSL2+ connection, I was jumping for joy. And when I found so few program there initially, the disappointment hit. My TV problem was not yet solved.

I look forward to that additional news content mid-year!

That said, I already watch The 7.30 Report online, because I can quickly pick the stories of interest, and also Newstopia from your SBS colleagues. I find navigating the quick-to-load “standard” websites less frustrating that the animation-filled interface of ABC Playback.

I would love to be able to point Miro TV at the ABC.

My comment about the video being “highly compressed” was for the Crikey essay, and I was comparing that with the HD TV offered by NRK and the SD TV from the CBC. The article here says: “A 30-minute program is compressed to a mere 130MB, which seems a reasonable compromise between quality and bandwidth — at least for infotainment — given the ABC’s need to serve regional audiences out on the Information Super-goat-track.” I think the balance is right for now — reflecting the appallingly slow Internet we have today.

I’m in the minority, I realise, with a decent ADSL2+ connection that reliably delivers 12 or 13Mb/second download speeds.

I’ll leave the argument about video codecs to those who know about them. However, yes, Flash is the easiest option for streaming video right now — well, the “least worse” anyway — and it does have wonderful ways of tying in other services. Most folks have it without adding anything new to their browsers, and only the hardcore geeks care about the proprietary vs open standards battle — which may or may not be A Good Thing.

Fergus is right: at least we care about the ABC — and care enough to express our opinions. Our national broadcasters, ABC and SBS, are vital treasures. They face incredible challenges adapting their role in society into this new online realm. I guess I’d hoped that the jump into Internet TV was a jump a little further into the future.

Maybe I need to re-read my essay Web 2.0? “Hey, wait for us!”…

I’ll scour the forums over the next couple of days and report back.

To echo Fergus’ point, it’s a difficult balance to provide a video service that’s going to please all and at the same time experiment and at the same time provide a service that’s available broadly and easily (bandwidth notwithstanding) within some fairly severe constraints, not least the domain of digital rights.

One of the ambitions of the project is to ignite debate about the consumption and dissemination of video “online”, so it’s great to see someone spend quality time on a critique.

To give perspective to some of your points, bearing in mind this is a beta trial and we’re working on the service, the lineup and the definition of what it is whilst making the work in progress publically available:

“Last gasp old technology” – Whilst complex and frustrating legal and rights wrangling continues, Flash-based video dissemination is the leading, scaleable technology to simply plug and play ondemand content. It also provides great potential for adding interactive handles to video-based content and merging said content with other forms of multimedia, catering for the emergence of the so-called “new and wonderful” (Stilgherrian).

The beta programming lineup is emerging and we intend to have a far greater array of content by the middle of the year, including a strong news focus.

The “highly compressed” – video is mindful of the download caps that the public has to contemplate when consumming ondemand content. Additionally, this content looks better on LCD TVs than on computer screens. ABC Playback, as a project, has been an inexpensive attempt to transition televisual media into a multi-screen space, one which includes the conventional TV screen, and merge the TV signal into a previously interactive space, the computer. People are doing this in different ways and ABC Playback, rather than an end game, is another method of doing this – easily available and easy to use.

“Saving Things for later” – ABC Playback gives you a window within which to view content – long and short dependent particularly upon rights. You can add these items to a Playlist and watch them later. Many of the programs are available as downloadable vodcasts in other parts of ABC.net for those who want to keep the content and they’re linked to from the player. The login is specifically for the trial period, after which you’ll only need to login to access Playlist features.

There’s a particular forum for debate: http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/TopicList.aspx?b=98&dm=1

The challenges facing the ABC are enormous, and it will be very interesting indeed to see how the organisation copes. I think you summed up the challenges for digital radio, for instance, very well on your own blog. And that will doubtless trigger an essay from me at some stage too.

Interestingly, I’m now gettign enquiries from other media outlets about the subject of my little essay in Crikey today. “Stay,” as they say, “tuned”.

IMHO it is the whole content licensing system that is out-of-touch with new types of media distribution, not just the ABC. We would of course like the ABC to be taking a leading role here, but particularly in the case of content that it has licensed (eg BBC stuff), there’s probably no scope for radical change.

My main technical question is: what video codec are they using behind the flash front end?

(Hoping for H.264, but expecting Real …)