Crikey has just published my article ABC Playback is a backwards step as a “Crikey essay”, no less. It combines the themes of my pieces about ABC Playback and the CBC BitTorrent trial.
Canada’s CBC groks The Torrent too
Following Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s highly-successful trial of using BitTorrent for program distribution, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has just released a prime-time episode of Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister onto the torrent globally.
According to the last100 report, the CBC’s media release was clear:
“The show will be completely free (and legal) for you to download, share & burn to your heart’s desire.â€
In a follow-up post Inside story: the making of a legal TV ‘torrent’, freelance producer Interactive Producer for CBC Guinevere Orvis explains how they got the approvals sorted within the CBC.
ABC Playback: so this is the future of television…? Nope!
On Thursday an email told me that I’m a beta tester for ABC Playback, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Internet TV trial. So here we go…
I’ll gloss over the geeky stuff because the massively-brained Simon Rumble has already done a technical reconnaissance. Just three key points there from me:
- It uses a Flash front end over XML program listings. Simon reckons it’ll be easy to hack up a Linux version for those who can’t use the official Windows and Mac interface. Or who want to avoid the pointless animations. Or who’d rather an easier-to-read high-contrast interface than trendy translucency.
- 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.
- Did we really need to spend taxpayers’ money putting a clock in the top right of the screen? Computers already have clocks.
Technically it works just fine… but that’s not the real issue…
Disappointingly, ABC Playback seems more like the last gasp of old-style broadcast TV than a prelude to something new and wonderful.
Continue reading “ABC Playback: so this is the future of television…? Nope!”
ABC expands on the Internet
Crikey has a story today about the ABC launching 3 new Internet TV channels at the end of the month, as well as 60 local websites. Expect to see more details on TV and online tonight, and in the newspapers tomorrow. I’ll be writing some sort of response in the morning too.
7.30 Report: Govt moves to improve porn filter
Last night’s piece on The 7.30 Report, Govt moves to improve porn filter, is finally online. No video of the story itself, just the transcript, but there’s “extended” video interviews with two of the talking heads, Dr Michael Flood and Professor Catharine Lumby. Commentary later.
[Update 7 March: A video of The 7.30 Report story is now online courtesy of somebodythinkofthechildren.com.]
Mark Pesce on the “forward” button
Mark Pesce has knocked off a quick piece for the ABC on how the power of the “forward” button is changing politics. He reckons it’s a bit rushed, but I think it still has value.