Filed under: Video
BBC to go peer-to-peer in HD with Azureus
The Beeb is reporting that hundreds of episodes of "programmes" will be released for download via the Zudeo service, based on P2P client Azureus. The videos will be available in HD and will be DRM'ed, exact rights and pricing to be announced. This is certainly big news for fans of Brit TV who don't have... you know... cable.Seriously, though, HD via P2P is a big deal, especially from such an august content horde as the BBC. The presence of a Mac client (Azureus is Java-based) is also good news, although it remains to be seen if the actual videos will play for us. Will P2P challenge the video dominance of the iTunes Music Store?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Craig Knighton said 1:14PM on 12-20-2006
Should be free for all UK citizens, as we have to pay a license fee, but it won't be!
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Jon said 1:30PM on 12-20-2006
As a UK citizen, I don't actually mind paying again for BBC content. Downloading it is the same as buying it on DVD for me. You can't get BBC DVDs for free.
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meatmcguffin said 1:38PM on 12-20-2006
Us Brits will get the content for free in june (?) when the BBC opens up it's digital archive which will contain 80% of everything the BBC has created.
This bittorrent scheme is only for the Americans, who will have to pay.
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Paul said 1:38PM on 12-20-2006
What are the odds the DRM and codecs will work on a Mac? Fairly low I imagine, BBC and MS are buddies. Just amused me to see this reported on TUAW!
Agreed with the second comment: I pay my licence fee for the 'live' stuff. If I want a copy, I'll happily pay for it. (Paying to 'rent' a download might be a different story... I'll wait for pricing and DRM details).
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Fraser Drew said 1:39PM on 12-20-2006
Craig, you said it. We Brits should get this sort of functionality before the Americans, after all it is British content!!
I don't like BBC streaming, and it doesn't like my 20" monitor.. so where am i meant to get the HD content!!
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Craig Knighton said 1:50PM on 12-20-2006
Buying DVDs means paying for something 'real', and most of the money goes to the stores and distributors.
Again having paid the license fee, why should I pay again, expecially when distribution costs via Bittorrent is negligible once it's been seeded well?
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George said 2:13PM on 12-20-2006
I would imagine that the revenue from selling those programmes to US customers could help to subsidize the bandwidth costs involved in making them available to UK users at no charge.
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speedo said 3:38PM on 12-20-2006
here's another site doing hdtv p2p downloads, I have no idea if the series is good or not but there's lots of pretty girls so one can't complain.
http://www.mariposahd.tv/
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Morgan said 4:10PM on 12-20-2006
If by "play for us," you mean will the videos play on the Mac, the answer is almost certainly no. Since the videos will be DRMed, that most likely means Windows Media Plays For Sure, Windows Media Zune, or FairPlay (unless, of course, the BBC is developing a new form of DRM, which is possible, though unlikely). Since Apple won't licesne Fair Play to anyone else, this means that these files will some version of DRMed Windows Media, which won't play on the Mac.
And until someone develops cross-platform DRM that can be freely used or at least licensed, all ventures of this type will be Windows-only.
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Leonard Nimrod said 4:22PM on 12-20-2006
Scenario One:
People will find that using DRM content on BitTorrent sites is a great way make to sell HD content on the cheap. Others will adopt this model.
Scenario Two:
This is going to fail miserably as people that already use BitTorrent clients know where to get this media for FREE. In other words, they will choose the DLs that are not protected OR, if a simple key is involved in viewing the content, they will grab the key from the BitTorrent listing page.
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The Jeremy said 4:29PM on 12-20-2006
Actually, I think us Americans and other assorted foreigners should get access to the content first so that we might pay for it which can complement the BBC's available financial resources (well, through BBC Worldwide at least). If the content is open to the UK first, then the BBC doesn't make any more revenue from that.
Then, if more of the programming was actually chiefly financed by BBC Worldwide (in co-production deals with the BBC itself...almost seems like Enron accounting practices), then the program budgets can expand and thereby make BBC programming much more attractive and competitive on the world stage. In turn, with more foreign sales, it might give enough room to reduce the license. Or...rapidly transition all programming (including *Doctor Who*) to be shot using HD cameras instead of relying upon the inferior DigiBeta solution. Or, imagine BBC Worldwide having enough revenue to launch a hostile takeover of British Sky Television? I'm sure Rupert Murdoch's "majority" equity stake is only around 30% of outstanding shares, just like his investment - via News Corp. - in DirecTV is only 33%.
As for meatmcguffin's earlier comment...that's 80% of all archived material that the BBC didn't end up destroying in the 70s out of sheer bureaucratic shortsightedness. Including most of Troughton's episodes of *Doctor Who*... Oh the humanity.
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The Jeremy said 4:31PM on 12-20-2006
I also wonder if the video will be encoded at NTSC or PAL resolutions... Let's have the highest resolution possible since we're dealing with downloads for computers. *Doctor Who* in 576p, and *Torchwood* at 720p.
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mcwazza said 6:07PM on 12-20-2006
DRM details will be irrelevant by then, as we will all be running bootcamp :)
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Joey said 7:36PM on 12-20-2006
@No. 7: No, it's not "available at no charge" to British TV owners. We pay (I think) £130 a year for a TV license, and it doesn't matter if we never actually intend to watch BBC content. The rational is, if you've got a TV in the UK, then it is assumed that you have the means to watch BBC content, and therefore is subject to a TV license. So in practice, the BBC is actually collecting more money than they actually should, and shouldn't need to subsidise the cost of distributing content to British TV viewers. They also get government grants (via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), income from commercials, etc.
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Mr. Krinkle said 7:42PM on 12-20-2006
How do they expect this to work on BitTorrent? Look, if I'm paying I'm going to block all uploads and peer connections in the BT client. I wouldn't allow one single bit to go outbound so long as they're asking for payment.
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