Gov't (er, Taxpayer) funded Television and Proprietary Media Formats

[Jamon Camisso]

Scott Elcomb wrote:
> yro.slashdot is running a story about the BBC getting into hot water,
> compliments of the UK's Open Source Consortium.
> 
> Apparently the row is about BBC's failure to support media formats
> other than Windows Media.
> 
> IIRC, there were comments - in the last year or so - that the Canadian
> Broadcasting Corporation wasn't much better.
> 
> I just made a quick check of CBC radio and TV online.  (Admittidly not
> very thorough).  Radio One says the stream is in Windows Media format,
> and Radio Two + TV (The National) says it's streamed in an mms://
> protocol.
> 
> So a couple questions:
> - Is mms:// an "open" protocol, or at least supported by open source
> applications (via the hard-working and rarely rewarded reverse
> engineering arm)?
> 
> - If not, is there anything we can do to get the CBC to open up?

Having a hard time with their new layout, good money after bad IMO, 
their previous layout that seemed like it was only a year old was 
terrible, this one isn't much better. Regardless...

http://www.cbc.ca/listen/ogg.html

They've had those ogg streams up for a few years, but the quality is 
inferior to the wma streams (which play just fine in VLC). So the only 
thing to bug them about is just that, the quality. Otherwise, you're as 
free as you like to listen in an open format.

Jamon
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