The BBC are set to use the upcoming 2012 Olympics in London to test out a new video standard called “Super Hi-Vision”, which is said to be 16 times better in picture quality than HDTV, despite the technology is expected to not come out to consumers for a decade.

The BBC plans to launch three screens around the UK that are 15 metres high in order to showcase the technology. The locations will be in its Pacific Quay building in Glasgow, Broadcasting House in London and in the National Media Museum in Bradford (the latter subject to talks).

“When you sit and watch it you really get the experience of being in seat D5 in the stadium,” Roger Mosey, the person in charge of its coverage for the Olympics, told The Guardian newspaper. “Super hi-vision might be a better long-term prospect than 3D in some ways as it gives you the feel of being in the stadium. People are knocked out by it.”

“Super Hi-Vision”, or also known as Ultra High Definition Television, is being tested out by the BBC and public broadcaster NHK in Japan, who also originally developed the idea. The format has already been trialled, with a broadcast of a performance by UK band The Charlatans broadcast live, using the Internet in order to send the transmission.

Why? Well, because it would be too expensive if it was through traditional satellite, as seen by this BBC clip.

The BBC also announced it will also broadcast in 3D – so expect Nine and Foxtel to follow suit. However, the BBC will only broadcast a small number in 3D via their HD channel as it does not want to disrupt any programming, plus the people watching 3D content at home is relativity minimal.

Thompson has confirmed that it will be launching “this year” with a subscription of less than $10 per month to view – which is stunningly low for the typical quality of a majority of the corporation’s programming.

RT @psmith: Mark Thompson says iPlayer will be released internationally this year for "a few dollars a month". #ftmedia11

March 2, 2011 9:03 PM via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@shovell

Stephen Lovell

Mark Thompson confirms BBC iPlayer to be offered internationally "this year" for "a few dollars a month - less than $10" #ftmedia11

March 2, 2011 8:49 PM via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@benwood

Ben Wood

However, its catalogue is unknown at this stage – will it offer a way to watch shows on demand after their UK premiere, or will it be a-la PLUS7, where it has archived programming. If it is the latter, hopefully it is more than two seasons of Doctor Who and not all of the BBC’s drama catalogue.

It is also unknown what platform will it be on, with speculations of it being an iPad-only service (though highly unlikely with the new Apple subscription requirements). Hopefully, it will be on a browser and as mobile applications.

Its budget being cut by 25 percent, 200 sites being shut down and at least 360 jobs being cut from the public broadcaster over two years.

The broadcaster will instead focus in ten specific areas: News, Sport, Weather, TV and iPlayer, Radio and Music, Search, Homepage, Knowledge and Learning, and CBeebies and CBBC – the latter two are its children offerings. Each will share a unified design and all sites will have improved navigation to content.

The BBC, however, will close 400 top level domains connecting to the bbc.co.uk name, with 180 closing later this year – and most likely be archival content and programme websites (that could potentially mean the closure of the Doctor Who site, but that remains to be seen), and axing original content on its digital radio stations – 1Xtra, 5 live sports extra, 6 Music and Radio 7 – to automated content.

In addition, its local sites for the UK will be news-orientated, while it will reduce the number of blogs from its journalists. Live sporting coverage and sports news will also be reduced by the BBC, and its 606 community site will be axed as part of its overall reduction of community-orientated and message-board sites. This plan will also see the disposal of h2g2 – an encyclopaedia before Wikipedia became cool – to a brand new owner.

There is no word on how it will affect international visitors, such as the World Service or BBC World News.

Image: Elliott Brown/Flickr (CC)

Talking at the Edinburgh International Television Festival organised by MediaGuardian, Thompson has said that the broadcaster will release the commercial version of BBC iPlayer “within a year”.

“Within a year we aim to launch an international commercial version of the iPlayer. Subject to trust approval, we also want to find a way of letting UK licence fee payers and servicemen and women use a version of the UK public service iPlayer wherever they are in the world,” Thompson told the audience.

Previously, the only way to access BBC content on iPlayer that was geoblocked – usually content that was broadcast on television – was to use a proxy. Opening a commercial version will most likely be tied with BBC Worldwide’s commercial channels, which include BBC America in the USA and UKTV, Cbeebies and BBC Knowledge in Australia and New Zealand.

BBC content is also available on demand in Australia via Nine’s FixPlay service and, when broadcast, by the ABC via its similar iView website.

BBC iPlayer, launched in the UK in 2007, has been a success in the UK, allowing users to catch up and download (under time constraints) with programming that has aired on the BBC’s ten domestic channels and 59 radio stations – including the World Service.

The iPlayer in the UK is paid by the license fee and is advertising free – mainly because of its charter states that no advertising is permitted on any of services. Rights issues, however, prevent its content to be viewed outside the UK, however, its radio content is available to be streamed via podcasts or heard live.

The main reason that resonates across the stories around the world is that it would allow its commercial arm to raise its prices for “premium content”, with executives saying that audiences around the globe will be prepared to pay $10 per episode for shows like Doctor Who, Torchwood and Spooks.

As well, if the service is launched, the content will most likely be a catchup service on the many BBC-owned international channels, including BBC America in the US and UKTV in Australia; or will be historical material from the BBC archives. Also, because of the nature of BBC America and UKTV’s programming, it will also include programming from its rival broadcasters ITV and Channel 4.

Talking to paidContent earlier in the month, managing director for BBC.com Luke Bradley-Jones said that users are willing to pay for such content. “Millions of people love Torchwood and would probably pay 10 bucks an episode rather than two bucks,” he said, noting the pricing that Apple sells the same content in its iTunes store.

Right. Though, I’m not sure I would pay $10 for an episode, where I could get it cheaper on iTunes, or free on your very own service (via a IP masker) or even via BitTorrent.

Several sources are claiming that both Hulu (owned by News Corp., NBC Universal and now Disney) and YouTube (owned by Google) are talking separate deals with UK broadcasters the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV to allow their shows to be on demand on their respective websites.

According to the Telegraph, “Hulu is proposing to launch this September with 3,000 hours of American content, as well as material from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. It will be playing catch-up in the short-term until it has enough British TV content and will need a unique selling point in the short term,” one source said.

However, the deal is said to follow a similar plan with the United States version – but a senior executive close to Channel 4 and ITV are said to not consent as they want to retain their rights on selling advertising on the programs and keep their commercial rights.

Also rumoured, CBS-acquired TV.com is said to be talking to the broadcasters. All three services have a majority of their content that is accessible in America, and in rare cases will make their content for the world. YouTube, however, has several content made by US stations that is allowed to be viewed by anyone outside of the US.

The BBC, Channel 4 and ITV were all part of “Project Kangaroo” – a similar idea to Hulu for the UK, before that got terminated by the corporate watchdog earlier this year. All three do have their own services offering programming catch-ups, with the BBC also offering radio content on its BBC iPlayer.

However, a deal with YouTube with either Channel 4 or ITV would not be mutually exclusive, allowing content from both parties to be broadcast on their service, and on YouTube. As of current, YouTube has programming clips from ITV and Channel 4, along with the BBC – who has several channels, including BBC World News, BBC Worldwide and Top Gear.

The BBC, under BBC Worldwide, is also offering its programming for sale on iTunes, along with ITV and Channel 4’s lineup of channels.

The popular BBC iPlayer is now bringing in something that users will be happy to use – and will be painful for the ISPs to carry – you can now download and stream your favourite BBC shows in high definition, allowing the picture quality to be better.

The new feature will also allow users to view the shows, like Dragons’ Den and Doctor Who (which started recording in HD) on their HD-capable televisions, and brings an alternative in getting Freesat – which has the BBC’s high definition channel, BBC HD.

HD videos have started rolling out on video sites since last year. Hulu is already offering shows from Fox and NBC in 420p HD, while YouTube has rolled out HD and HQ (High Quality) videos.

The BBC has said that it had purchased a network of 22,000 infected computers and used it spam its own e-mail accounts on Hotmail and GMail, used the computers for a denial-of-service test and then changed the infected computer’s wallpaper with a message saying that they were infected.

The program, Click (which airs on BBC One and BBC World News), said that it acquired the network by visiting chatrooms. The BBC has not said how much they paid for the botnet, but it has defended its actions, saying it was part of its own investigation into global cyber crime.

It also tested it on the computers to attack a backup site that was owned by Prevx, the security company that the BBC consulted with. According to the BBC, it only took 60 machines to overload the bandwidth of the site.

However, some are saying that it might have been a breach in the Computer Misuse Act and the BBC might face prosecution for using the botnet it bought, which has a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment if found guilty.

According to Struan Roberrtson, editor of OUT-LAW.com, “The BBC appears to have broken the Computer Misuse Act by causing 22,000 computers to send spam. It does not matter that the emails were sent to the BBC’s own accounts and criminal intent is not necessary to establish an offence of unauthorised access to a computer.”

“The Act requires that a computer has been made to perform a function with intent to secure access to any program or data on the computer. Using the botnet to send an email is likely to satisfy that requirement. It also requires that the access is unauthorised – which the BBC appears to acknowledge. It does not matter that the BBC’s intent was not criminal or that someone else created the botnet in the first place,” he continued.

However, he added that the BBC are not likely to face prosecution. “But it is very unlikely that any prosecution will follow because the BBC’s actions probably caused no harm. On the contrary, it probably did prompt many people to improve their security,” he said.

The BBC has said that it has deleted the botnet, and has no longer any control of the infected machines. It also said that it had warned the 22,000 users (which have been shown to be from all around the world) that they have been infected and offer options to fix the problem.

The segment will air on Saturday on BBC One.

The venture was deemed to be a threat by the commission to the video-on-demand market in the UK. Channel 4, ITV and the BBC have their own video-on-demand sites, with the BBC’s iPlayer being more popular than the others because of its diverse content from all BBC TV and Radio channels.

The project was to be a “one-stop shop” for all content from the networks owned by the project backers, bringing together more than 10,000 hours of content from networks like BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1, Channel 4, More4, ITV2, BBC News and BBC Three.

The project, according to a report released in December by Enders Analysis, would have cost BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 more than £25 million in staff, development and programming rights costs.

Because of the recent decision made by the Commission, and that the project backers will not appeal the decision, up to 50 jobs will be lost. ITV’s executive chairman Michael Grade has said that it will now focus on continuing to build on its website, ITV.com.

A BBC spokesperson said that the BBC was “disappointed by today’s decision that prevents the partners taking Kangaroo forward.”

“However, we remain absolutely committed to delivering distinctive quality BBC programmes online and will continue to drive innovation through our successful iPlayer platform,” the spokesperson continued.

Working with Adobe for this new version, called the BBC iPlayer Desktop, it is built upon Adobe’s AIR platform, which allows to have web applications on your desktop (like the defunct Pownce application), without running it on a browser. Since each platform requires a different form of DRM (like Windows Media DRM for Windows computers or the OMA standard for mobiles), it was criticised for not allowing programme downloads on the Linux and Macs at launch.

The BBC iPlayer allows users to stream programmes that have been recently aired for 7 days, and allow them to download them to keep for 30 days. Since AIR is multi-platform, meaning that it works on Windows, Macs and Linux, it is unknown if this will replace the Windows application entirely; but this would live up to the BBC Trust’s demand to be “platform neutral”.

Currently, the BBC iPlayer is available on the web, on a Windows PC, Virgin Media on-demand service, The Nintendo Wii (via the Internet Channel), the PS3 (via the internet browser), the iPhone and iPod touch, and the Nokia N96.

The BBC is also working with ISPs to cache some of its popular programmes on its servers so it doesn’t have to communicate with an outside server to deliver the show that the user wants to watch. This way, it would lessen the cost of ISPs of streaming videos, which increased from £17,233 to £51,700. However, the BBC will not be helping the ISPs in buying and installing them, as it is the responsibility of the ISP.

"The BBC is not building its own content delivery network,” Anthony Rose, BBC’s head of digital media technology, said in a BBC report.

A beta version is available on the BBC iPlayer Labs, and is expected to be launched in February 2009.

Barack Obama topped the “Fastest Rising” result in the United States; while in Australia, it was the iPhone that took the crown. The United Kingdom’s “Fastest Rising” result was the successful BBC iPlayer; while the Olympics topped in New Zealand’s own results. Also making it in the top 10 were the Large Hadron Collider (NZ 10th, UK 6th), GMail competitor Yahoo Mail (UK 5th), Facebook (AU 2nd, NZ 3rd, UK 2nd, US 2nd) and Underbelly (AU 10th). YouTube also made all 4 countries’ listings.

The popular result, however, in the UK was Facebook, with the BBC in second and YouTube in third. In New Zealand, it was “games” that topped the list, followed by Bebo and then YouTube. Surprisingly, “Google” was the 6th most popular search term in New Zealand (Don’t do it if you want to break the internet!!! – I joke). Australia’s most popular results were “games” – most likely the Olympics, Sydney and (again) YouTube in third.

But now what we have been all waiting for… the global tally for the “Fastest Rising” search queries in Google. Jonas Brothers took out the 10th spot, and the Euro 2008 took ninth. “Wer Kennt Wen” took eighth, and “Nasza Klasa” took seventh position. Barack Obama took sixth place, while Heath Ledger took out the fifth place, and “Tuenti” took fourth.

“facebook login” was the third popular result, while silver goes to the Beijing Olympics in China (no surprise there). But the number one spot, taking gold, was Vice-President nominee Sarah Palin. Interestingly enough, Barack Obama took the first place in the US results (like we said), while Palin taking seventh place.

The BBC may consider offering free and open use of the technologies that make up the successful BBC iPlayer in a way to prevent Channel 4 to gain a stake in the profitable commercial arm of the BBC, BBC Worldwide; forming part of a response to a public service broadcasting review by Ofcom, according to The Guardian.

If the plan gets approved, it would see the video on demand services offered by Channel 4 (4oD) and ITV (ITV Player) being rebranded as iPlayer.

Insiders over at the BBC believe that the technology behind the video on demand service is better than private sector rivals, and it is ready to become the industry standard. It is also offering access to its high-speed digital post-production network, believing that it would help reducing the costs in making television shows.

However, another plan also sees an independent trust overseeing BBC Worldwide if Channel 4 takes a stake in the company. Channel 4 is believed to be asking for some cash assistance, most likely from the license fee. Insiders have told The Guardian that the BBC is trying to protect the independence of its commercial arm.

It will offer the same content as what you will get on the site, with the 7 day content expiry on content. The BBC promises that additional features will also come in the next few months.

This also brings a new digital revolution around the BBC’s content, with the BBC relaunching their site and having it’s programming on the iTunes, and now this will see it entering the gaming console entertainment market.

It also has plans to create its own ‘channel’ soon.

The BBC iPlayer is only available only to the UK.

Enjoy!!!

Also, fans of Top Gear will be happy to know that the entire Top Gear track will be recreated for GT5, and will be able to race on them.

Gran Turismo 5 is set to be released in 2008. The Gran Turismo line of games have been a success for Sony, with more than 47 million sold.

The iPlayer will allow UK residents with a TV License to download TV shows for up to a week after they air. Then they would have 30 days to watch the show. The BBC has noted that it wanted to produce the iPlayer in multiple systems, but noted that a very few DRM systems are cross platform (it would use DRM to delete the file).

According to Ars Technica, plans for a Mac version are underway, and should be available sometime in the fall; and as well, the BBC will consider releasing a Linux version of the iPlayer too.