BBC videos.

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ewlabonte

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I just emailed bbc.co.uk to please make their videos compliant with either gnash or html5. BBC-News U.S. and Canada rss feed is included by default in Firefox. They probably won't listen to me, but if more people contact them, it couldn't hurt. There is a link at the bottom of the page "Contact BBC" and then I sent my complaint to "technical."

ivaylo
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В 20:04 +0100 на 07.02.2014 (пт), name at domain написа:
> I just emailed bbc.co.uk to please make their videos compliant with either
> gnash or html5.

Meanwhile get-iplayer [1] might be useful. It is free software player
for BBC video and audio.

[1]
aptitude show get-iplayer

axgb
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What should I say to them?

There will be an issue if I start talking about free software - an ambiguous term - flash is free

onpon4
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I say "free/libre" or sometimes just "libre" to be unambiguous. You may also want to point to the Free Software Definition. Just say that Flash is proprietary, you refuse to run Flash on ethical grounds, and that therefore you cannot watch their videos, so they should switch to an HTML5 player or offer a fallback HTML5 player.

axgb
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If it is HTML5 it will still have DRM, won't it. Also, what is the advantage of HTML5 over Flash

onpon4
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HTML5 doesn't have digital restriction mechanisms built into it yet (and there's a campaign by the FSF to stop the inclusion of digital restriction mechanisms into the HTML5 standard), so no, it won't.

The advantage of HTML5 is obvious: it's an open standard, and it doesn't require proprietary software. Unfortunately, HTML5 stuff is often done by web pages with proprietary JavaScript, but getting rid of a third-party proprietary dependency is a big step in the right direction.

aloniv

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BBC news videos were provided when I last checked in rtmp format that can be accessed after installing UnPlug and running BBC's non-free JavaScript. BBC iPlayer radio shows can be downloaded using latest youtube-dl (videos will be supported in future releases probably if BBC doesn't block your region). In order to update youtube-dl follow this guide:
https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/watch-youtube-videos-using-youtube-dl

axgb
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Joined: 09/22/2013

How does the iplayer downloader program work?
I mean, the BBC uses DRM.
Anyway, If i say libre they will think I am a french person who isn't very good at speaking English.

aloniv

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the BBC uses DRM.

get-iplayer (and presumably also youtube-dl) access the iPhone version of the BBC iPlayer videos which are DRM free.

Chris

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A lot of the time YouTube has the BBC videos. I think the BBC is pushing to YouTube as the videos are usually up within a few hours of the news publications. At which point you don't need flash to play them.

I'd still encourage people to complain directly to the BBC. I certainly have on at least a few occasions. You'll probably see about 1 out of 100 complaints are actually responded to in a positive way (I've done a lot of complaining in my day about things like this...). It's not a total waste of time if you do it enough and of course the more people who do it the more content we get acces to.

Chris

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Also- the Guardian publishes in HTML5 (videos):

http://www.theguardian.com

They don't have quite as much content, but it's certainly better suited for those who don't have flash and are concerned about non-free software. The Guardian was also one of those responsible for publishing all of the Edwarden Snowden articles. While I'll hold my breath as far as trust goes I think they are a tiny bit better in a number of areas.

axgb
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Joined: 09/22/2013

Actually Youtube doesn't usually have BBC videos very often. Only a few old ones. But thank you for explaining it to me. I like the BBC content.

Surely the BBC would want to keep their DRM working, and as it is free software they would be able to examine it and work out the problem and fix it. And if their DRM doesn't work on one platform, then why bother having it at all?

Chris

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Maybe I'm being misunderstood, or just mistaken, but I frequently find the videos for news content on YouTube shortly after publication on the BBC site. If you check too soon it seems they're not yet up- so it wouldn't surprise me if your impression differs.

aloniv

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BBC iPlayer contains full TV shows such as dramas which probably don't appear in their YouTube channel.

Chris

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Yea- I'm aware of that. There is some iPlayer thing (not associated with Apple) the BBC spouts if I recall which is DRM encumbered for that. Think it works on GNU/Linux, surprisingly, but is non-free. Not being a UK resident I haven't got any 'experience' with it (ie via watching third persons use it). Though it might also be available to non-UK residents to access some content (?) I suspect.

axgb
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Joined: 09/22/2013

I am sure some of the content is on YouTube, but not all of it, and I want to watch some of the stuff that is not.

aloniv

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Yes non-UK residents can listen to radio shows. Anyway, the audio and video files can be downloaded using youtube-dl or get-iplayer since they access the iPhone streams which are not encumbered by DRM.

axgb
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Joined: 09/22/2013

Shows just how stupid DRM is - always some sort of bug.. Anyway, it is always to crack absolutley any sort of DRM audio or video - Use one of those programs that records on the screen. Does not matter what they do, it will still work. Even if they were to force you to do something that makes you. Even if they do something to stop you from doing that, you can get one of those little machines that records out of the HDMI port, or if they somehow manage to implement a restriction on that (I heard something about HDMI DRM), one for VGA or DVI. If the DRM companies were to only let people use a particular device or similar, no-one would watch their content or similar. Just shows how damn stupid it is.

Legimet
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Or you could use a video camera :P
That way there's no way to stop you from doing it unless they come to your house.

axgb
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Joined: 09/22/2013

I thought those copyright a-s-o--s actually recommended that teachers filmed a projector to get rid of DRM. I would suspect that filming a projector and connecting the computer audio to camera audio input would be reasonably good quality.
With a TV and just a camera, would work but not be to great.
Would be bad quality, but as I said, you can always get rid of it.

t3g
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I know the format is not patent and royalty free, but I would pick MP4 with H264/AAC over Flash anyday. There are free decoders and modern browsers can play them via system libraries (Abrowser) or as part of the browser itself (Chrome and IE).

Its also wishful thinking to get WebM snuck in there. Especially the new version with VP9/Opus resulting in better quality at a lower bitrate.

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

That reminds me, Mozilla made an announcement that they will include a BSD-licensed H.264 codec (OpenH264) from Cisco. What concerns me is that, to avoid patent problems, Firefox will download a "binary module" from Cisco's servers. I don't like the idea of automatically downloading binaries from a third party.

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2013/10/30/video-interoperability-on-the-web-gets-a-boost-from-ciscos-h-264-codec/

lembas
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Wow. Great catch Legimet!

Automatically downloading proprietary software, sounds lovely!

Perhaps you could file a bug about this to make sure it doesn't end up in Trisquel.

Legimet
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Joined: 12/10/2013

The OpenH264 source code is BSD licensed and free software. But I have no idea about the license of the binaries, and we definitely don't want pre-built binaries.

Fedora probably will remove the functionality because they don't want software to automatically download pre-built binaries, and because H.264 is patented. [1]

For Trisquel, I think there are 2 solutions:
1) Integrate the (free) OpenH264 source code in Abrowser and remove the automatic download functionality
2) Just remove the functionality and use gstreamer codecs as it already does.

[1] https://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/advisory-board/2013-November/012261.html

axgb
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Joined: 09/22/2013

Well that is why we use Abrowser / GNU Icecat / Iceweasel etc.

Jodiendo
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Do we all trust, Cisco?

Cisco is saying:

Cisco has a long-standing history of supporting and integrating open standards, open formats and open source technologies as a model for delivering greater flexibility and interoperability to users. We look forward to collaborating with Mozilla to help bring H.264 to the Web and to the Internet.

another statement:

Cullen Jennings, Cisco Fellow, Collaboration Group, says:

Cisco is very excited about the future of royalty free codecs. Daala is one of the most interesting ongoing technical developments in the codec space and we have been contributing to the project.

Really Cisco,. Do you want us to believe your royalty free codecs white Lies??