I have also referenced the BBC as an example of an organisation who actually “GETS IT”. Their latest developments are starting to show why and make everything else look like a child who is not getting his way. (Read the BBC blog entry below for examples)

See “Wii becomes home of online video” on the BBC blog. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/04/wii.html

The BBC have realised that supporting standards that allow video to be displayed on all devices, especially Set Top Box (STB) type devices like the Wii, is what will drive the move to online video in a big way.

This is where the BBC is doing a big favour to the rest of the world. Currently we have a lot of consumer devices that could bring video from the web to our TV very simply. If they only decided to follow a standard. Unfortunately this is not what they want as each player is trying to capture the market in a kind a walled garden in which they own the viewer. (Ie the view will either purchase content of them , or watch free content with advertising inserted by them.. Either way, they intent to clip the ticket.)

To bypass this, BBC has basically implemented the many different “CUSTOM STANDARDS” or more precisely, the exact requirements of many STBs and wireless devices. In effect the tail is wagging the dog.

In effect, what this is likely to do is to demonstrate that we do not need the proprietory AppleTV’s, PS3, Xbox, MediaCentre etc type devices to make working models for the distribution of media. This will demonstrate that in most, if not all cases, direct producer to consumer models can work. And if you consider this takes out an expensive middle man, it is a win-win for the consumer.

If a standard was developed, it is likely that it would be adopted as was the typical “Analog TV Tuner” that has been in every TV sold such that we could plug it in, plug in the aerial, switch on and watch. It follows that in the future of the internet society we will have the same functionality for moden day TV’s. In this case, instead of an ariel, its an connection the the internet.

The BBC’s massive growth in viewers demonstrates this unavoidable future and is hopefully de-constructing the FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt) marketing of the Apple, Sony and Microsoft of this world.

BBC you are my hero.

It’s been a great week for the BBC’s iPlayer project: The Beeb has just announced that the iPlayer is now attracting 550,000 daily views on average. The iPlayer is also now officially available on the Wii, making it the first streaming service by a maj…

In January streams on the BBC iPlayer were outnumbering downloads by eight to one. See this blog post from Ashley Highfield:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/01/iplayer_launch_first_indicatio.html

Yes, folks don’t want to download stuff. They want to stream it in real time. Now, why can’t anyone deliver movies like this?

It’s more like creators can now create encrypted streams if they want… the goal is to offer a variety of contracts between consumer and creator, so that big-budget video can get a return. Adobe Flash Player 9 also renders H.264 video too. There’s a range of choices.

“iPlayer users however have reported that the BBC is using Flash version 8 for their web streams since December. The broadcaster also started to reencode and optimize all of its video for Flash 7 in order to make the Wii version work since the Wii’s Flash Lite player doesn’t support Flash 9 yet.”

Lengthy info on BBC production workflows here… it’s amazing!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/03/bbc_iplayer_on_iphone_behind_t.html

(Adobe Flash Player 9 includes three different video decoders: Sorenson, On2, and most recently H.264. The mobile engine, Flash Lite, is smaller and passes off video rendering to the device’s own hardware-based video decoder. We’re getting there…. ;-)

Re “Secrets of Success”: I’m not sure that current “marketshare” would be a measure of success, so much as long-term sustainability of continuing video production would be. We need a variety of types of contracts between video’s creators and consumers, so that each can reach their best choices.

jd/adobe