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Television Media News

BBC Opens TV Listings For Remix 90

Posted by Zonk from the mix-remix dept.
ntoll writes "In a continuation of their free software friendly activities the BBC has announced that they want to open up their TV listings to creative developers. They explain, 'Developers and designers are being encouraged to come up with innovative ways of using TV and radio schedules by taking part in a BBC competition. The competition, announced at the Open Tech conference in London, has been organised by the BBC's backstage developer network. Backstage lets people remix the BBC's content to make new applications. We want people to innovate and come up with prototypes to demonstrate new ways of exploring the BBC's TV schedule.'"
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BBC Opens TV Listings For Remix More

BBC Opens TV Listings For Remix

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  • Remix (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tyler Eaves ( 344284 ) on Saturday July 23, 2005 @01:27PM (#13144938)
    Could people PLEASE STOP USING THIS. Seriously, shove it up your blogosphere.
    • I much prefer the term mash-up - its what all the 'cool' kids are using.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday July 23, 2005 @01:40PM (#13145016)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Remix (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        but i can leverage my foot into your dynamic gateway providing a solution that will increase your expandability
    • Could people PLEASE STOP USING THIS. Seriously, shove it up your blogosphere.

      I wasn't aware that the British Broadcasting Corporation was part of the blogosphere. Anyways, although I'm sure the term sounds kind of crude to us technological elite, I suspect it conveys the general idea perfectly to those who aren't quite so familiar with the jargon.
    • For us un-hip people not in the know: could you tell us what "remix" means in this context? The only definition I know of is what DJs do.
    • Please stop using the word "seriously". I know it's as appropriate to your serious proposal as is the word "remix" to the BBC project. But since everyone's using it, it must be bad.

      Or maybe you're just afraid of "zeitgeist". A word I will continue to use, even if you don't know what it means.
  • I'd be more impressed if they were releasing content instead of simply TV listings (Yes, I'm aware the BBC has released some material into the public domain recently and I applaud them for it).

    • Re:TV Listings only..., no content? (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why don't you release your computer hardware to me?
    • Exactly. And what this really is, is the BBC wanting people to write their code for them, sort of like free advertising: "here's all the brand names, write some inovative code because we don't want to spend the money to hire programmers..."

      • Re:Scam? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Xarius ( 691264 )
        What's so bad about that? I assume anyone who does anything with this is going to know they're not getting paid...

        Isn't that what OSS is all about, helping each other for an ego boost^W^W^W the greater good?
        • Sure, I understand this. But it seems to me like a lop-sided deal.
          • Well aren't they saying that they'll adopt any really innovative worthwhile ideas? I presume they'll be paying for that? It strikes me as just like google allowing people to make plug-ins for the google desktop product, so that google don't have to make or support the plug-ins theirselves...

  • TV Anytime eh? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Komarosu ( 538875 ) <nik_doof@[ ]doof.net ['nik' in gap]> on Saturday July 23, 2005 @01:39PM (#13145012) Homepage
    All posted in TV Anytime format, even the BBC have wrote a little opensource Java API [bbc.co.uk] for it...

    Now to hunt down a parser in PHP...

  • What a challenge! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by riflemann ( 190895 ) <riflemann@Nospam.bb.cactii.net> on Saturday July 23, 2005 @01:44PM (#13145030)
    Mixing videos and music - ok, that's pretty normal and doesnt take a skilled person to come up with something..

    But mixing a TV guide??? A lot more of a challenge.

    I guess what they are after is for example something where someone can do better seraching through the guide, or perhaps linking the information within an application.

    One such thing could be linking an article or other media where you can refer it to an upcoming show on tv. Eg, you're browsing some website about natural disasters, and have it automatically tell you about an upcoming TV show about floods.

    That's about the extent of my creative juices though..
    • No kidding. "Here is some information... you are welcome to synthesize it somehow". What is novel about this?

      And where the hell does the misappropriated word "remix" come from?!

      -b

      • Maybe bayesian filtering of upcoming shows based upon their descriptions?

        So even if the program name/time isn't like anything you've liked before if the description matches something you've liked it would be recommended?

    • But mixing a TV guide??? A lot more of a challenge.

      Why? Let's see:

      Yo dude, Mau-ry-show's at four
      Yo yo, Maury's piss poor
      He coulda been on Star Trek at six
      But he don't wanna suck Picard's dick

      Bring it on bring it on, yeah
      Bring it on, two thirty, right after Six Feet Under
      Yo Yo dude
      There. How about a little of that uh? /me waits for a call from the Beeb...
    • I think starting from basics you can take this service and then attach flickr tags to the lookups for shows - or look for time based blogs ...or integrate into blogs 'what I watched'...

      or allow for people to rate and see related content (and trends) based on other peoples preferences.

      That said, every company with a staff count of > -1 has a patent on some form of 'personalisation' based on a simple query technology.

      Handheld schdulers that change channel/record using bluetooth commands to your mythTV c

  • XMLTV (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23, 2005 @01:48PM (#13145050)
    For more than just BBC.

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/xmltv [sourceforge.net]

    • Re:XMLTV (Score:3, Informative)

      by Linus Torvaalds ( 876626 )

      Also: data sources in XML format [bleb.org].

    • Incidentally, the main source XMLTV uses for UK data is the Radio Times website - which provides listings in a suitable format. Guess who owns the Radio Times? That's right - the BBC (commercial arm thereof).
      • Yes, although the Radio Times site is part of BBC Worldwide, which is the evil money-grubbing part of the BBC, they've been very enlightened and generous about providing access to listings in XML format. I think they realize it's better this way than having a thousand hacked-up perl scripts trying to fetch web pages and parse them. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
  • In the land of America, I've noticed any sort of free TV listing is not really free.
    Any know of a truly free TV listing that can be used on my PVR?
    NO filling out forms every week, I mean free.
  • ...and that is the ogg theora format for all their broadcasts. Guys, we need to build critical mass fast. The BBC is a good place to start. Only God knows what M$ has in plans for Longhorn *cough*,*cough*, sorry, Vista.

    • Re:I demand one thing... (Score:4, Informative)

      by ZephyrXero ( 750822 ) <zephyrxero AT yahoo DOT com> on Saturday July 23, 2005 @02:26PM (#13145224) Homepage Journal
      The BBC would be more likly to use Dirac [sf.net], being that they came up with it... It's open source and can be used along with Ogg Vorbis ;) Theora looks great and all, but as long as it's in an open source codec I don't care which...
    • You know, people always talk about Theora and how great it is and that content producers should make their videos available in Theora. The thing is ... what plays it? Does it work in Windows Media Player, Real Player, or Quicktime? Those are the programs people use to watch movies. It doesn't really matter if mplayer can play it, or even VLC. People don't want to download a new player. Either get Theora supported by at least Real and Apple, or keep working on getting WMV, RM, and QT files to play in your pl
      • people always talk about Theora and how great it is

        Yeah man every time I turn on the TV or radio it's like "ogg theora this and ogg theora that." Get on a bus or train and talk to other passengers, seems like that's all they talk about. Won't everybody just shut up about ogg theora already!

        Wait a minute.

        What the bloody hell is ogg theora?

      • Windows Media Player? Yes, with patch.
        RealPlayer? Yes, with patch directly from Real ;) Quicktime? I don't think so....

        on your "H.264" encoding...do you mean Apple's implementation of it? H.264 is a standard, not a codec. Will those .mov's play on other people's operating systems? Can I watch them in Linux...legally? This is why people make a fuss about it. Media/data should never be contained in a proprietary format. It's one thing to use proprietary software, but all data should be open and standardiz
  • for others to follow? I mean think about it, you get to appear/seem open which is a huge bonus for the geek community (I'm sure a lot of posts will be about how great it is), while on the other hand you are raking in free innovation. Sort of like an upbeat take on Google Hacks, where a lot of people take an open service (Google Maps quasi-excluded) and do things with it, furthering the use of the service and gaining more notoriety for it.

    So while all of us clamor about how great some new hack on the open s
  • So, like, they want me to cut it up, move pieces around, and combine it in funky-fresh ways with other schedules?

    Or maybe a mash-up?

  • Proposed BBC schedule (Score:3, Funny)

    by SnappingTurtle ( 688331 ) on Saturday July 23, 2005 @02:18PM (#13145191) Homepage
    • Beatles
    • Monty Python
    • Beatles
    • Monty Python
    • people with British accents whacking each other
    • Beatles
    • Monty Python

  • Brittania Rules (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Saturday July 23, 2005 @02:19PM (#13145193) Homepage Journal
    Imagine an American media company pursuing this project. That's not even science fiction, it's fantasy.

    But what do I expect from my country, whose highest cultural aspirations are inevitably reruns in a British accent? All copyrighted, even patented, of course. While the British have a long enough cultural memory that they've been remixing Shakespeare for a half millennium.
    • To be fair to your country (as I understand it), you don't have a "tax" (the tv license isn't obligatory, just nearly so... and often enforced with just as many goons in suits...) paid television channel, so all the media companies actually have to pay out of their profits for the programs... The BBC afaik doesn't (as long as it doesn't make a loss) - they're a public service, like pavements. About the only British institution that I'm actually still proud of - and the only one I'm getting more proud of as

      • Re:Brittania Rules (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
        We also have "PBS", akin to the BBC - the home of "Sesame Street" (Kermit the Frog, Big Bird, etc). In fact, most BBC content rerun for American audiences was broadcast by PBS. That's where Monty Python's American audience comes from, as well as lesser lights like Masterpiece Theatre (note the spelling) and other British fare, especially televised literary adaptations. PBS is funded by Congress, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So we do pay a tax, into the slush fund, for the most popular ch
    • Imagine an American media company pursuing this project. That's not even science fiction, it's fantasy.

      BBC doesn't have to answer to shareholders or advertisers. Just a manicidal boss that bites co-workers.
      • Actually they do. There is a public annual general meeting and the government reviews the licence every 10 years.
        • Still no advertisers. The "shareholders" don't have any choice in the matter. The government don't need a review every tten years, just a fake inqury from a corrupt judge.

          Mark Thompson ignores them all anyway. He's too busy taking a major bite out of the people that actually do the work, in favour of 16 layers of management.

    • I believe Douglas Adams quipped:

      For Americans, one hundred years is a long time. For Europeans, one hundred miles is a long distance.

  • Darn it (Score:3, Funny)

    by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Saturday July 23, 2005 @02:21PM (#13145197)
    Darn it BBC, you're supposed to be stifling creativity like the American television corporations.

    Snap into line!
    • I believe the actual chartered task for american tv is to lull people into mind-numbed complacent apathy. In truth that involves a lot of creativity.. as it's very hard not to at least mildly amuse the average soul.
  • ...may be off topic, but what I want is the ability to select to record a program from a TV commercial on my DVR instead of having to wait until about 2 weeks before it begins to air.

    This could be somewhat like the pay-per-view commercials that I've seen that allow you to subscribe or select an event.

    FWIW - I currently use a DishPVR. I'm not trying to start a debate though.

    To me that would be more useful than any kind of online link, etc.
    • Dunno about the Dish version but with Tivo I'd just enter the name as a wishlist and when the programme appears in the listings it would be scheduled for recording.
    • That was exactly what the TV-Anytime format was invented for; CRIDs (URLs for TV programmes) will be transmitted along with trailers to allow you to programme your PVR. The format understands repeats of the same programme to assist the PVR scheduler. This is the first time that TV-Anytime has made it into the public, as far as I know, but I hope not the last.

  • Ideas you could try... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cmeans ( 81143 ) * <[chris.a.means] [at] [gmail.com]> on Saturday July 23, 2005 @02:27PM (#13145230) Journal
    Here's a few ideas, not sure how good they are:

    • Integrate it with your Calendar. For shows you're interested in (or might be). Good even for people who have a TiVo or other PVR.
    • An extension of this would be for it to read your calendar/email/web sites to know the kinds of things you're interested in, then it could highlight shows that relate to your interests. Categorize by business and personal interests/events.

  • My idea (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23, 2005 @03:04PM (#13145407)
    I wonder if the BBC would like my idea of linking the listings to torrents of the TV shows :)
  • My TIVO either misses programs or records the wrong programs because BBC America either changes it's listings at the last moment, or just has incorrect listings (I don't know which).
  • So what's new about downloading the radio schedules, building a database, and creating a website from it?
  • I'll wait until the Tiger Widget [apple.com] comes out.

  • Already in use with MythTV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gilesjuk ( 604902 ) <giles.jones@nospaM.zen.co.uk> on Saturday July 23, 2005 @08:56PM (#13147040)
    I've been using the BBC listings with MythTV for months now. The XMLTV script used to parse the HTML, but the BBC realised serving all the HTML results in greater server load, so they made XML data available.

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