Â鶹Éç

Looks terrific. I'll give it a wing.

Right up our street ... but certainly still a Beta - and !

But worth persevering.

Does it work on Mac yet? Or are the Â鶹Éç still continuing to limit the market to PC only in spite of the fact I pay my Telly tax.

Tried to join but guess what! It will not work on a computer running Microsoft Windows Vista this is strange especially since Vista Media Centre is designed for TV, Video Etc. Come on Â鶹Éç if this is such a new thing would it not help if it run on the latest computer software.

Doesn't work on Unix nor Linux either...

"iPlayer or I payer?" Just one more example of Â鶹Éç's commercialization and efforts to pander in any way necessary to get money. Â鶹Éç lives off its once proud reputation for delivering news completely, accurately, and objectively. Sadly that isn't even close to the case any longer, a great loss to all of us. Instead, its current oleo of "stuff" will be disseminated more widely and efficiently than ever...for whatever its worth.

jboy #4 and foss #5
This brings up a very interesting point. Because of the evolution of dependence of the world on the internet and the interconnectivity to everyone it brings, especially for business and commerce, the entire world is at the mercy of a private company. What I'm getting at is that Microsoft Corporation if it had a mind to could bankrupt any nation or group of nations such as the EU simply by refusing to sell its product to them. The US Department of Justice learned this in its prosecution of Microsoft around 2000. The EU is still in the throes of learning that lesson. In the war between the EU and Microsoft, Microsoft holds all the aces, all the high cards, the EU holds all the deuces. Microsoft could announce it is pulling out of Europe and at the same time issue a new version of Windows available worldwide except Europe which is incompatable with the old versions. This would leave Europe isolated and unable to carry on business with the outside world even at the miserable competitive disadvantages it struggles with now. How Euro for Â鶹Éç to develop a pruduct wich cannot work with what will be the nearly universally used Windows operating system in a few years Vista. Comes from the same Eurotechnical minds which gave us the A380, the A350, and the Beagle II among others. Europe would do well to consider surrendering unconditionally to Microsoft Corporation and outsourcing its technological needs to far more advanced entities such as Microsoft itself, any of thousands of US companies, Japan Inc, or even the Chinese or Indians who are clearly more technologically advanced towards the cutting edge than the Europeans. It is sobering to recall that the US first landed a man on the moon 38 years ago and did it three times without failure while nobody else has done it in the intervening years. And the marvelous A380? About the size of the 40 year old C5A which could have been turned into a commercial passenger jet at any time had someone felt there was a need for it. And unlike the A380, the C5A can be built. How about a nice iphone from Apple Computer instead. It won't let you down.

Mark said
"iPlayer or I payer?" Just one more example of Â鶹Éç's commercialization and efforts to pander in any way necessary to get money.

For your info Mark the iplayer is free in the UK and will prob be available for a subsc worldwide soon.

Mark,

a fresh tune for the same old song. How novel - you know what they call that in the software business? They call it "putting lipstick on the pig" - the freshening up of an old application to reflect this seasons colours or dare i say it, transparent look. I tell you this because you don't appear to be to savvy when it comes to the tech market. A BETA version is a limited functionality pilot and by definition the predecessor of the finished product. Your beloved Microsoft issues BETA's - but only to certain clients. Every other outfit putting a tech product or service does the same. So what's your beef? The Beeb BETA's a service here in the UK - cos we pay for it. So What?

Go get an Iphone if you want one, it'll cost you hundreds of dollars. Why are you comparing it to something a broadcasting org knocks up and pounts for free - is that an unitentional indictment on Apple, one of the jewels of the US economy?

You need a bit more lipstick on the euro bashing pig pal....

Very impressed. Good use of peer to peer technology.

Andrew
your url is 'forbidden'!!

GeeDubya #9
Funny how beta versions have a way of sticking around for years. And then when the real version comes out...it needs about 15 patches before it works right. By that time the beta for the replacement is already in the works. Nothing is free, there are no free lunches. One way or another, everyone who pays rates to Â鶹Éç is absorbing the cost. I think it is you who are not savvy or familiar with the way business and the world works.

GeeDubya #9
Funny how beta versions have a way of sticking around for years. And then when the real version comes out...it needs about 15 patches before it works right. By that time the beta for the replacement is already in the works. Nothing is free, there are no free lunches. One way or another, everyone who pays rates to Â鶹Éç is absorbing the cost. I think it is you who are not savvy or familiar with the way business and the world works.

GeeDubya #9
Funny how beta versions have a way of sticking around for years. And then when the real version comes out...it needs about 15 patches before it works right. By that time the beta for the replacement is already in the works. Nothing is free, there are no free lunches. One way or another, everyone who pays rates to Â鶹Éç is absorbing the cost. I think it is you who are not savvy or familiar with the way business and the world works.

Mark,

I am not savvy, and i suppose you are?

Let's look at this:

What a fantastic idea you have for Microsoft's next fiscal year. Just picture it....

"So Bill, what would you say if I could identify a market twice as populous as the US with 25% more GDP, AND give you a plan to write us out of that market for the next thirty years. Bill? Bill, are you there...."

Mark, I am prepared to bet large sums of money that you are not the CEO of a large software organisation.
QED.

hmm saw this yesterday so went and signed up, by the time i got home my welcome email with user name and password were there, tried to log in and my user name /password are invalid!

will have another bash tonight but i cant see how this thing has made a beta release when its littered with so many bugs, coming over a year since VOD beta started i would have thought the Beeb could have produced a better product to release for testing

Gee Dubya #15
If the alternative is for Microsoft to open up its operating system in a way that lets the entire world have a look at everthing inside so they can steal it more efficiently than they already do or continue to face millions of dollars in additional fines with each passing day it doesn't as the EU court has ruled, if I were Microsoft, I'd go to war with Europe and teach them and the world a lesson nobody would ever forget. And it would not be illegal, there is not law aginst refusing to do business in Europe. BTW, look at sJr's posting, another happy Â鶹Éç iprayer customer.

Mark,

if you read my comments carefully you will see I am questioning your motives in criticising this project. So SJR's remarks whilst on topic for the thread, are irrelevant to my point.

I am not defending the Â鶹Éç iPlayer - I havn't downloaded it. Although I may have a look at some point.

What I am saying is that you are using this thread to start up your irrational anti euro theme, rambling on about aeroplanes and goodness knows what. Hence the lipstick on the pig remark...

Here's a serious question for you. If you hate Europe so much, why do you hang out on the Â鶹Éç all the time?

Gee

Gee Dubyah #18
"If you hate Europe so much, why do you hang out on the Â鶹Éç all the time?"

Simple, it reminds me that no matter how bad things get here, they could always be worse. Besides, I want to see what I am getting for my money. After all I too subsidize Â鶹Éç even though it is indrectly through my Federal income taxes which in part go to pay for contracts between Â鶹Éç and NPR and PBS. And unlike Brits who have a choice if a very unpalatable one to opt out of subsidizing Â鶹Éç by not having a television set which must be licensed, I have no such choice unless I want to evade taxes which is illegal or not make any money at all. As we know, the two things which cannot be avoided are death and taxes. While the scientists are working hard at avoiding death, there is no hope on the horizon for avoiding taxes.

Surely this question of value for money is an issue you should take up with your taxation system. In most Utopias I have read about such a valid and reasonable complaint would land at the Head of State's desk PDQ. The US is a Utopia, isn't it Mark?

The claim that you susidize the Â鶹Éç is pretty tenuous, but very amusing. Well done.

On the subject of the US space program - the Saturn V rocket that took men to the moon was a remarkable acheivment by Werner Von Braun - a European.

I downloaded all the stuff but haven't been able to watch anything yet. Keeps on coming up with an error message saying I dont have authorisation. I use the channel 4 one occasionally, and it has been quite usefull as I don't own a video recorder. The channel 4 one had its teething trouble as well but it works fine now.
I think the License fee is pretty good value for money - and if the only way to get the Â鶹Éç was through subscription I would certainly pay double what the license fee is.

dp says: "I think the License fee is pretty good value for money - and if the only way to get the Â鶹Éç was through subscription I would certainly pay double what the license fee is.

No you wouldn't. And if you would, you're in the minority, making the license fee unjustifiable whether you are happy to pay it or not.

John,

I recognise that your beef with the license fee is it's mandatory nature. I tend to agree that this is an anachronism and I suspect it will not last much longer.

However, come that day, I will be joining dp in the queue for a BEEB subscription. Looking at the cost of a Sky TV subscription for a year and looking at the licence fee I think the value proposition is a no brainer.

I wonder how a subscription funded Beeb unshackled by Public Service Broadcasting commitments would differ from todays Corporation?

When I worked for the largest research consorteum in the world 17 years ago, they developed video on demand and it worked. It's offered by virtually every cable company in the US although the selections compared to the original intention are underwheling (it was intended to make a library of EVERY television broadcast ever made available to the user.) This looks like the same thing, the convergence of computers, television, and telephones making this a no brainer. One more reverse engineering of techology of an old product Euros can't master without a protracted expensive struggle if at all.

Gee Dubya, #20
You don't get it. America attracts the smarted, most ambitions, most inventive, and most determined people in the world like a magnet. Von Braun wanted to go too the moon. America made it happen for him in his lifetime. It's a nation of perpetual self renewal while its heirs apparant whether they are China today, Japan, Europe (remember Tony-I want to make Europe the best place to do business in the world-Blair?), the USSR, and even Germany a long time ago always turn out to be a flash in the pan or a pure illusion. What were the chances that a bodybuilder who aspired to become an actor would become the governor of a major state or province in Austria?

By the way, you made a minor mistake. I do not live in utopia but by the sheerest coincidence I did grow up near Utopia Parkway and Jewel Avenue in Queens New York City (zip code 11365.) Check a street map on Mapquest and you'll see exactly where it is. Euros don't hesitate for one second to criticize any and every aspect of America but they are not only unaccostomed to a rebuttal, they don't like hearing about any of the countless severe shortcomings of their wretched civilization. They can dish it out but they sure can't take it. Also, talking about putting lipstick on a pig, when I lived and traveled in Europe, everywhere I went, in every city the stench from the rivers was unbearable. From Paris to Lisbon, they reeked. And the fumes from cars and buses made it impossible to sit in an outdoor cafe and eat or drink anything without choking. No doubt as far as I am concerned where the pigs are.

This is boring, fallacious, supremacist, and xenophobic.

Are you foaming at the mouth yet Mark?

I think there was a German whose fallacious xenphobic supremacy made him foam at the mouth. I don't recall anyone saying he was boring though. Hmm...

Gee Dubyah #25
When all arguments based on facts fail....call your opponent names. Checkmate!

Re #26.

If name calling is an indicator of checkmate, then I think you need to revisit your last comment in #24. You see, here in backward Europe, #24 still comes before #25. Thanks.

If like me you take a different view of things then you may view having your "opponent" show his true colours as the endgame. You have shown yours - those of a purveyor of irrational hate-filled invective; someone with more in common with Rev. Phelps than the emblem on your passport. I am pleased we can see you for what you are. Thanks for your help.

RE #26 - I think my initial comments to this were moderated.

In short it goes like this:

You wrote - "No doubt as far as I am concerned where the pigs are".
(This was in post 24, which over here in backwards old Europe comes before post 25.)

My remark in 25 is commentary on your descent to namecalling, and I believe, an accurate summary of your position.

Thanks.

Re #26

Mark,

This is the latest of several replies I have tried to make to this comment - not sure if this will get through either.

In light of the final remark in your #24, I think it's gracious of you to concede the checkmate. Thanks.

Gee Dubyah #28
Among the many things you know nothing about, chess is on that list. It is the winner, not the loser who announces "checkmate!"

BTW, your "liptstick on a pig" remark was as far back as posting #9.

Mark,

I know all about checkmate. The pig in my anology was your idea that Europe was inferior etc etc and the lipstick was you dressing it up as a software discussion. In yours it was clearly us Europeans and our filthy rivers. I think that meets the description of namecalling.

You are nobbled, don't embarrass yourself any further.

Thanks.

Whilst discussing phrase used in chess - can I just mention "en passant" (that's a euro phrase mark - let me know if you'd like a trnslation) that a funny thing has struck me.

This irrational invective against Europe bears a marked similarity to the language if not the detail of "godhatesireland.com". It seems to me that you and Fred Phelps share more than Nationality.

:)

Gee Dubyah #31
It may interest you to know that over 200 languages are spoken in the United States, in fact over 180 them in New York City. This came to light just this week when discussion of disruption to the rapid transit system revealed that the city alerts citizens about what is going on in only ten languages. One of the languages spoken in America is French including its many variants of dialects and subdialects. For example, public school students in Florida are offered classes in among other languages two subdialects of Hatian Creole, something the taxpayers do not like thinking about.

Some of my knowledge of Europe comes from living there for about two years so it is first hand although admittedly it's been awhile, quite awhile in fact. Where does your knowledge of the United States come from. In our education system here, we learn a lot of European history and culture and read a lot of European literature. What does a European education teach students about America? From the interview Owen Bennet Jones conducted with a very well educated European, Sir Christopher Meyers, it would seem sadly little.

Perhaps my attitude towards Europe and Europeans comes from a time early in my life when Europe was held in some sort of high esteem as a superior civilization and model and many European emigrees I met took an attitude of superiority. Experience in life has taught me that exactly the opposite was true and the more I learned of Europe, the more repulsed I was by it. Suddenly all of those wars, battles, empires, and wealth gave me the stark realization of how they were paid for in endless human suffering, poverty, exploitation, enslavement, and death. It actually didn't end until after World War II when America took control of Western Europe and prevented what would have been another very bloody war as one more European grand scheme to rule the world and re-engineer society, Communism threatened a third world war. Yet even as late as 1999 ten years after the Berlin wall collapsed and eight years after the end of the Soviet evil empire, Europe looked ready to go at it again as the same old players were lining up to finish fighting World War I. Maybe God doesn't just hate Ireland, maybe he hates all of Europe. Judging from its history, he has good reasons to.

A more conciliatory tone - much appreciated.

There is NO reason why Europe should be regarded as superior in the US, so I can't help you with that.

My knowledge of the US is limited to to my school History course in twentieth century history, and to some project work we did at school around the Civil War and another on indiginous peoples in various regions. My personal reading taste includes modern history and military history, so that touches the US sphere of influence on a regular basis.

In general I think you are probably right - British (cant be sure obout other European countries) kids are not taught in detail about the US unless they take fairly advanced History, Politics or similar courses.

I would be mortified to think I come across as a US basher, but I do react badly to your more extreme outbursts. Any criticism is intended to be in the "none of us are perfect" vein rather than "what a bunch of knuckle draggers you lot are".

I suppose when you grow up in a war zone it sharpens the focus. I don't think of myself as British or Irish -I think of myself as European - for the time being. This is because the dive to European unification nakes us part of something bigger, safer and more diverse.

Nationalism of any sort seems outdated in the 21st Century. I think my European-ness is only a stepping stone to being a proper and responsible citizen of the world - which is the end game. And that would require you and I learning to be neighbours.

My view on Europe's bloody history is that has been one of the principal battlefields of Geopolitics, and the issues that drive that phenomenon recognise no geographical boundaries.

If he had been given a few more years to work on it by the Isolationists, Werner Von Braun would have been landing Saturn V's on Times Square instead of V2's on Picadilly Circus - perhaps we should recognise that we are all in this together and Isolation won't get us anywhere?

Gee

I've always felt that what you see depends to a large extent on your vantage point. To people who only live on the surface of the earth, no matter where they are, it's easy to conclude that it's flat and if the only thing they notice is the sun and moon arcing across the sky, it's easy to conclude that the earth is the center of existance. But if you go just a few hundred miles up, you see an entirely different reality, one that makes the other pale into laughability. Europe got another lesson this week reminding it of the old truism that when the United States sneezes, the rest of the world catches pneumonia. Once again European economists believed that an event which shook the US economy some (but hardly to its foundation), in this case defaults on many mortgages to borrowers who never should have been given loans in the first place would not affect Europe and once again they were proven wrong as the EU central bank poured 120 billion dollars into liquidity to shore up its finanial markets. This same thing happens all the time, the last time being 2000 when European economists said that the coming slowdown in the US economy would not affect Europe. That recession was short and shallow by US historical standards but most of Europe didn't recover until long after it had become a distant memory in the US. Only Britain was spared.

If there is any value to travel at all, I think it's to get another perspective, not only of the world but of your own place in it. The best experience is to live in another place for awhile and cope with the day to day problems of existance as the locals do with the same possibilities, limitations, and obstacles to overcome. Only then do you get an inkling of what another place is really like. Only when you get a feel for a place can you begin to understand it as an outsider.

Not only is America's economy the world's largest by far, it it two thirds driven by consumers. That means that nations which export to it can be bouyed or devastated by what average Americans feel about how safe it is to spend money. A change in America's domestic economy has enormous ripples which spread throughout the world. In the past, a great deal of thought was given to the consequences to other nations of America's domestic policies. I recall how Alan Greenspan sweated over the consequences of a possible rise in US intrest rates would affect Argentina whose currency was pegged to the US dollar and whose economy was in trouble. What do you suppose will happen in the future when some of those potential consequences may affect nations whose views and actions can only be considered hostile...such as France's? US bashing seems to have been a rather popular sport in Europe ever since Schroeder and Chirac found out how much it could do for their domestic political careers. This started before the US invasion of Iraq and that war only made the sport more compelling. Why should Europeans be surprised or angry that there is an American backlash, especially considering the enormous sacrifices America has made in the past which benefitted Europe over nearly a century?

Since your personal taste includes modern history, you might search out and watch a recent interview of Gunther Grass which was followed by an interview with Normal Mailer and then an moderated exchange between the two. It should be available on Book TV which is C-Span 2. Grass who recently admitted to his Nazi past has been grappling with the issue of how the most civilized and advanced people in Europe could quickly be turned by a demagogue into savages, little more than rabid animals really. The time worn excuses and explanations about the poverty and hardship endured by the Germans as the result of the vindictive treaty of Versailles came up of course but for those of Grass's intellect, it just isn't enough. I think it will haunt him for his entire life. It's a very disturbing question which probes the darkest recesses of human psyche. Are we all vulnerable under the right circumstances? Mailer incidently had no such problems with Hitler, his adventure into the violent side of man was a preoccupation, even obsession with having stabbed his second wife (his first wife must have been smart enough to get out before it was too late.)

Had Verner Von Braun been landing Saturn Vs in Times Square killing more strangers as you said and as he surely would have, his life would have been a failure, just as those who launch rockets at Israeli homes from Gaza are. That he landed the first men on the moon with them instead will have him remembered as a pioneer in one of the greatest of all human adventures ever. What a telling difference between how two entirely different civilizations harness such talent. It's interesting to me that the intent for developing the atom bomb was to use it on Germany, not Japan but the war ended before it was ready. Such projects take on a life of their own once they reach a certain point. When I experienced discrimination first hand at a German Rathskeller at an industrial trade show in Bordeaux in 1973, I wondered if it wasn't really too late to drop one on them anyway even though the war had ended 28 years earlier and I wondered why we were making such a sacrifice to protect them from the USSR. I think the French often wondered the same thing.

Is nationalism dead and obsolete? I don't think so, not in a lot of places and not even in Europe. The Czechs and Slovaks kissed and broke up, parting being such sweet sorrow. Yuogoslavia was another matter, the powers which fought World War One ready to go right back at it. This time Greece and Turkey would have had available to them the weapons the US supplied NATO to fight World War Three. Europe didn't need a Security Council resolution to end that conflict, just a call to 1-800-USA-HELP to get President Clinton to send jets to pound Serbia into dust if that's what it took. A UN Security Council resolution on Serbia? Forget it, Russia would surely have vetoed it. I personally have no preference one way or the other about the EU, it doesn't affect me directly but I am puzzled as to why so many, especially in the UK have not demanded a vote on ceding so much sovereignty. But none of the major parties have and there is no grass roots drumbeat. So the UK could become part of a larger entity being swallowed up into a pan European superstate, not with a bang but a whimper. How strange for a nation which calls itself a democracy and fought so long and hard to remain independent.

I would like to get hold of the transcript of the interview conducted by Owen Bennet Jones. The interview was aired today 0630 GMT 19.8.2007) by Â鶹Éç Radio. The person interviewed is a lady from Pakistan, and since I missed the first part of the interview I would like to obtain the full transcript of the interview by OBJ.