Interesting Stuff 2008-10-03
Post categories: round up
| 11:55 UK time, Friday, 3 October 2008
James Cridland's post on bit rates, radio streaming and Coyopa on Radio Labs has provoked what Bill McLaren might call some ". digitalradiotech says:
Let's get this straight: what I'm asking for here is that the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú should provide *the same* quality on its live Internet radio streams as most of the big UK commercial radio stations have been using for their Internet streams for almost 2 years now - i.e. using a bit rate of 128 kbps. And you're actually trying to suggest that it's me that's being unreasonable? Get real.
Commercial radio's Nick Piggott (who recently with James) responds:
Despite GCap Media being the largest commercial radio operator in the UK, the overall streaming volumes are significantly lower than those of the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú, so the overall bandwidth requirements (both peered and transit) are far lower. The audience is predominately based in the UK, which means it's realistic to peer directly with ISPs who account for the vast majority of the traffic.... Secondly, the streams are only available in Microsoft Windows Media format at 128kbit/s, and use Microsoft's own Intelligent Streaming technology to automatically scale to the available bandwidth. This means that devices that are unaware of Intelligent Streaming (including many WiFi radios) can only receive a 32kbit/s stream, as will Windows Media Player if it determines that network conditions are unreliable.
What to do about broadband? If this is a question you ponder, read from the Register.
Last week, I went to a fascinating presentation in the very bowels of Broadcasting House: research on Fan Cultures in radio online and it's great to see it being showcased on the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Radio Labs blog.
Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Global News (and Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú World Service) has announced plans for many more YouTube channels.
Rain Ashford from Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Backstage (and by our blogger-in-residence Steve Bowbrick) from Nesta's "Art of Innovation" event.
Deceptive Resolution has about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿ÚiPlayer. mloughran at getsatisfaction .
And despite the fact that , Chris Plowman is (NB: content linked to contains very strong language).
Nick Reynolds is editor, Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Internet Blog (and he's not sure yet about the new series of Heroes).
Comment number 1.
At 4th Oct 2008, digitalradiotech wrote:But Nick Piggott didn't explain why the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú couldn't provide the 128 kbps Internet streams that GCap have been providing for almost 2 years now - which was the point I was making.
For example, even if the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú is concerned about the reliability of higher bit rate streams, they could still provide "Normal" and "High" buttons for lower and higher bit rate streams - just like on the iPlayer TV streams. Nick going on about the Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú's higher bandwidth requirement doesn't alter that fact.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 9th Sep 2009, felicioo wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)