Anger over BBC radio streaming changes

[C E Macfarlane]

>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: get_iplayer [mailto:get_iplayer-bounces at lists.infradead.org]On
>     Behalf Of Jonathan H
>     Sent: 20 February 2015 16:58
>     To: David Cantrell
>     Cc: get_iplayer
>     Subject: Re: Anger over BBC radio streaming changes
>
>     On 20 February 2015 at 16:25, David Cantrell
>     <david at cantrell.org.uk> wrote:
>     >
>     > > "This experience has killed off internet radio for me,"
>     wrote a poster
>     > > called Nothung.
>     >
>     > Translation: "I was foolish enough to be an early adopter
>     or was conned
>     > into buying something that can only use weirdo proprietary
>     formats, the
>     > BBC should pay for ever to support me because I'm special".
>
>
>     Haha! This ^^^. A thousand times this.

No, the OP has a fair point.

The BBC should never have adopted any proprietary format in the first place.
The BBC is paid for out of our taxes, and it should be using open source
formats whose future support is more certain, as per Government guidelines
and the G8 Charter to which the government is a signatory.  The has no place
not getting into bed with dodgy monopolies, or dabbling in obscure DRM
proprietary formats which restrict the fair and reasonably use of the people
who pay for it throught their 'taxes'.

However, once having made the mistake of adopting such a standard, they have
a duty to adopt for a reasonable minimum length of time.  Analogue VHF
television broadcasting lasted I believe about 20 years before being
switched off, UHF 50 years before being replaced by DTTV.  In contrast, this
particular service lasted a lot less than the lifetime of the hardware used
to receive it.  THAT is the problem.

And it is not as if this is an isolated example.  I have calculated
elsewhere that AT LEAST a million items of equipment have either been
disastrously castrated or even made entirely useless by similar actions by
the BBC over approximately the last year alone.  This is kit that belongs to
the very people who pay for the BBC!  Suppose we decide to stop paying our
TV licences in protest, or decided to deduct from the amount, the amount we
have to spend to replace equipment broken by the BBC's actions?

The BBC are completely out of control in matters of this nature, and need
and deserve a f**king good kicking.

>     He'll be be complaining next that you just can't minidiscs these days,
>     and what ever happened to the good old days of Netscape Navigator?

That's a different matter entirely, because minidiscs were a proprietary
format whose use, AFAIAA, was never encouraged by any sort of adoption by a
'government' or 'official' body such as the BBC.  FWIW, I still have two
minidisc machines, but I always found both the media and the hardware rather
unreliable, and nowadays rarely use them.  All the discs I had are backed up
onto HD, where they can be conveniently played from anywhere in the house.

www.macfh.co.uk/CEMH.html

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