Anger over BBC radio streaming changes

[CJB]

I fully concur with all of the complaints - and we should not make fun
of them (even if they do not sound genuine).

It is utterly unacceptable of the BBC to remove streams used by
devices upon which the poorly sighted and blind rely on. They are
licence payers too.

It is equally unacceptable to redesign a website so badly that
specialist browsing apps. used by the blind are useless and can no
longer make sense of the pages.

Both of these cases are deliberately discriminatory and potentially
illegal. Indeed to demand payment of the licence fee for services no
longer available is tantamount to criminal fraud.

The BBC and its technical staff and management should hang their
collective heads in shame.

CJB


On 20/02/2015, C E Macfarlane <c.e.macfarlane at macfh.co.uk> wrote:
>
>
>>     -----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
>
> UK Residents:
>
> If you feel can possibly support it
> please sign the following ePetition
> before closing time of 30/03/2015 23:59:-
>
> http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/71556
>
>
>
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>