[advocacy] The future for open streaming solutions at the BBC?

[Damon LoCascio]

Hi all,

I recently emailed a query to the maintainers of BBC London website
(http://bbc.co.uk/london)  asking if they had any plans to move away from
Real Server as a means for streaming audio and Video of their live radio
and tv broadcasts to something a bit more cross platform like OGG/Vorbis
or even MP3's. The reply I received was :

"I'm afraid we only plan to use Real Player files for our video and audio
clips for a while yet. This is mainly because the Real Servers are much
easier to support for the BBC and because Real Servers can handle the
traffic that the BBC Website places on them, unlike some other products.

We are looking into more formats and I will take up this matter with BBC
Technology who deal with streaming audio and video."

So my question is what resources are avaible to convince the techies at
the BBC that an open source solution is just as robust if not more so than
Real Networks solution. Do things like Icecast scale well or the Helix DNA
server? What comparisons, if any, are availiable for the best server
serving the best media format (OGG, MP3, RA's QT etc)? Is there a cast
iron argument I can put to the BBC?

Cheers,

Damon.

<p>
-- 
===

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs... you're
missing something IMPORTANT!"
                                Rob. (prolly teefed tho')

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