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Linux At The BBC [updated] 170

Posted by timothy from the mike-myers'-muse dept.
KobyBoy writes "Damion Yates wrote a very nice and informative article about how the BBC is using Linux. Linux is quite widespread in their in-house server environment, their development environment and of course in their production environment. He even mentions the excellent support Donald Becker (from Linux NIC card support fame) has provided him." Update: 09/24 21:54 GMT by T : Whoops -- this article is pretty old. Make that, the BBC is still using Linux.
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Linux At The BBC [updated] More

Linux At The BBC [updated]

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  • Changes (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mclaren_1010 ( 541130 )
    How are the IT departments handling changes in big corporatinos like BBC? Do they have to hire new admins or keep there old ones? Going from NT to Linux would require new people, wouldn't it?
    • "How are the IT departments handling changes in big corporatinos like BBC? Do they have to hire new admins or keep there old ones? Going from NT to Linux would require new people, wouldn't it?"

      As a matter of fact, we do trainings for one institution that has recently decided to switch over from NT to Linux in the server environment. While there may be some savvy admins out there who grew up drinking UNIX from their mothers' breasts, these NT admins all *loved* learning Linux. It took them one week of realizing all the advantages of a command line interface and now they sneer at all Windows-based installations.

      So, yes, it's easily possibly to make switch and no, you don't need new admins, just make the old ones happy.

  • Interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Snowbeam ( 96416 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @05:44PM (#4322806) Homepage
    ...but not all that important. Why not focus on the continuous improvement of Linux and the advancement of Open Source. If we strive for those two things, take all criticism ina constructive manner, there will be no need to worry about other OS's and other systems that we already know aren't up to par.
    • Why not focus on the continuous improvement of Linux and the advancement of Open Source

      And the way to improve and advance Linux and Open Source is to testify and evangelize. Notice I didn't write "fanaticize." :)

      What's good about this is article is that it demonstrates that Linux is a viable and useful platform in a very demanding environment that's based entirely around things like deadlines, schedules, communications and connectivity. If things aren't reliable and the news is slow to be gathered or released, you're dead in the water. The BBC is also a very recognized and respectable name, the fact they're using Linux carries more weight than Joe Blow's Pizza Shack.

      There's also the added plus of businesses seeking to deploy Linux being able to communicate with companies that have rolled it out in practice, not in theory. They can glean information on pitfalls and tactics to make the best decision possible and avoid mistakes made by others in the past.

  • Quite an old article... (Score:3, Informative)

    by pozzy ( 123381 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @05:51PM (#4322850)
    I work with Damion Yates, who wrote this article almost 3 years ago now. Guess it's time for an update...
    • Do they still use Linux then ? And any info on why the ogg vorbis streams were pulled ? I really miss being able to listen to Jon Peel online.

    • Re:Quite an old article... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I worked in the NT server development team for the BBC for four years and this isnt entirely true.

      They may use Linux heavily the R&D but when your talking internal DNS, were talking a Windows 2000 AD here, far far more DNS servers running Windows 2000 AD than Linux servers. Yes, Linux/Solaris are used for DHCP in BBC News but not entirely for the rest of the BBC.

      Yes, there is a nice big linux server farm being installed for BBC World Service/News but Linux is still not considered business critical by the security department (go figure). What is not mentioned in that the guys at R&D (Simon etc) are quite anti-M$ (and I dont blame them personally) will, in more than one way, ressemble what you would think an aging unix guru looks like. I would guess that a high 90s (percentage) of servers that the average BBC emplyee touches each day is NT either file and print or email.

      Linux is used in departments that cant get funding from either internal bean pushers or departments are the installing equipment outside of the BBC for testing/pioneering projects.

      While NT doesnt handle video streaming that well, the guys are RD have done a CORKER job on the video/audio streaming and when your talking 25000 streams, I think theyve done something that they should be very proud of. Here is where unix shows itself but as for heavy Linux use in the BBC, not for a very very long time :-(

  • NIC Card (Score:3, Funny)

    by kasparov ( 105041 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @05:54PM (#4322883)
    Would that be a NIC card like an ATM Machine, or Windows 2000 being built on NT Technology?

  • ancient news (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @05:55PM (#4322892)
    This would be relevant except for that fact that the article is ancient and the BBC have moved on since then. The BBC has moved its focus on Linux and it is now targetted towards OGG and back end services. There are a few front end machines but these are being moved to Solaris to be inline with the rest of the service. There are a few announcments to make regarding linux within the BBC, but I am sure these will be slashdotted in the near future and will be more relevant than this article and it's author.

  • BBC News (Score:4, Informative)

    by gleffler ( 540281 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @05:57PM (#4322905) Journal
    Speaking of the BBC, one thing many US citizens don't know about is that they offer ad-free, free news through http://news.bbc.co.uk [bbc.co.uk] - no, it's not US-centric like most US news sources, but it gives a nice perspective on lots of global issues, stuff you might not even hear about in US news. (And if you really, really still want just US news, click the "Americas" link.) What does this have to do with running Linux? Well, not much, I just thought that this was useful information.

    • Free for yourself, maybe (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      We pay for it through the TV licence (A bit of a misnomer these days, as it pays for BBC Radio, BBCi, BBC News and what is now 4 BBC channels, 6 if you count BBC News24 and BBC Parliament)

      Still, I personally think that the TV licence is fucking great value for money.

      I'm sure a lot of people will disagree, but what the hell. I'm watching Ab Fab, and I love the BBC. Go watch Sky.

      • Yep. Definately value for money. I've not met many people that aren't happy with the service the BBC provides.
    • I took a look at BBC news lately after a collegue of mine suggested the site. I really didn't like it.

      The news stories may have been based on fact, but the editorialization of the stories made it look very bad. Not the place to look for an objective treatement of news stories. A lot of biased titles and carefully choosen emphasised comments.

      Ok, I happen to agree with some of the opinions presented, but it's not the point. Journalism is supposed to be OBJECTIVE.

      On a side note, I'm still looking for a sort-of-unbiased news website. Maybe with the google new NEWS tab... [slashdot.org]

    • Would you rather have your news from independent organizations or from an official government mouthpiece? The BBC is a state-run organization and is controlled and owned by the British government.

      Some things the BBC is better at than CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc.:
      - Greater international coverage
      - Less fluff and "human interest" stories. More real news.

      The BBC does a great job of showing a semblance of unbiasedness. It actually criticizes the British government sometimes. What's particularly dangerous, however, is all the bias that's hidden in the reporting veiled by that pretense of unbiasedness. For example, the BBC finds it almost impossible to do a story about a third-world former British colony without pointing out exactly how the cretins are unable to govern themselves (the implication being that they would have been better off under British rule).

      If you read any of the cricket coverage on the BBC, the stories have a particular slant including "journalism" that's nothing but slander accusing every other country and umpire of cheating.

      Those are just examples. You see the same thing all through their coverage. They are anything but unbiased and objective. They do a great job of spreading propoganda to people who know nothing about the actual issue, however. So if you knew nothing about the actual situation in Zimbabwe, the BBC would do a great job of projecting the British viewpoint on your subject and you'll make the mistake of believing it is objective and unbiased.

      \end{mindless_rant}
      • Would you rather have your news from independent organizations or from an official government mouthpiece? The BBC is a state-run organization and is controlled and owned by the British government.

        It's not state-run in the same way as, say, the Chinese media as you appear to be implying. It's not controlled by the government in terms of day-to-day management. The application of editorial pressure by politicians is, if IIRC, illegal. Moreover, it's not owned by the government in the sense of a nationalised state utility. It is an independent "corporation" (hence the C in BBC) that manages its own affairs. It is subject to some restriction of its commercial activity, and some protection from the pressures of the commercial world that allow it to produce stuff that's percieved to be "public service". If anyone could be said to own it, it would be the license payer, and in a much more direct way than the taxpayer could be said to own a nationalised utility.

        Maybe you knew all this but, taken with the rest of your comment, you seem to be implying that the BBC is little more than a mouthpiece of the "British viewpoint", whatever the fuck that is.

        And we all know that moving to Channel 4 was the best thing to happen to English cricket since Ian Botham and 1981 ;->

      • The BBC employs more British people than any other nationality. Its not that amazing that views that are widely held within Britain - that decolonisation was done too quickly and in a haphazard manner, for example - are also widely held within the BBC, and that these views are reflected in their coverage.

        IMO, the BBC still offers your best chance of unbiased reporting on any random story around the world. Sometimes it can be a bit out of whack, but thats life.

        Just out of interest, where are you from?
      • Shame on the person who modded the parent as flamebait.

        While it starts with the common misperception that the BBC is "an official government mouthpiece (that is) state-run organization and controlled by the British government", the concerns about the organization's objectivity are totally reasonable. Open discussion about issues such as the objectivity of media is of crucial importance to all modern democratic societies.

        All organizations that consist of humans are subject to bias issues and in BBC's case Britain's historical and continuing cultural and economic links (or occasionally antipathies against old adversaries) will inevitably affect BBC's reporting from time to time. Yet they provide far more factual and unbiased coverage of world events than the American news networks which inevitably tend to oversimplify the news to their average American audience which lacks both the background knowledge and the attention span, not to mention plain interest, to get to the bottom of things.

        BBC is a great english-language news resource once you learn to keep your bias-filtering glasses on. The best news organizations, i.e. those based in countries that have no major/recent colonialist past or any existing "special relationship" to the USA or other major powers, are found in continental Europe, but their english-language coverage tends to concentrate domestic rather than international news.

        FWIW, part of the anglophone news scene's problem might also lie in the "information inbreeding" that stems from monolingualism. European journalists, OTOH, are likely to speak besides english also other foreign languages and that is often reflected in the different perspective and approach esp. what comes to difficult political issues in world politics.
    • The BBC also provide some the best Science [bbc.co.uk] and Technology [bbc.co.uk] coverage found in *any* mainstream media.

      Including this interesting pience on why News beats porn online [bbc.co.uk].

    • Agence France Presse http://www.afp.com/english/home/

  • Linux and FreeBSD (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quill_28 ( 553921 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @06:00PM (#4322930) Journal
    Serious Question not trying to flame

    In the past 3 years I have really taking a liking to Unix(mainly Linux and FreeBSD). Now my understanding is that FreeBSD is a better server platform(or at least it once was) than Linux.

    My question: Why would the BBC use Linux over FreeBSD for their servers?
    Possible answers:

    1. Linux has hype
    2. Unix folks like using Linux as a desktop so it's a natural upgrade(Much like MS with NT)
    3. FreeBSD it hard to use?
    4 ....

    I am in no way trying to bash Linux or FreeBSD(I use Linux at work, FreeBSD at home) just curious.

    Please tell me don't flame saying one is better than the other unless it supports your argument about why Linux is being used more(or seems to be).

    • Re:Linux and FreeBSD (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > My question: Why would the BBC use Linux over FreeBSD for their servers?

      My guesstimate (the article didn't say) would be support for their hardware. At this point, Linux has wider support than FreeBSD.
    • We all use Linux at home when on call at night (to some degree) to support this. I personally have FreeBSD, Solaris-x86 and Linux, but rarely leave Linux.

      It seems that they are aware of freebsd. I can only assume that they use linux because they know it and are comfortable with it. Then again, that's why my grandfather sticks with a different OS...

      < tangent >
      The folks in the article cite several examples of practical applications. One of these examples is a webcam???? ("Look mommy linux can do tricks.")
      < /tangent >

    • Re:Linux and FreeBSD (Score:3, Informative)

      by mo ( 2873 )
      4. linux has a journaling filesystem, freebsd doesn't
      5. linux has SMP (multiprocessor support), freebsd doesn't

      Those are the big two reasons why I would use linux in a professional environment.

    • Re:Linux and FreeBSD (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )
      I've have twice been in a position where I would have been happy to use FreeBSD but ended up using Linux, and had a reason each time. They are tiny little things, but they made all the difference.
      1. On my "home server" I ended up using Linux instead of FreeBSD or OpenBSD, because the BSD drivers for x86 didn't allow serial ports to share an interrupt. At the time I needed three serial ports, so I had COM1 and COM3 using the same IRQ. Linux could handle it. FreeBSD and OpenBSD could not. I didn't feel like buying an expensive multi-serial card (e.g. a digiboard or something) at the time, so I went with Linux.

        So sad that it came down to something so trivial. Well, no, not really sad at all, since Linux works just fine. So what if it's a few percent slower and the init scripts are confusing? It works.

        I no longer have a need for so many serial ports on the same machine, so if I ever redo it, I might give *BSD a second chance.

      2. At work, I ended up replacing a perfectly working OpenBSD box (and I think FreeBSD would have had the same problem) with Linux, because of IPX and Netware. Linux can talk IPX, mount Netware fileservers, and internally route IPX to a DOSEMU session so that someone who has SSHed or dialed into the box and wants to run a DOS program that needs to access the Netware fileserver, can do it. OpenBSD (and presumably FreeBSD) couldn't do it.

        Hey, I needed the feature. And it made an expensive and flakey Citrix Winview box obsolete, so I was pretty happy about that. :-)

      There you have it: Two reasons that came up in real life.

      FWIW, I'm about to give OpenBSD a second chance at home on a very simple firewall project (up to now I have been defying "orthodox firewall doctrine" by running firewall and services on one machine), and I expect it to work out.

    • Although both linux and freeBSD have developers from around the world, Linux seems to have a greater geographical distribution of developers from different countries creating it than freeBSD does. That alone could be a reason for a company outside the US to find it a bit more desirable. It's a bit more "international". Then when you add on the distribution stuff (everything not in the kernel) you find even more evidence of internationality. You can get a distro built by Europeans for Europeans. The fact that Linux distros come from so many different countires maes them more desirable for people who want to buy from out of their own local economy.
    • "We all use Linux at home when on call at night (to some degree) to support this. I personally have FreeBSD, Solaris-x86 and Linux, but rarely leave Linux."

      Because that is what the admins are most familiar with. Use the best tool for the job, and make sure that it is the tool that you are most skilled with. I don't think using FreeBSD is easier or harder than Linux. It is just than the admins are more skilled in using Linux.
    • We use Solaris desktops (yes, Solaris *does* make a good desktop OS, although Linux has its charms), Solaris as a server OS, and very little else.

      Linux is useful as it's a Unix with good device driver support. If you have a slightly odd device (eg. some sound cards, etc.) Linux is more likely to have a driver for it than anothing other than Windows. We don't generally do Windows (it's hideous, let's face it), so this is a good second best.

      I quite like Solaris, for all its faults. My coloed box is Solaris (Netra T1); my shared coloed box is Linux. My desktop at home is Linux, and my desktop at work is Solaris. I therefore feel well enough equipped to talk about the relative strengths and weaknesses of both. There are many who think that Linux is the be-all and end-all of computing. I'm afraid they're wrong...

      Oh, yeah, I work in the same department as Damion. You'd probably guessed that.
    • Now my understanding is that FreeBSD is a better server platform(or at least it once was) than Linux.

      It once was (c. 1995, maybe). That was a long time ago. At this point, it's mostly a matter of taste, and which set of quirks you'd rather deal with.

      1. Linux has hype

      That's almost certainly a factor.

      2. Unix folks like using Linux as a desktop

      Some do, some don't; this certainly could be a factor.

      3. FreeBSD it hard to use?

      "Hard" is probably the wrong word, but the BSD's do do some things differently. (There's the Linux way, the Unix way, and the BSD way, and never the three shall meet.) Speaking for myself, with a background in commercial Unix systems, I found Linux easier to pick up than BSD. Not a lot easier, though, but enough that I still grumble when dealing with a BSD system. But I understand that someone with a background in BSD (or derivatives) might well find BSD more comfortable than Linux. So, again, it's a matter of taste.

      Other factors you left out:

      4. Better third party support. Someone mentioned Real. But I know it's not just Real -- there's a lot of software written by people whose only Unix experience is with Linux. This may be in part because of the greater hype behind Linux, but it's still a real factor at this point.

      5. Wider choice of vendor support. Again, probably in part because of Linux hype, but again, it's a real factor.

      But the bottom line is that, in an absence of any compelling reason to pick one over the other, it becomes a matter of taste, and you should no more be shocked that someone picks Linux than that someone picks BSD.
  • If only you could get CEO or CIO magazine to link to that article.

    Unfortunately, few if any CEOs or CIOs will ever read the article. Having this article on Linux Planet and Slashdot is simply preaching to the chior. Again!

    Rave reviews, none the less.

    • Re:If only.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      If you want them to read about Linux, you might need to right some letters.

      I'm Serious, pick up some CAO or CIO mags, read the technology parts, and find some relevent information on why Linux would be better, then write a letter to the magazine.

  • How about a "is using linux" article about (Score:5, Interesting)

    by t0qer ( 230538 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @06:08PM (#4322978) Homepage Journal
    All us jobless M$ admins out in silicon valley?

    Fuck M$, after 7 years of supporting thier crappy O/S, fighting with the developers to use exchange instead of a popmail solution, after 7 years of fighting with the linux zealots on the merits of a M$ based system, i'm burnt out. This Sp1 stuff is complete crap.

    There's a lot more of me's out there than you think microsoft.

    From now on, instead of teaching people how to use outlook express i'll be teaching them how to use kmail, instead of IE i wil be showing them gecko, instead of teaching them how to use word i'll show them how to use open office.

    It wont just stop there either, i'll load their pc's up with emulators and roms galore, show their kids how to play games on something other than windows. I'll install quake and UT2003 for those that buy it.

    Microsft really fucked up by cutting out the people that for years was the undermining support for preaching their products. I no longer wish to be a microsoft whore. I remember several times having to frantically dig out NT40 CAL's just to be sure we had enough licenses so someone could save a file on a server. What utter nonsense and I was a nincompoop for doing it.

    You pissed off one little jobless NT admin M$, and i'm sure there is many more. Granted this comment doesn't get modded into oblivion, perhaps the other /. readers will get the point and follow suit.

    Your days are numbered bill.
    • Wow, somewhat off topic, but contains lots of "heart"?

    • Amen.

      Same boat, same sinking feeling, same frenetic and generally useless paddling and scooping and paddling and more scooping...

      Now: Linux, python, apache, and Postgres. (me happy again)
    • Although I've never really liked M$, I did work as an NT admin for a while. So with that in mind, I'll say "welcome aboard!", glad to have you! ;)

      ---
      "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"
    • /best Jimmy Swaggart voice/

      Hooorah brother! Your eyes are open! Cast off the demon that has been the source of your dispair, cast it into the pit from whence it came and rejoice in your salvation!

      /voice/

      I just installed 500 PCs, Win2k, but Mozilla and Star Office 5. 3/5 servers are now non-M$, and that number will grow to 4/5 when they try to ram XP down my gullet. They can have my AS/400 when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.

    • Not from me though.

      Personally, I wonder how long someone like yourself can last using such things as MS. As a software engineer who used windows 3.1 borland c++ for a month in 1991, and solaris ever since, I really do wonder how different it would be to be on the other side of the coin. A different OS every few years... Supporting how many flavours of an OS as an admin?

      But however, theres the common MS belief/PR that managing a PC is easy with windows. It all networks itself. This might be true (in a sense) for a single user case (which I think is MS's strength), but 10 times worse for 10 users and exponetially worse as it grows.

      So you end up with a difficult job that everyone thinks is easy.. I mean, thats why they bought MS in the first place, right?

      My personal view is that MS does not have the higher level technical ability to survive in an open market. Thus they will continue to manipulate and buy and sell souls like they've always done (I remember DR Dos). People like yourself?

      Well, its only really a matter of time before you find that out...

  • What this story really should have been about: (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @06:09PM (#4322986) Journal
    Where are the BBC's ogg vorbis streams?

    They were invaluable to me, worked better than anything else. It must have been a successful trial.

    So why aren't they up permanently? Why can't I listen to my favourite DJs every weekend on the essential mix?

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @06:11PM (#4322995)
    ...will there be a new distro out? I can just see it now: BeebLinux: The Penguin with dry humor. Error messages: "Your bloody network isn't running, blokie. Besides, it's 4pm, time for tea and crumpets. BeebLinux has just paged the help for you, your tea will arrive shortly, love."

    The mascot. A female Tux with a crown, maybe? Or just pasting Tony Blair's face on Tux. Opening screen: The House of Lords filled to the brim with Penguins in powdered wigs...
  • However difficulty is to have errorless communication, or bufferable communication with channels to allow for burstable data so that caches can be repopulated, if they are got depleted due to some errors.having like 30seconds of cache is good idea, esp. when seconds of broadcast time cost thousands of dollars/pounds.
    Same way that analog phones are great... and technology too, you might loose signal, but not a call. If you have too many errors on digital stream, call is dropped. What happens if there is some sort of ionization in atmosphere? ... for one thing I think emergency channels should stay
    analog and use vacuum tube electronics.
    If we had uncompressed digital, it would be just as good as analog, however it is too expensive(not dollar). Error correction in MPEG streams is rather bad... great thing that they use linux, but not all that linux is good! Its how you apply it. Vacuum tubes used for communication in stormy weather via AM channels. no static. and tubes are as stable as hell.. or heaven! ;-)
    2c,
    p.
    • FYI, high power TV transmitters still use vacuum tubes (or "valves" as we Brits like to call them). Why? Because they're the only devices capable of transmitting UHF at >1MW (yes, that does say "megawatt"). They're called klystrons, they come in sizes up to 6 feet tall, some of them require steam cooling, and there is no way of building a semiconductor-based transmitter with power within 2 orders of magnitude.

      Back on topic, I am delighted to see an organisation such as the BBC using OS/GPL software, as it fits its ethos as a public service broadcaster. I wonder how much (TV)licence-payer's money has been saved over the years since this article was published (and before) by not having to pay for thousands of software licences? Now if only central and local government can learn from this example.....

  • That's my article! -Answers to some of the queries (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheRealDamion ( 209415 ) on Tuesday September 24, 2002 @09:01PM (#4324006) Homepage
    (scuse formatting, on 9210 keyboard at 9,600 baud :( - new house as of Monday - no connectivity yet, no computer... explained below) Yes it's almost 3 yrs old, I did point out to /. at the time of launch that they should link to the article. After all it had just taken some efforts getting permission to have it published, there are a lot of open source fans/users in the BBC but it's difficult to get yourself heard. Impartiality is supposed to be the number one rule for any broadcast, this is printed on to a piece of laminated card all staff will have received, yet you don't see anything but Windows shown on telly. For all I know MS might be offering them 10 quid off the 400quid price of office on the 27K staff as long as they keep it up. After the issues of being allowed to say we saved licence fee by using free systems I thought sod it, I'm not going to ask first :) I'll tell who I like. I then did a talk at ManLUG covering some of the more technical issues we'd faced in using Linux.

    Why not FreeBSD?
    We do realmedia encoding with linux, realnetworks don't provide a *BSD binary to the best of my knowledged. The dtext boxes simply needed to be reliable, not massively scalable servers. One possible project will need vmware which is also linux only. We have Free/Open and NetBSD fans in Internet Services, but we're all capable UNIX admins so we're running secure reliable systems on Solaris and Linux, there is nothing to gain from using FreeBSD for example. Personally I like playing q3a so my desision is obvious at home.

    The Ogg Vorbis streams should restart shortly, we've had permission to go for it now! We might even get real links from the same JS popups that the 'real' links are on. We've had some space problems... We have to provide realmedia encoding for loads of parts of the bbc, there is a massive quantity of scheduled encoding events. The number of spare realmedia encoding servers was limited, as was audio matrix outputs and rackspace. We were able to set up ogg on a few when we had spare boxes, once we were streaming live Ciaran contacted monty who worked on making it closer to comparible to real, which quite frankly was far superior at lower/modem bitrates. Ogg was rivaling mp3 at 96/128kbps not wm/real at less than that. We also spent months convincing internal red tape using peeps to let us advertise this slightly! Eventually Ogg at the bbc was available, but only to l33t /. kiddies (preaching to the c..), it didn't really get discovered by enough average joes of the public. We also needed to nick back some encoders for real streams we'd promised the internal BBC people. The AOD (audio on demand) project needs loads of encoders, the embeded player popup crashes NS4 with embeded Linux or Solaris realplay. [Please help out by complaining to the site owners so it's not just us doing do! - but not postmaster/support/noc etc, that is us]. We're working on coding a Solaris and/or Linux kernel module or LD_PRELOADable bit of code to allow multiple processes to open the audio device and be none the wiser, this will mean we won't need as many boxes for live 24x7 streams along side recoded on-demand streams. [help us out] Then we'll have ogg back in a jiffy! Alternatively you can wait for our move to complete* and we should have extra encoding capacity. Next task [when asked to provide feedback about ogg streaming, emails that say "Real is shit it makes popups and adverts in my desktop waa waa waa.." REALLY don't help Ogg. Many in the BBC believe it's Windows VS Real, Real can encode on many platforms, be served reliably on many platforms and be received on many platforms. Windows Media can only be encoded on Windows and there are limited platforms that can play it. We're fighting for Ogg, but if your Realmedia moans get us converted to WMT then the team that are fighting for you will have quit. Real aren't evil, they are even now supporting Ogg! Real works on the 9210i, I've checked our scottish footballs streams on one while ssh'ed to the encoder it was started on!].

    *http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/25730.html Well as of 9am 23rd of Sept nearly 40% of what was BBC I.S. of Ogg fame, started work at the new location, we've suffered a lot, but the new building is bigger and probably will work out well, if not least due to much more rackspace for ogg encoders.

    New distro? Well the followup article would cover that, there kinda is a BBC specific dist, it would be dry humoUr of course. It's more the build mechanism. Tim Hurmans work on serial net boot and PXE, a shrunk version of slacks color.gz (should be coloUr!)

    • You want to open the audio device multiple times ? Is that for mixing ? If so, you can run esd and use esddsp to have the sound that would have been sent to /dev/dsp sent to esd instead. It works with 99% of audio apps that are written for OSS output.

      If this isn't what you want, please try explaining further and I'm sure someone will help out (me if I can.)

      Rik
      • I think they want to encode multiple streams on the same box from one audio source/device. I could be wrong of course.
        • ffmpeg/ffserver does this for audio and video, no ogg support yet afaik.
        • Realproducer wants to talk to /dev/dsp we can't make it use esd, though it's
          worth noting that the realnetwork techies did add esd support to realplay. Yes
          we want to run several encode processes on one box. Cheap PCs are using 5% of
          cpu to do encoding so the capacity is there. We have video capture on the spare
          pci slot (these are 1U boxes) though we've thought about making some of the
          boxes audio only so they have two cards as a solution. This would work, but is
          a pain, it means splitting the audio and also limits us to only two encodes on
          the box*. A more generic shared audio access would be much better. Some of the
          vid-capture cards we've used (Osprey I believe) also had audio inputs with no
          linux support. One of my colleagues developed an audio driver for this which
          did work to some extent but same limitation as above, but it needed some work
          and was limited in the sample rates it could set the audio capture at (I believe
          this is more fully supported in 2.4 and 2.5 now). We've also got hold of the
          SDK from real which in theory should make it possible to write our own encoder
          but we lack time at the moment. Making solaris/linux allow as many apps to open
          /dev/something and receive audio on it would be VERY useful.

          *we stream a great many stations live 24x7 and want to make many programmes available
          on demand. Sometimes a programme description might be for a 3 hour show, but another
          smaller show wants a 30 minute snippit from that, so we'd need 3 simultanious encodes
          at that point. A more common problem is that realproducer takes a few minutes to finish
          writing to disk once it's finished streaming, it holds the audio device during that time so
          nose->tail encodes don't fit.
    • I was very interested indeed to read some of the comments regarding the use of Ogg at the BBC.

      This is most certainly the first I have learned of the trials you guys are conducting, and I thought I was well informed!

      The BBC is rare in providing streaming formats that can be played on most platforms since RealPlayer is available for practically anything.

      Out of curiousity, what licencing issues are relvent to WMA, Real and Ogg and how efficient (in terms of computing ommph) are the various encoders?

      From my perspective the BBC is in a very strong position to introduce the world to open formats such as Ogg, particularly if they are able to provide the players for different platforms as downloads from the BBC site, which may be possible with some of the licences attached to Ogg players.

      I wish you guys every success and will keep my eyes peeled on your front page.

      -ed

    • The message which should be taken away form this is: The BBC is absolutely dependent on standards, and hence uses Free Software to ensure compliance.

      Dunstan
      • Too right. The BBC is currently leading development of TPEG - a travel information standard. This is a project of the EBU [www.ebu.ch] and free to use. The BBC are supporting TPEG over other travel information standards because there would be no requirement from the receiver owner or manufacturer to support or purchase proprietory mapping or co-ordinate data.

        Details on TPEG are availabe here [www.ebu.ch].
  • My IT manager, the head software developer, and the manager of our business applications group scratches their head when they hear "line-ucks?" Ahh, corporate America.
  • What we need now is a campaign to get the Beeb to drop its use of Real as the preferred format for audio & video, in favour of, say, MP3 and MPEG.

    I cannot abide the scumsucking Real player - not least since it appears wantonly to steal file associations (okay, in Windoze) each time it is used, appearing to ignore any preference settings which suggest the me (the mere user) would prefer to keep my MP3 association with, say, Winamp.
    • Atleast real is supported on more systems than say, windows media.. However, the support for real on unix systems is very poor. On IRIX the player segfaults on about 90% of sites i`ve tried, rendering it useless. On linux/alpha the player wont even start up.

  • For extra fun, browse at -1... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...and sort Oldest first. Then sit back, read, and enjoy!
  • DOS Air:
    All the passengers go out onto the runway, grab hold of the plane, push it
    until it gets in the air, hop on, jump off when it hits the ground again.
    Then they grab the plane again, push it back into the air, hop on, et
    cetera.

    - this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...

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