UPDATE
I’m staggered at the lack of discussion on either iView or that other nasty thing online, either in blogs or on twitter. Here are a few related posts:
- How to record iView content
- Caution: Videos from the ABC Shop are Defective By Design
- Internode announcement (back in Dec 2008)
- Minister’s office responds Re ABC shop DRM
OK, so I six months or so late to the party. That’s because the interesting content is starting to emerge now. Let’s talk about this!
BRILLIANT
My first encounter with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s iView service left me pleasantly surprised and way glad to be Australian. After seeing my mate Dave (LifeKludger) Wallace use it in anger at his place, I cranked it up as soon as I got home.
iView is easy to find & use (starts wtih a bandwidth test which gave me confidence to proceed and a pleasant surprise of confirmation that bandwidth would be unmetered).
- iView is UNMETERED (through Internode, my excellent ISP)
- content is good (a ‘rolling window’ of stuff I probably just missed from the telly)
- execution is slick (no login or signup, works on my old Mac and ancient PC)
- a bunch of value adds (RSS feeds, showcasing good content etc)
The only downside – it takes a bit of effort to download iView content in a format I can easily watch later or edit.
STOOPID
The ‘ABC Online Store – downloads‘ – a nasty looking place where I need to join up so I can pay for something much less than what I want (or already had via iView). Clearly the work of parsimonious laywers and accountants intent on saving our Government broadcaster a few pennies by SUBTRACTING VALUE while reducing exposure of great Aussie talent to the rest of the world. Thus ignoring the ABC charter to the detriment of our entertainment industry.
- no download option for content streamed via iView
- ‘Australian PC users only’ – (not exactly the demographic likely to fan the embers of our creative talent into flames in the global information economy. Couldn’t even browse thru content on my old G4 Mac – some mumbo jumbo about Silverlight Version 2)
- Need to create and account and sign-in so I can pay (I’m not against paying but you have to make it seamless)
- Silverlight2 and ABC download manager required
- Jerky playback with audio jitters on preview – FAIL
- Nasty T&C’s
- 7 day rental – oh please! (and I have to clean up the DRM infested files myself)
- DRM (Digital Rights Management) infected content
An upside – kudos to whoever decided to make the ABC Download Manager a P2P app (with uploads enabled by default). That might just help achieve what the podcast movement failed to do – smart / legitimate use of P2P. Good luck with that.
So, if the ABC’s ultimate plan is to offer free unmetered streams via iView for a while, then send us to the downloads section of the ABC store I might have to re-invest in my own recording setup. Quite frankly, I can’t be arsed!! (there is an ever-growing list of content on my iPod that I will never get around to watching – including some excellent TED talks, old DRM-free episodes of last years ABC shows, SBS, etc…).
I hope you get my point, even if it is somewhat over-emphasised. On the one hand iView is a BRILLIANT service that just works and provides value at zero cost – even for bandwidth, unless you are a Telstra BigPond customer. On the other hand the STOOPID ABC Online Store has to cripple the content and subtract value in order to enforce payment (to stop people ’stealing digital content’). I am certainly not against paying for something of value, even to the taxpayer funded ABC – so here is some free consulting on the types of thing I would be happy to pay for (preferably by an annual subscription or tax increase):
- Quality – DON’T infect the media with DRM, DO make high quality versions available.
- Metadata & transcripts – Imagine the possibilities for creative re-use of content that could occur if downloads were rich with metadata describing the content, time markers of key sections, maybe even verbatum transcripts. If you do this work, I get a better experience and our artists become more discoverable.
- Convenience – make it easy for me to find, subscribe to, get your digital content in whatever format I want, whenever I want it. If I’ve found something cool and started watching it in one format on one device – make it easy for me to instantly switch formats and continue on my merry way. Do the work for me, I’ll pay you gladly. Take my example of the Q&A episode featuring the Conroy magic filter discussed below – I found out about it on twitter, started watching it on my Mac laptop, thought I would finish watching it on my iPod touch in the tram but actually ended up listening to the audio while driving my car. I did go back and watch the piece where a viewer sent in a question via video and was inspired to mashup the response to that into my own video asking the pointed question – ‘If the senator and rest of the panel were surprised at the skills of that individual, why don’t they think about the damage a mandatory ISP filter would do to the competitive advantage of any such individual who decides to live in this country‘!!!
- Open licensing – You are the ABC for crying out loud! Show some leadership, negotiate open licenses, help the industry develop new business models fit for the digital age. Any creative works that cannot be re-mixed will dissapear from culture. Both the iView and Online Store teams should take a peek at the excellent work being done by the Pool.org people.
- And a whole bunch more that I don’t have time or energy to write down for people who probably don’t want to think outside the box.
An example:
Having started to watch this much tweeted episode of Q&A (featuring senator Conroy and his magic filter) at my computer, I went looking for a version I could watch on my iPod (and maybe mash-up later). *This led me to the ‘ABC Online Store – downloads’. Since then:
*http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2521164.htm now has downloadable .wmv and .mp4 versions of this past episode. Phew – no need to feck with that horrible downloads section of the online store.
p.s. Most people like to buy STUFF. Stuff is made of atoms, not bits. Stuff like DVD’s CD’s hats, shirts, books, whatever – so by all means make the great Aussie content available to the entire world as stuff.
p.p.s. While I should have been finishing this post the other night, SBS aired an episode of insight featuring Sen Conroy and his magic filter. There was so much noise about this on twitter that I tuned in live and watched while tweeting (30mins later than my eastern friends). Turns out that SBS do a pretty fair job of both the streaming and download (including an RSS feed of downloadable episodes).
technorati tags:seyfang, mikeseyfang
APPENDIX – My ABC Online Store – downloads experience via twitter:
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Realtime results for abc OR store from:fang
0 more results since you started searching. Refresh to see them.
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fang: @dnwallace NO – only playable via ABC Download Manager (nasty system tray TSR that just wont shut down) -
fang: SUCCESS! – can now play both my rented and owned ABC Online Store download shows. On an old pc at back of house.
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fang: please enter your ABC shop login to play video
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fang: Now ‘proud’ renter of an old episode of Denton for 7 days. Also the owner of something called ‘double the fist’ from ABC Online download
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fang: Great ;( ABC Download manager now wants DRM upgrade 0-> http://tinyurl.com/yclgxu (expand)
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fang: AH – ABC Download Manager is a little P2P app, currently 3% thru my 2 downloads. Guessing not UN-METERED, can anyone confirm/deny this?
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fang: Second checkout from ABC online download store – now cart is empty, looking for my downloads…
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fang: OK quit firefox, back to ABC download store, re-enter credit card and try again (hope I havent rented twice!) 14 days of DRM infestation-yuk
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fang: Got to end of ABC download purchase checkout, saved credit card etc, advised to look for two dots but still got 2 items in cart – doh!
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fang: Hit checkout button in the ABC download silverlight thingy – slick, entered address, now asking for credit card (hope its https) cant tell
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fang: back to the old PC to bludgeon my way toward first ABC Online store download purchase (or is that rental??)
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fang: ABC Download manager now installing on PC – lucky its not a laptop or I could break T&C by viewing content outside AUS ;-)
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fang: Pressing on with ABC downloads – signed up so could add old aunty jack show to my wishlist – fairly painless, well executed
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fang: Nasty, Nasty T&Cs ABC Online Store – DRM Infected, 7day rental, need download manager, must del files myself + pay for p2p up and download
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fang: Oh yes, back to the ABC Online Store – cranking up old PC in kitchen
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fang: Exporting audio track of just purchased iTunes store Video for conversion to .mp3 while watching ye old track of many fond memories
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fang: Now buying iTunes Video (possibly DRM infected) Caroline Live – Status Quo – all in name of research for ABC iView/Online Store blog rant!!
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fang: iTunes store – SUCCESS can haz DRM free .mp3 of Status Quo Roll over Lay Down – now purchasing excellent recommendation ‘Long Line – Angels
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fang: Dear @internode, loving ABC iView unmetered streams via internode – but are the (DRM infected) ABC Shop downloads also unmetered?
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fang: Why is nobody talking about this? (ABC iView unmetered goodnes, $download DRM evil) http://tinyurl.com/66tneo (expand)
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fang: just chickened out on CANCEL my apple .mac account cos I don’t understand the implications for all the DRM content from the itunes store!!!
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1 response so far ↓
1
Dave
// Apr 3, 2009 at 11:14 am
Mike. Good post. You might like to look at this image taken by Kent on my request :
http://i372.photobucket.com/albums/oo164/filecabinet/abcau.jpg
Why oh why isn’t ABC content allowed to be viewed outside Aust?
Also, could you please clarify what you meant by this in relation to the p2p app: ” That might just help achieve what the podcast movement failed to do – smart / legitimate use of P2P.”
Dave – Lifekludger
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