(2013-07-09, 20:53)fuzzweed Wrote: [ -> ]If reducing their viewing figures is the end result of whatever DRM policy they have to implement then hopefully the light will one day shine on what a stupid idea it is.
Personally, I don't think it is the broadcasters (BBC, ITV, C4, TF1, etc) or the actors that are the issue here. I think they want their wares spread as wide as possible.
The issue appears to be with the rights-owners - producers both small and large, and there mostly the large corporations (Fox, Sony, Disney, etc). Look at all the arguments over TV footy rights and think about how much of those large buckets of quids makes it's way down to your local town club ?
Well I've sent a message to them bestowing the virtues of xbmc and suggesting that their supporting the addon fits nicely with their remit to be innovative, experimental and distinctive - for what it's worth.
I love the fact there is just so much content available on 4OD, much of it disposable, but choice is a good thing. Hoping you can work some magic Mossy, with or without Channel 4's help!
(2013-07-09, 22:18)dlake02 Wrote: [ -> ]The issue appears to be with the rights-owners - producers both small and large, and there mostly the large corporations (Fox, Sony, Disney, etc). Look at all the arguments over TV footy rights and think about how much of those large buckets of quids makes it's way down to your local town club ?
The rights owners must ultimately want to make money from their portfolio. They can either sell it directly through a subscription model, which works if the content is valuable enough (football matches, films, special interest) or they have to sell it to broadcasters (re-runs, tv series, documentaries) who then must recoup the cost through advertising. 4OD content largely falls into the latter category and as viewing figures = ad rev it ought to be available to the widest audience to maximise return. Hands up, I liked not having the ads in the plugin, but I know it's cheating the system in the same way as piracy bypasses the subscription model, which is why it would be in C4s interest to take XBMC on board and offer a legitimate, ad funded stream.
I share fuzzweeds sentiments, I'd welcome 4OD back with adverts; win for us and a win for 4 as they increase their audience and therefore their advertising revenue.
maybe it isnt such a harebrained idea to officially ask Channel4 to implement XBMC support...
But I am still a bit doubtful. XBMC has kind of an "image problem" with television networks, if they are even aware of it at all. Most XBMC add-ons are scrapeware, more or less illicitly siphoning streams off the official web platforms, and engaging in a cat and mouse game with developers working for the networks, who quite simply get paid to shut us out... to those who make the decisions and call the shots, XBMC must be nothing more than a nuisance.
But you can always hope that they'll somehow someday do an official XBMC add-on... however unlikely that seems at this point...
(2013-07-10, 00:58)XBMCforever Wrote: [ -> ]XBMC has kind of an "image problem"
As a new user of XBMC, I'd always written it off as uber-geek and needing a degree in linux coding or xbox modding. How wrong I was though. It's soo easy to use, looks gorgeous and knocks the spots off any branded / integrated solutions (vbox, sky box etc.). Going mainstream might be a bit too strong in idea, as it does still need a bit of tech to keep the hardware running, but as an earlier poster mentioned the Raspberry Pi / XBMC combo is heading towards being a semi-integrated media box, so you never know....
Regarding the image problem, the main drawback for XBMC I have in getting people who aren't geeks interested, is the name: XBMC. MediaPortal has a massive advantage in that regard. Still, that's a topic for another thread.
(2013-07-10, 00:58)XBMCforever Wrote: [ -> ]maybe it isnt such a harebrained idea to officially ask Channel4 to implement XBMC support...
But I am still a bit doubtful. XBMC has kind of an "image problem" with television networks, if they are even aware of it at all. Most XBMC add-ons are scrapeware, more or less illicitly siphoning streams off the official web platforms, and engaging in a cat and mouse game with developers working for the networks, who quite simply get paid to shut us out... to those who make the decisions and call the shots, XBMC must be nothing more than a nuisance.
But you can always hope that they'll somehow someday do an official XBMC add-on... however unlikely that seems at this point...
Suggest you take a look through this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouView
The YouView hardware and software isn't that different from XBMC really. The difference is that YouView is a closed shop for the broadcasters and for the ISPs who are desperate to make money and these days only do so from triple-play or quad-play services. There is no money in pure broadband provision - my money is on BT Wholesale having to be bailed out at some point in the next 10-20 years just as the private power companies were in the 1920/1930ss when supply of power to households moved from start-up type operations to utility. And the railways and the canals before them..... All basic transport networks.
So, with XBMC, up pop a bunch of geeks that do all this for free, and the entire industry suddenly sees it's revenue stream floating off down the river.
Look at the way it is tied up in the US between the ISPs and the broadcasters - there, nasty, big corporations control the whole lot and spend a lot of money bribing the US government to keep it that way (they call it "lobbying" there).
Yes, you can try and ask (and you should....) but the whole YouView (ex Project Canvas) consortium was formed as a fop to the "open-source" crowd (i.e. Us). Luckily, the technology hasn't been available to fully protect streams, but it is getting closer every day....
4oD reply:
4oD is available via a wide-range of supported platforms, unfortunately, this is not one of them. As I am sure you can appreciate, we have an obligation to protect both the broadcast rights of the programmes that we make available and in turn, the rights of Channel 4.
At this stage, we have not been advised of any plans to create an ?open source app? however, we are continually looking at ways to enhance the service and we will be sure to pass on your suggestion.
What do others think? I think this is promising myself.
Quote: Suggest you take a look through this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouView
Interesting reading (although I did start to skim towards the end). All a bit 'Game of Thrones' in TV land, isn't it.
Far as I can tell, it basically reads that the big boys would be more than happy to allow you to plug a stream into their system, but very little chance of it happening the other way round while the established mind set rules.
Looks like even Virgin and Sky got given the cold shoulder wrt to YouView; Think (unfortunately) XBMC might be even further down the pecking order....
I think this is all a money grab by Channel 4, after Mossy's addon stopped working and after a little searching to find an apk, I set up the Android version for a family member on their Android tv stick a couple of weeks ago,
this has now stopped working and my strong suspicion is any device that the manufaturers haven't paid a fee to get 4OD working on their device is getting blocked.
There is no reason for the Android version to stop working on this stick other than my suspicion, it did work, it had all the ads but now refuses to play any stream.
If I'm right its a "cutting your nose off to spite your face" strategy, short term money grab over future ad revenues.
As to the wider point of having an open source app with ads, I'm not averse to this but find the amount of ads Channel 4 expect you to sit through on a catchup service obscene, the last time I tried out the website I worked out for a 43 minute program I'd have had to sit through 24 ads!
On the rare occassion now that I want to watch something on 4OD (I used to watch it a lot but they have really gone downhill the last couple of years) I'll fire up my cable box, at least then I can fast forward the excessive ads!
(2013-07-10, 20:59)laptopu Wrote: [ -> ]4oD reply:
4oD is available via a wide-range of supported platforms, unfortunately, this is not one of them. As I am sure you can appreciate, we have an obligation to protect both the broadcast rights of the programmes that we make available and in turn, the rights of Channel 4.
Well, there you have it, basically.
It's about protecting interests of rights holders and broadcasters, and about shutting out those who try to circumvent platform restrictions.
I imagine that the 4oD add-on caught them off guard because it was successfully tapping into the PS3 content platform without permission from Channel4. Now they've fixed this, and we're shut out.
Don't expect any open source add-ons ever from Channel4 and the likes of them... if we ever get a working 4oD add-on again, it will be yet again because of weaknesses in platform code that their developers will have carelessly overlooked and which some cunning XBMC developers will manage to exploit... and the cat and mouse game will enter another cycle.
I think our best bet at this point is to somehow reverse engineer the new PS3 app in order to find out how it accesses the streams, and then implement code which mimics the PS3 environment.
I've always thought of channel 4 as a liberal broadcaster or that is the image they like to portray. Rather than improving ( getting it working again ) the plugin it would be advantageous to all parties to have c4 to make their own plugin with advertising built in - rather than hacking up a plugin that uses the psp api ( i mean no disrespect to mossey and the devs ). It is in their interest to make this plugin as the market is about to be flooded by <£100 arm based units with xbmc as their front end and they would be missing out on advertising revenue.
we all love freedom - the freedom to watch chelmsford 123 or not to
many channel 4 programs are still available on the youtube channel - however this seems to be acting up now too ...
perhaps an open letter to c4 listing pros and cons would help rather than begging letters - i'd sign up to that
(2013-07-11, 13:57)XBMCforever Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-07-10, 20:59)laptopu Wrote: [ -> ]4oD reply:
4oD is available via a wide-range of supported platforms, unfortunately, this is not one of them. As I am sure you can appreciate, we have an obligation to protect both the broadcast rights of the programmes that we make available and in turn, the rights of Channel 4.
Well, there you have it, basically.
It's about protecting interests of rights holders and broadcasters, and about shutting out those who try to circumvent platform restrictions.
Yes - this is to be expected. ALL the content owners are sh*t scared of someone getting hold of their content and re-distributing without the revenue returning to them.
It is just a matter of time before all the broadcasters go this way - they have created their own closed system - YouView, ex Project Canvas - to overcome this demand. As far as they are concerned, it gives XBMC type functionality in a closed, controlled system.
Please don't blame the broadcasters or the artists though - they are being pushed around big time by the studios and distributors, and no-one has the bal*s to tell them where to get off..... Ask the average actor how much they are paid for a repeat on TV and I think you'd be shocked how low it is compared to the amount the distributor gets.
(2013-07-11, 19:04)dlake02 Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-07-11, 13:57)XBMCforever Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-07-10, 20:59)laptopu Wrote: [ -> ]4oD reply:
4oD is available via a wide-range of supported platforms, unfortunately, this is not one of them. As I am sure you can appreciate, we have an obligation to protect both the broadcast rights of the programmes that we make available and in turn, the rights of Channel 4.
Well, there you have it, basically.
It's about protecting interests of rights holders and broadcasters, and about shutting out those who try to circumvent platform restrictions.
Yes - this is to be expected. ALL the content owners are sh*t scared of someone getting hold of their content and re-distributing without the revenue returning to them.
It is just a matter of time before all the broadcasters go this way - they have created their own closed system - YouView, ex Project Canvas - to overcome this demand. As far as they are concerned, it gives XBMC type functionality in a closed, controlled system.
Please don't blame the broadcasters or the artists though - they are being pushed around big time by the studios and distributors, and no-one has the bal*s to tell them where to get off..... Ask the average actor how much they are paid for a repeat on TV and I think you'd be shocked how low it is compared to the amount the distributor gets.
for the vast majority of their content the revenue has already been got from the time it was broadcast - they are profiteering and it is their right to do so as they own the copyright for it and i would be in favour in an advertised service or even a subscription service via xbmc, they should be aware of market forces though and I ( and you ) know that xbmc will be the defacto interface in the future as it has way too many plus points over its bad points
its the old vhs vs betmax argument all over again and we all know that a proprietary standard cannot compete with a free standard
EDIT: I can watch pretty much all their stuff via other less legitimate sources anyway - so why c4 continues to fight a losing battle is beyond me - they should embrace freedom and the future and see if they can make some coin off it ( in my best wigan accent )
a list of pros and cons ( through the eyes of the broadcaster ) might be a good thing to compile in this thread