[mythtv] BBC iPlayer Plugin release / MythStreams

[Daniel Kristjansson]

On Fri, 2008-03-14 at 12:57 +0000, Richard Ablewhite wrote:
> For the record, this plugin was finished 5 days before I announced it.
> In that time I contacted someone at the beeb who gave positive
> feedback and asked if I might be interested demoing it to them. Ill
> try and ask further questions regarding getting the content into Myth
> and if I get anything back then ill post it to this list.

Richard, I contacted the BBC about MythTV support a while back and
the technical folks seemed excited, but then when it got to business
they said they already had a Linux solution in the works. A few days
later the flash video announcement was made. I don't think flash is any
substitute for real video streaming, but I figured it would probably
take a some time for them to realize that so I didn't pursue it further.
My general impression was that the technical folks would love to have
MythTV support so they could use the iPlayer service themselves at
home. But the business folks think that Linux is worth worrying about.
They don't really realize that if they can engineer a solution for
MythTV this would also allow many others to use that model and create
many much better iPlayer players within a couple years. While the 
iPhone may be totally insignificant in installations as compared to
Linux installations in the UK, the business folks have seen iPhone
ads on TV and they assume if MythTV was big too they would "know about
it", like the know about the iPhone.

Plus, I got the impression that iPlayer had been a big white elephant,
with incredible amounts of money spent to create something that three
good programmers could have put together in a week. So people were
being transferred off the project as soon as the iPlayer was announced
as a stop-loss program. All new ideas were squashed immediately since
so many ideas had been pursued in the past and thrown the project off
course. It really felt like there had been a massive management failure
internally but they were trying their best to soldier on.

If Linux/MythTV users in the UK bandied together and bought a big ad in
the Sunday Times, I'm sure the BBC would suddenly become a lot more
interested in MythTV support. Heck designing a nice poster and buying
a few bus shelter ads near BBC office buildings alone might do it. :)

-- Daniel