Re: [Swprograms] Fwd: [uk-radio-listeners] BBC internet streams: improvements in sound quality

["Mark J. Fine" <mark.fine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Probably also explains why the BBC Radio Widget no longer works.


On 7/3/08 10:41 AM, "Richard Cuff" <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I know some folks here are BBCR4 and R3 fans, and might appreciate the
> information shown below.
> 
> I am not sure how the BBC's capabilities of managing what content is
> displayed for non-UK IP addresses plays into this.
> 
> Richard Cuff
> Allentown, PA  USA
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mike Barraclough <mikewb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 6:52 AM
> Subject: [uk-radio-listeners] BBC internet streams: improvements in
> sound quality
> To: uk-radio-listeners@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
> 
> Pasted below is from the BBC Radio Labs blog. I am very pleased indeed
> with the iplayerbeta and more improvements are planned:
> 
> People have been asking about the bitrates and codecs that we're using
> on national radio within the new iPlayer beta.
> 
> The quick answer is "they're different per station, they're different
> whether live or on-demand, and they'll change at least another two
> times this year". If that satisfies you, you have no requirement to
> read on. If you want more information, however, I'm happy to help.
> Note that I'm only talking about national radio, and only for
> listeners in the UK.
> 
> First, you'll notice that for "live" we're currently using Windows
> Media Player rather than Real Player (for most of you - we still give
> Real to some operating systems). We're doing this because we know
> online radio is particularly useful in the office, and chances are
> that Windows Media is automatically installed on most computers, and
> most corporates won't let you install other software. It should,
> therefore, 'just work'. I should though say that if you need
> RealPlayer for your internet radio or your fridge, those streams
> continue; we've no plans to remove them. (Note, there is such a thing
> as an internet fridge! Mike)
> 
> The future for "live" is firstly to significantly improve the bitrate
> (which we'll do in July). In parallel with that we're working on a way
> of delivering higher-quality still, using a Flash-based player and an
> AAC-family stream. We're working with our distribution partners to
> enable this; the upshot is that it should sound even better but use
> less bandwidth.
> 
> For "on-demand", you'll have spotted that we're using Flash, within
> the lovely embedded media player that you're familiar with for TV in
> the iPlayer. Under the hood is a protected MP3 stream for now: again,
> we're shifting over to AAC-family later in the year. The real
> difference here is the quality - we've significantly improved the
> bitrates we can offer.
> 
> For on-demand content, we're launching iPlayer with four MP3 profiles
> based on the content of the programme: and we're using four different
> bitrates for these profiles.
> 
> Pop music (eg Radio 1 or Asian Network) is 128k stereo.
> Classical music (Radio 3) is 192k stereo.
> Stereo speech (Radio 4) is 128k stereo.
> Mono speech (Radio 5live) is 80k mono.
> 
> These are the launch bitrates; we'll tweak things, and moving to the
> AAC family will reduce the bitrates we use (to make your listening
> more reliable, whilst maintaining audio quality). Again, the Real
> listen-again streams that your internet radio uses will still work.
> 
> Finally, perhaps I might be able to let you into a bit of a dirty
> secret. For the last six years, the online streams from BBC national
> radio have been taken from satellite: the same feeds you get on
> Freesat or Sky. So we've been taking a lossy MP2 audio feed, and then
> encoding it further into even lower bitrates. As we move into higher
> quality audio online, clearly this has to stop. So, from July, it will
> - we'll be encoding everything within Broadcasting House, plugged in
> to the studio feeds. So better bitrate is only part of the story -
> it's also better sound.
> 
> If you've got feedback about radio within iPlayer beta, we're watching
> your blogs; or if you're blogless, please do comment here.
> 
> Comments are beneath the item, you need to be registered with BBC
> message boards:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/06/under_the_iplayer_hood_for_rad.sh
> tml
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 


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