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BobbyZ
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« Reply #30 on: 21:47:24, 28-07-2008 » |
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And if the Flash player doesn't work, is there another way for those outside the UK to still "listen again" ? ( cos I know some people are having trouble )
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Dreams, schemes and themes
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Lady_DoverHyphenSole
Gender: 
Posts: 63
Warning: armed with a stout hatpin or two!
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« Reply #31 on: 12:36:24, 29-07-2008 » |
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there's supposed to be a new FreeSat service starting soon - well, actually last month - run by the Beeb and ITV, too.
I'll ask some tame BBC boffins I know if there's any news on this. I have now interrogated my tame boffin, who has confirmed that FreeSat has been launched. If there was a blaze of publicity I missed it... Most retailers of aerials, satellite dishes and the such should be able to provide a FreeSat dish, although my hunch is that the local independents would be a better bet for this. As it's still a new service, you might also want to leave it until any as-yet undiscovered bugs in the system have been ironed out and/or the prices get more competitive. Coverage is subject to the same disclaimers as your mobile phone, TV, FM, digital radio &c. |
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RuthElleson: "Lady_DHS is one of the battiest people I know"
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #32 on: 15:37:55, 30-07-2008 » |
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I'll just mention again, for the benefit of those who missed an earlier discussion, that if you already have access to a satellite dish, but no box, it's worth keeping your eye on your local LIDL store: every few months they come up with a very cheap box (around £40) last time which needs no subscription yet will receive a fair number of British stations, including the whole BBC gamut (though not necessarily the entire Independent range) as well as a huge range of radio stations: for Mac users, the same is true of the eye-tv 310, although it's rather more pricey. It's how I started here, although I've now moved to the Sky FreeSat service, whilst retaining both the LIDL and eye-tv units as back-ups: I didn't consider the £20 joining fee would help the Murdoch coffers overly, and the actual box (a much-recommended PACE unit) came via a third-party supplier.
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Andy D
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« Reply #33 on: 23:00:36, 01-08-2008 » |
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I don't have many problems with the iPlayer but a lot of things on YouTube seem to be constantly buffering ie they stop playing and then start again for a short time. The only way to watch them is to let the whole thing download, preferably with the sound off, and then push the slider back to the beginning. I assume it's the demand on the YouTube servers which causes this. It presumably depends on the quality of the original and also what time of day it is in the US.
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Bryn
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« Reply #34 on: 00:44:13, 05-08-2008 » |
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I have been running some tests with the new Flash iPlayer. Taking the opening minute of Wayne Marshall's Sunday afternoon Prom performance, I grabbed the Flash iPlayer stream with Total Recorder, then took the same section from mp2 of the DAB version, decoded it to WAV and normalized it to within 0.1dB of the RMS value of the the iPlayer recording. I then resampled the DAB version to 44.1k, first without, and then with the use of an anti-aliasing filter. I then pasted the three recordings in sequence. Here is a FLAC of that sequence, and here is a graphical representation of it. Note how clipped the Flash iPlayer minute looks (and sounds).  Please only download the first (audio) file is you are particularly interested in listening to the comparison. Each download eats into my monthly YouSendIt allowance. The second (jpeg) file is very small, so please go ahead and have a look. Oh, and the clipping was not introduced at by Total Recorder, it got there much earlier in the chain, almost certainly before the BBC encoded it to mp3. |
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jamescridland
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« Reply #35 on: 11:49:33, 05-08-2008 » |
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As the person who is responsible for the technical architecture behind the iPlayer's audio files... What you're listening to now on iPlayer is BBC Radio 3 off Sky (with all the processing and encoding that involves), re-encoded into an 192k MP3. I'm aware this current solution is sub-optimal; it was a short-term fix to enable better quality and higher bitrates within iPlayer. A system we're internally calling Project Coyopa is underway and will deliver next month. Coyopa is a system which is encoding the audio within Broadcasting House straight from the studio feeds: it will therefore be of much higher quality. You can watch the BBC Radio Labs blog - www.bbc.co.uk/radio/labs/ - for more details of this as and when it happens. Hope that helps, James (BBC) |
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Morticia
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« Reply #36 on: 11:56:06, 05-08-2008 » |
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James, thank you very much for that very helpful first post. Hopefully it will answer a few of the questions that been raised here. I hope you're going to stick around. Always useful to have a boffin in the house!
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Daniel
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« Reply #37 on: 12:00:32, 05-08-2008 » |
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Hi, James I won't embarrass myself by trying to talk technically, but the improvement in sound from the old Listen Again player to the new iPlayer, is one of the unambiguously lovely things to have happened in the last few months, so many thanks. (Navigating it can sometimes be a curious adventure though  )And welcome to the forum. I hope you'll feel free to drop in from time to time.  |
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Bryn
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« Reply #38 on: 12:05:37, 05-08-2008 » |
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Indeed, many thanks James. It helps a lot to know that the problem should only be temporary. The Flash iPlayer is certainly a big step forward from the Real offering. I very much look forward to the arrival of Coyopa.
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #39 on: 14:22:24, 05-08-2008 » |
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Many thanks from me too, jamescridland. I enjoy to listen again very much and I treasure it.
This feature enriches my life a lot (significantly).
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #40 on: 14:24:54, 05-08-2008 » |
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Sorry for that double. My connection is slow and the first time I tried to post my message I could not see it and the message said that loading time expired (or something like that.
Now I can not delete one of my two message.
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« Last Edit: 14:27:21, 05-08-2008 by trained-pianist »
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jamescridland
Posts: 2
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« Reply #41 on: 14:35:02, 05-08-2008 » |
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Additionally, I can also confirm that we're looking into the distortion issue to see if we can fix this sooner than the changeover to Coyopa. These things do take time, though. But hopefully that's good to know.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #42 on: 14:43:44, 05-08-2008 » |
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James,
We really appreciate your visiting us to explain this: as I think you've already discovered, you're likely to receive quick and sensible feedback from people who are very interested in the project, so hopefully the benefits will go both ways.
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Bryn
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« Reply #43 on: 15:13:19, 05-08-2008 » |
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Given the very helpful responses from James, I will be removing the audio file from YouSendIt in a few minutes. My 1GB monthly allocation is fat disappearing. I will leave the jpeg there for those who want to see the comparison.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #44 on: 15:15:52, 05-08-2008 » |
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My 1GB monthly allocation is fat disappearing.
That sounds like a great diet, Bryn.  |
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