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Democratic Telly

As a part-time political nerd, I'm keen to keep informed about British politics, particularly in the run-up to a general election. I do a lot of reading, but I also watch programmes like the leaders' debates.

I'm a registered voter, but I happen to live overseas. Given the sorry state of global television distribution by television channels, that causes some hiccups.

I'm not concerned that I can't get access to these videos; with a fair dose of technical knowledge it's pretty simple. I am concerned that it is wrong to make it harder than it need be for any potential voter to get informed.

I hope that for the upcoming debates, the television channels will make them available to all, as easily as possible. If you agree, please let them know (see the links at the foot of this post).

Update at 07:39 EDT, 23^rd April 2010 – Some success

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First Two Ws

The Web is becoming more fragmented, and not quite so World-Wide. More and more often, I get to sites that can't show me what I'm there for because of where I seem to be coming from.

I know there's nothing in the internet's protocols that reliably dobs in where you are coming from, so it never really gets in the way.

Having recently moved from the UK to Canada, I naturally want to keep in touch with the old country. Moreover, I watch a number of things from our southern neighbours. As a geek I have no trouble routing my traffic so that I can see the end result. It's always a little clumsy but works in the end. If the BBC let me pay for an overseas TV licence, I'd likely jump at the chance.

I've been misidentified as German, Swedish and, very occasionally, Polish. If it's just Google taking a best-guess as to which site you'd likely prefer with a clear link back to what you actually asked for, that's fairly harmless.

[Image from the NASA Earth Observatory, by Reto Stöckli, based on data from NASA and NOAA. Thank you.]

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Trying to use the BBC's new iPlayer

I'm very pleased that the BBC have made a version of their catch-up service, iPlayer, that isn't tied to Windows and Internet Explorer.

There are a few good things, programmes are addressable at the episode/programme level, not just the series. That's a great thing, and as I've said before, the BBC's new Programme Support is a fantastic step forward for Tv metadata.

The quality is fairly good, but variable. It's obviously worse than television, and quite a bit worse than recordings people distribute amongst themselves using BitTorrent or Usenet. HIGNFY S34E09 was pretty watchable, full-screen on a 21 inch monitor, from across the room. Last week's Film 2007 was unwatchably blocky, for me. The BBC (and their Trust, and the rightsholders) should recognise that that is what they are competing with, and if the normal distribution mechanisms are worse, we'll get good, shiny, socially acceptable alternatives built by the crazy people.

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