Why TV on demand insists you use its chosen browser
- From: Warren <mr.coffin@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 13:49:00 +0100
The UK ITV tie-in to Internet Explorer really pissed me off, now this:
Channel 4's new download service is restricted to those using Windows XP
and Internet Explorer
Kate Bevan
Thursday July 12, 2007
The Guardian
Attracted by Channel 4's repeated imprecations to watch missed or old
episodes of TV shows on your computer using its 4oD service? Then you'd
better make sure that you're using Windows XP and Internet Explorer -
not Firefox or any other browser, not Vista, the version of Windows that
has now been available to businesses for nine months, and not at all on
Apple computers.
Although Vista users will be catered for "within the next few weeks",
according to Bob Harris, the man in charge of Channel 4's IT strategy
and the lead technician on the project, users of other browsers and
operating systems will have to go without - or elsewhere - for an
indefinite period.
4oD's software, downloaded from the Channel 4 website (channel4.com/4od)
is underpinned by the Kontiki Delivery Network, a secure managed
peer-to-peer application that was bought by Verisign last year for $62m
(£31m). Kontiki also forms the basis of the BBC's forthcoming iPlayer,
which launches on July 27, and Sky TV's Anytime service - both of which
are also only available to XP users.
For the user, the applications are straightforward: download the
software, install it, then download your episode of Brothers and Sisters
or Ugly Betty, and watch it. Some programmes are free to download, while
others, including films, can only be rented for a short time.
You can't keep the stuff you download forever; most of it is
time-limited, and you can only use it on the registered computer.
Similar restrictions will apply to the BBC's videos accessed via the
iPlayer.
This is because of DRM, or digital rights management, and that's at the
heart of why these applications are only available to Windows XP and IE
users. Says Harris: "Significant numbers of our content providers insist
on content protection, and the Windows Media Player DRM is the
strongest." Sam Joyce, of BBC Future Media and Digital, adds: "The BBC
must balance extending access to content with the need to maintain the
interests of rights-holders [and] the value of secondary rights in BBC
programming."
As Channel 4 explains on its website: "The closed DRM system used by
Apple [FairPlay] is not available for licence by third parties and there
is no other Mac-compatible DRM solution which meets the protection
requirements of content owners." The same applies to the iPlayer and Sky
Anytime; and as Kontiki has not announced any timescale for an
Apple-compatible version of its software, if you're a Mac user, you
aren't going to be able to use the online catch-up services any time soon.
But why was Vista left behind? That comes down to software
compatibility, says Harris. As he puts it, "there are several moving
parts" involved in building a video-on-demand application for a
broadcaster, and points out that Kontiki/Verisign is not the only
software developer to have been less than speedy about making
Vista-compatible applications.
The result is that the broadcasters have chosen to focus on getting the
service out there to the majority - and at the moment, the majority of
PC users are still on XP. The same issue applies to the service's
compatibility with browsers: again, developers have focused on the
dominant browser, which is Internet Explorer.
"Getting cross-platform compatibility is, if you like, the holy grail,"
says Harris. He points to developments in the pipeline at both Adobe and
Microsoft. "If I had to put my money on a cross-platform solution, I'd
look at what Adobe is doing." He is referring to Air, the cross-platform
runtime based on Flash that is being developed by the software house.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is developing Silverlight, its own cross-platform
and cross-browser plug-in. Both aim to deliver rich interactive
experiences for the web.
In the meantime, though, these applications are OS and browser-specific,
and have to be regularly patched as hackers break the latest iterations
of DRM. Harris is philosophical about this. "We expect it to get broken.
When it gets broken, Microsoft releases a new version [of DRM] and the
application gets updated. It's an imperfect solution. But it's the least
imperfect solution of them all."
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