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BBC Archive

When is it going to be opened up? (December 2003)

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HA
Hazzamon
A few months ago, the BBC announced that it was going to open up its archive of television and radio programmes on the internet - does anyone know when this is due to occur?
:-(
A former member
Never, ever.

Can you imagine the complex tangle of royalties to sort out?

Or maybe it will be opened up, but you'll certainly pay for any unsupervised access. Any free access will be of the watered down, jingoistic variety of http://archives.cbc.ca
SP
Steve in Pudsey
well it's what Greg Dyke said would happen

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3177479.stm
:-(
A former member
The other main stumbling block is the digitisation of all the material they intend to make available. A very time consuming process
NF
NewForest lad
I don't think it's going to be what we think. Smile

James
:-(
A former member
If you were watching BBC4 about half hour ago you'd know that you aren't going to get full access to the whole archive
SD
sda|
Steve in Pudsey posted:
well it's what Greg Dyke said would happen

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/3177479.stm


What Greg Dyke Actually Said posted:


We intend to allow parts of our programmes, where we own the rights, to be available to anyone in the UK to download so long as they don't use them for commercial purposes.

MU
mulder
If it happens, it'll be crap anyway. It'll be like watching a clips show minus the z list celebs chatting crap in between each clip, and in greatly reduced quality which is worse than cropping. You're better off swapping stuff with other enthusiasts and collecting any dvds that come out.
MU
mulder
Larry Scutta posted:
The other main stumbling block is the digitisation of all the material they intend to make available. A very time consuming process


This was being done months ahead of Dyke's announcement, so I expect there is a fair amount already digitised.
CW
cwathen Founding member
Even though it was a BBC news report which reported this, Greg Dyke was grossly mis-quoted.

His actual vision is for a web based 'best of the BBC' type service to be created. Whereby you will be able to search for information on programmes (probably consolidating all their existing programme microsites), view clips of programmes, and maybe view SELECTED episodes of SELECTED programmes in full.

It would be nice to think that you'd have the whole BBC archive online for perusement, but it would be a logistical nightmare. When some programmes don't even exist in a transmittable form (either through the format they are held on or rights clearances) it's a bit much to think they'd be posted on the internet. And even if the way could be cleared and this type of service could be established, initial demand for it it would be unworkable on today's internet connection technology; there would certainly be more than one person who wanted to nab a complete archive of Only Fools or Doctor Who.

I do firmly belive that *one day* the entire BBC archive will be made available for public persument in some form, but that day is a long way off, certainly way past the era of streaming things off the internet into Realplayer - I'll probably be drawing my pension before it happens.

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