´óÏó´«Ã½

"My paper discusses proposals to allow license exempt use of TV spectrum by WiFi-like devices known as White Space Devices (WSDs). This would enable improved wireless networking but there is a significant risk of interference to our Freeview services. The paper looks at the technical parameters for WSDs to manage the interference problem. Researchers in the United States are leading the work in this area and have been applying considerable influence to Ofcom. The US companies are less concerned about DTT interference, however, as only 10% of the population receive TV through a conventional antenna; 90% have cable or satellite. In the UK, Freeview is used by over 70% of the population, so interference would be a major worry."

• Download Mark Waddell's IBC White Paper: Compatibility Challenges for Broadcast Networks and White Space Devices (IBC09_WSD_Compatibility_v1a.pdf)
• Download Mark Waddell's IBC presentation: Compatibility Challenges for Broadcast Networks and White Space Devices (IBC09_WSD_Compatibility_presentation_v1a.pdf)

People watch natural history programmes for different reasons - sometimes it's for educational reasons, sometimes to be amazed by the beauty of the natural world, sometimes it's as simple as a love of animals and wildlife in general.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is, and has been for a very long time, at the forefront of wildlife film making from early programmes such as Zoo quest through to blue chip programmes like Life and Radio 4's Life Stories with David Attenborough. However, despite this wealth of content access to it has been limited to broadcasts.

But not anymore.

Over the last few months we've been digitising and segmenting the best of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s natural history archive and putting it online. You can now watch clips from Planet Earth, Wild Africa, Land of the Tiger, Realms of the Russian Bear, Lost Land of the Volcano and many more.

These clips are, I believe, wonderful in their own right - if you want to watch the best bits of your favourite programme you can. But we wanted to go further, to help people discover new programmes from the archive and to gain a better understanding of the natural world; and to do this we built Wildlife Finder.

Wildlife Finder uses programme clips, combines them with other sources of information from around the web and within the ´óÏó´«Ã½ to let you find out more about the world's wildlife, its animals, their behaviours and adaptations, and habitats. It does this by providing a page - a - for every species, habitat and adaptation the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has content on (OK not every species quite yet but we're working on it) and aggregating the information around that link.

We've then provided lots of horizontal navigation around those concepts so that you can, for example, browse from information about an animal directly to another page about its habitat, and from there to a programme or news story. My aim is to provide the 'semantic aspic' for natural history content within the ´óÏó´«Ã½ - providing journeys between our programmes, news stories and expeditions and in doing so hopefully help people gain a greater understanding of the world around them.

In addition to opening up the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s natural history archive we have also launched a dedicated wildlife news service Earth News and a new site Earth Explorers which provides a more personal insight from crews on location. But none of this means that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has everything covered. For example, we don't have information on the conservation status of a species, nor its distribution - indeed there is lots we don't know, but thankfully there are lots of other really great resources elsewhere on the web.

To help plug these gaps in our information we've partnered with organisations that do have this sort of data - IUCN who compile the for data on the species conservation status, to provide distribution data, the to provide information about adaptations and behaviours and the to provide information about the threats to our most endangered and unique species. We're also using to provide general background information on each animal, habitat or adaptation.

But we want to add to the information on the web, not replicate what's already there - I believe that's a better use of the licence fee, better for those organisations providing the information, better for the web and better for the audience. I've written before about using the - and this project has adopted a similar approach.

When we publish new content we seek to provide distinctive content - whether that's an Earth News articles or Earth Explorers stories or whether it's information on a species in Wildlife Finder.

But adding new content doesn't mean that we should necessarily add it directly to bbc.co.uk. As I've mentioned we are using Wikipedia to provide background information, but sometime we find errors, sometimes the information isn't good enough and sometimes it's missing (I should point out the these are exceptions - generally the quality is very good).

Rather than fixing this locally within a ´óÏó´«Ã½ CMS we instead fix the problem on Wikipedia - creating new pages where needed, or editing those that aren't up to standard. Doing this means that the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s website gets better because we transclude the Wikipedia content on our pages, but so does Wikipedia and the wider Web because the content within Wikipedia is licensed under permissive terms so anyone can reuse it.

What next? Well we have a lot of ideas on how to improve the service, we make fortnightly functional updates so hopefully you will see things evolve and improve over time, but there's one thing I did want to touch on which might not be immediately obvious.

In the same way that we are making use of other people's data so we want to make our data available for other to mesh-up. Right now we're only publishing one representation - HTML - but we've designed everything following the Linked Data principles (it's just a really ) - so for example every resource, not just every page is addressable. For example, here's the URI for the sounds a Common Chimpanzee makes, or the news stories about Giant Pandas.

We will be providing RDF/XML and JSON representation for these URIs in addition to the HTML - the web site thus becomes the API. This means that not only can we link content across bbc.co.uk but others can more easily mesh-up content across the Web. To make that a little bit easier we've reused the Wikipedia URL slugs - the bit at the end of the URL - or as Michael puts it reusing web-scale identifiers.

I hope you like what we've built and enjoy coming back as we add more content and improve the functionally on offer. If you're interested in the data representations we'll be announcing that via the Backstage mailing list.

Tom Scott is Executive Product Manager, ´óÏó´«Ã½.

The Western world, with a few notable exceptions, poured billions of dollars into electronic pesticides to defeat the Y2K bug. Only to find that for the most part it could have been defeated by turning the systems off then on again. Shades of the hit C4 comedy . In reality it's the solution put forward in Stephen Fry's Archive on Four next Saturday by Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University, a world authority. Here - exclusive to the Radio 4 blog - is the full interview Stephen conducted with Ross on the crisis that fizzled out and the prospects of a real future digital Armageddon...

Six months ago we launched the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Comedy Blog on Red Nose Day with Danny Robins live blog. I remember sitting next to a Mountie for most of the night, drag queens getting more attention backstage than Cheryl Cole and Minty from Eastenders, who I think showed us his penis on live television.

That blog made up the last part of bbc.co.uk/rednoseday jigsaw which we found out over the weekend won the for Best Special Event Website. I hadn't had a look at the Red Nose Day site for a while and at the time we were all working on it we were also trying to launch Comedy Extra so I think there's some public recognition long overdue.

Red Nose day is one of those special occasions when you feel lucky to work at the ´óÏó´«Ã½. The whole corporation comes together with Comic Relief - and ultimately the British public - to do something extraordinary. The combined ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Nose Day and websites were a great expression of that collaboration. Credit goes to the teams that built and populated the sites, those that climbed Kilimanjaro and sent video off that mountain day and night, to the talent, and the TV and radio shows who really saw the added value that the web could offer this year's Red Nose Day.

This was my first Comic Relief working on the interactive side, and the best example I can cite of how different it all felt from working in TV or radio was when, on the night, Comic Relief asked celebs to do live donation appeals via Facebook. It went in as raw video, and a few seconds later hundreds and hundreds of comments pinged back. That was a bit of an eye opener...

Will Saunders is executive producer, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Comedy.

We're feeling pretty chuffed that ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer has been picked as . We didn't and can't apply or pay to be listed as a cool brand - Cool Brands is an annual barometer of and more than 2500 members of the British public via a .

Obviously cool is a tricky thing to try and quantify and is essentially subjective, but have researched it and reckon that there are six factors inherent in 'coolness' : style, innovation, originality, authenticity, desirability and uniqueness.

So I guess what we're most pleased about is that all of those are qualities we're always aiming for, in order to make ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer even better for you - its users. We hope you agree with the panel and public who voted us 'cool' that we're heading in the right direction.

In a similar vein, we were also amused and pleased last month to see that the learned folk at have now included 'iPlayer' as .

In choosing the new words, Collins say that they picked them to show how and how fast society is changing, so it feels good - and right - that the ´óÏó´«Ã½, with (or despite) its long heritage, is still making its mark on the future.

All in all its been quite a journey since we launched less than two years ago. Incidentally, you might be interested to know that we're now talking to the other public service broadcasters about whether the 'cool' iPlayer brand, our technology and you our users, who, combined, are what have made ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer such a success, could help them in their longer-term video-on-demand ambitions. You can read what

Lucy Sinclair is Head of Marketing, ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer & ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online.

Ed's note: Yesterday the Controller of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 Mark Damazer wrote about the long-awaited arrival to much excitement of Desert Island Discs on the iPlayer.
NB: The picture below is not of Mark but of the programme's inventor and long-time presenter Roy Plomley, taken in 1942, the year the programme was first broadcast. (PM)

It is a grand moment to get Desert Island Discs (DIDs) on the iPlayer. We have always had good relations with the family of the programme's founding father - Roy Plomley - but the programme was conceived in a pre-digital age and so we needed to work out with the family how to make the programme available online as well as for its two transmissions.

We have now sorted it all out and we have plans to make the website an all-singing, all-dancing affair - encouraging people to compare their choices with the choices of castaways, looking at the most selected tracks etc. etc. And we will end up podcasting DIDs too.

Read the rest of Mark Damazer's post about Desert Island Discs on the iPlayer and leave your comments on the Radio 4 blog where it first appeared.

A couple of weeks ago we took a first tentative step on what will hopefully be a significant journey. We started to identify 'chapters' within programmes. Chapters is the term we're using to describe sections of a programme, rather like the chapters of a DVD. In some cases a programme might have back to back chapters, like a book, but in other cases producers might just identify key moments in the programme e.g. the big interviews.

We're excited about chapters for several reasons.

Firstly, they allow listeners or viewers to navigate back and forth through programmes e.g. jumping to the start of an interview, or replaying an item you found interesting. We think this will be useful for existing fans of programmes.

Secondly, chapters will help people to find items of interest from across the ´óÏó´«Ã½ - including items from programmes they might never have watched or listened to before.

For example a listener might notice an interview with the manager of their football club promoted on the 5live website, and they could follow a link to listen to that chapter. Or they might do a search for a subject or person (perhaps climate change, or Andy Warhol) and find not just full programmes that relate to that, but also links to specific chapters about or featuring that subject. (Actually, chapters aren't appearing in ´óÏó´«Ã½ Search results yet, but they will be later in the year).

In the future you might be able to download those chapters, or embed them in a blog, or sign up to get a podcast of all items on a particular subject... but we're only just starting to think about these possibilities.

Right now it's still early days, and we're interested in experimenting and learning. We're not even sure whether 'chapters' is the right way to describe this (if you've got a better suggestion, post it as a comment!) and we plan to keep working on improving how chapters look and work, based on user testing and audience research.

5live were the first to experiment, and they're adding chapters to several of their programmes. You can find links to them on the 5live homepage (look out for pink links) and the Simon Mayo show is a great example (visit any episode, or click on the Chapters link).

Digital Planet from World Service are also involved, and you should start to see chapters on a few select TV programmes over the coming weeks, hopefully followed by a wider range of radio programmes later in the year.

We're starting slowly, with a limited selection of programmes, as we learn about what does and doesn't work. A couple of factors that may influence the selection are whether there are people available to do the extra work, whether we are able to add chapters from a rights perspective, and whether we think it's editorially appropriate and valuable to add chapters. The intention is to grow the number of programmes over time, but in a controlled and measured way.

We also need to do some work behind the scenes to make it as easy and efficient as possible for producers to add chapters. At the moment they're having to type the info in by hand, but we are aiming to tap into existing data from around the ´óÏó´«Ã½ like running orders and subtitles. This work is really vital if we want to make chapters an everyday feature of bbc.co.uk.

Sarah Prag is Executive Producer, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Audio & Music Interactive

Autumn is traditionally the time when TV schedulers roll out good news so let's start there.

The announcement on the blog that iPlayer favourite Top Gear was getting the HD treatment has reverberated around the internet like a souped up Ford Fiesta Titanium. There hasn't been so much buzz since iPlayer got onto the PS3.

Part one of the featured blog contributor and regular commenter Andy Quested at number 42 and the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s legendary Brandon Butterworth at 27. What unites these two? Probably two of the coolest job titles imaginable: "Principal Technologist, HD" and "Chief Scientist, ´óÏó´«Ã½" respectively. (Update added Friday 25 September: part two of the is now online.)

TV chief Lorraine Heggessey has suggested that . With the promised launch of ad-funded services like (full disclosure: I worked on it!) and the in the pipeline will consumers pay?

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Head of Distribution Technology responded on the blog to accusations that the Beeb was planning to make millions of Freeview PVRs obsolete. Oh, if only it were that simple. The reality is a brain-numbing yet potentially significant (depending on who you read: , , ) issue around the use of DRM/encryption on the coming .

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Internet blog.

Hello All,

I wanted to share with you at the earliest opportunity the news that from November 15th you will be able to see Top Gear in its true colours.

Yes, after several hundred emails from you as to why you feel Top Gear needs to make the journey from the SD to the HD world, I can confirm that the team is now working with HD cameras on the new series.

You've been very clear that this is a ´óÏó´«Ã½ programme that for you represents the best of what we do, and that you believe it is one of those series that can benefit most from HD. I agree with you, and I'm confident that the shift will ensure that the cars are glossier and faster than ever, and the presenters... well, probably will look even more like their reflections in the mirror but we'll all have to wait to judge.

I have said for some time now that what the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is aiming to do in HD is to extend the range of programming that is available, to showcase programmes that are loved in SD, and to explore the creative potential of the new technology. Top Gear helps us to do all of this, but it's not the end of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD story, just one further link in the transition chain that will over time see the vast majority of programmes made by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ shifting into HD.

Meantime, steady yourselves and tell your friends.

Danielle Nagler is Head of ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision

Some of you will have seen that suggested that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ intends to make millions of Freeview PVRs obsolete by encrypting the service information data of the DVB stream. Some of you may also not have seen his later updates. There has been a lot of confusion around this post and that has resulted in a lot of conversations on Twitter and in the press. Some interesting posts can be seen onand , but we thought it would be only right for you to get the information straight from the horse's mouth.

First of all, as we have already said publicly, no existing Freeview boxes will be affected by this whatsoever. So don't think that your current Freeview box is suddenly going to go off because that's not the case.

Secondly, and this is the difficult bit, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is committed to ensuring that public service content remains free to air i.e. unencrypted. But a form of content management is required to enable us to launch Freeview HD to audiences in early 2010, so we have a simple choice; either we wait for a resolution to the copy protection debate or go ahead and launch Freeview HD and give UK audiences who can't or don't want to pay for subscription services a way to get HD.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is tasked to offer content on as many different platforms as possible, and with the other PSB partners, want to deliver Freeview HD before the World Cup in 2010.

We've said before that we are specifically avoiding encryption of the broadcast signal to ensure that the public service content remains free to air. Content protection gives content producers comfort to give consumers early and free access to more content, without jeopardising future revenue streams.

Our preferred content management approach (Huffman's ) as stated in our letter to Ofcom describes how using this method will allow us to deliver Freeview HD on time, with the least disruption to manufacturers, and the least restriction to audiences. But it is important to stress that the technology places no restrictions whatsoever on copying standard definition content - nor recording and viewing any HD content stored on a PVR. Even in its most restrictive state it still allows one HD copy to be made to Blu-ray and unrestricted copies in SD (and for most content there will be no restriction whatsoever on the number of Blu-ray copies permitted).

We want to make our content as accessible as possible but we have to balance this with the amount of content we have the ability to show. We could have said no to the content owners' request and delayed the launch of Freeview HD, but we had to balance this with the fact that respecting the request for content protection should result in more programmes and hence a better viewing experience for our audiences.

We are confident that Freeview HD will be great, and you'll always be able to copy programmes for personal use. Most people will probably never know that any form of content management exists since they'll not be prevented from the normal home enjoyment or recording on PVRs, DVD and Blu-Ray recorders.

The only actions that may be prevented, and only for certain programmes, are retransmitting the content in HD over the internet or, in some cases, from making more than one digital copy of the highest-value content onto Blu-ray.

Graham Plumb is Head of Distribution Technology, ´óÏó´«Ã½ FM&T

Thanks to everyone for your comments about the new 5 live website. You'll have noticed that we're continuing to make changes and to add new elements. Next week will see a significant new development: the launch of a service called 5 live Now (editor's note: initially for one programme - the Breakfast Show phone-in - SB). This will give you the chance to make comments online - and hear them within 5 live programmes.

5 live Now makes the whole network more responsive to listener comment and puts your views closer to producers and presenters - for use on-air and on the web site. We'll pull together online comment, contributions from social networks, texts and emails and feed them directly to programme editors and the radio station as a whole. Your contributions will also be much more visible on the new site. 5 live Now will operate in real-time and give more prominence to the contributions selected.

So we're closing the existing 5 live messageboards when 5 live Now goes live...

Read more and comment at the 5 live blog

Brett Spencer is Interactive Editor, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 5 live.

Hello Everyone

I thought that you might like to see the detailed response which I have sent to someone who contacted me regarding the picture quality issues which are under discussion here:

"...Your complaint refers to the introduction of the new transmission encoders for ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD which were introduced into operations on Wednesday 5th August. There was an extensive process of assessment in advance of the selection of new encoders for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD service, using both objective and subjective criteria. The encoders which were chosen then went through further testing in advance of operational use, not only for picture quality but for compatibility with the Sky and Freesat platforms and their ability to deliver other services such as subtitling and surround sound successfully.

The new encoders were intended to help us in handling the wide range of material which the ´óÏó´«Ã½ broadcasts in HD, and to help to improve the picture quality of some of our most challenging programmes. These may combine progressive and interlaced shooting or where the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has limited control over some aspects of the broadcast chain. I believe that the new encoders have achieved this in relation to programmes such as the series of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Proms broadcast, Gardeners' World, Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes and the recent Athletics World Championships, for which our coverage using the host broadcaster feed was as good as and sometimes better than other broadcasters covering the same event. However we of course continue to assess coder settings against the wide range of material which they have to handle to determine the best settings on an ongoing basis.

Following the introduction of the new encoders, there were some issues around the handling of some pictures - primarily mixes and fades - which we acknowledged through the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD blog on picture quality almost immediately. We have worked with our encoder supplier to address these issues in the long-term, and also put in place interim changes to minimise the difficulties. That the encoder change should generate problems for viewers watching ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD content is of course a matter for regret, but I do not believe that this was the result of errors in the preparation process.

You have also highlighted the issue of the bit-rate at which ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD broadcasts, and the changes to this over time. I do not believe that the problems that arose following the introduction of the new encoders had anything to do with the broadcast bit-rate, even though they coincided, as you have rightly identified, with a reduction in bit-rate for the channel.

One of the central issues in selecting new encoders for ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD was to deliver pictures at the same or improved quality while allowing a reduction in the channel bit-rate. As MPEG 4 encoders have evolved, the relationship between bit-rate and picture quality has also shifted. This is not an issue that is specific to ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD, or to the encoders that we have selected.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has an absolute responsibility to use bandwidth efficiently - whether on digital terrestrial muxes or on satellite. Bandwidth is not unlimited, and on UK-footprint transponders the demand for capacity is very high. The current bit-rates were selected through a process which directly evaluated quality on the new and old encoders, using a wide range of programme material and both subjective and objective assessments.

Bit-rate is not the only factor affecting picture quality and a higher bit-rate will not automatically deliver higher picture quality.

HD is still an evolving production technology. A variety of production techniques are - in my view quite rightly - deployed as experimentation continues to explore what HD can delivery creatively.

As in standard definition, it is also important that HD delivers a range of "looks" for producers, appropriate to the nature of the subject matter. I do not prescribe a single standard for HD work for the ´óÏó´«Ã½. Decisions regarding frame rate and progressive versus interlaced styles are the responsibility of individual producers. These choices do not impact on quality provided that the camera is set up properly and the shutter speed set correctly, issues on which the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD team provides ongoing advice and guidance. As the discussion on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD blog suggests, there is a range of views around these issues, and the degradation or quality they may bring to HD pictures. It is worth noting that 25 frames progressive mode in fact has more resolution than a 25 frame interlace image, and is used by the majority of drama, documentary and natural history programmes to great effect.

While very clear, sharp images have become closely associated with HD, it is important not to confuse "sharpness" with resolution. The use of electronic sharpening on standard definition pictures can make images clearer but does not increase the amount of information in the picture, one of the defining features of HD.

Electronic sharpening is not a characteristic which ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD encourages since we prefer images to look more natural, and to allow directors to offer contrasting focus in order to highlight the key features in a scene. Indeed, some of our dramas are now using the latest large image format cameras. These cameras use an image sensor about the same physical size as a 35mm film frame that gives the image a very shallow depth of field. This will put all but the key subject out of focus and allows a director to use focus as a story telling tool.

HD picture quality is not purely about a crispness of image, but about a richness of image which comes from the amount of detailed information included.

Within the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD team we work consistently to explore new HD technology with a particular view to enhancing picture quality across the range of programme projects with which we are involved. Filming in certain environments or using small cameras remains challenging, and where it is not possible to deliver HD pictures to the standards we set, we limit the use of lower quality images to a maximum of 25% of an individual title.

Finally, you raise the issue of surround sound and the number of programmes broadcast which offer a 5.1 sound mix. Wherever possible we buy series and films with surround sound tracks, and try to ensure that sound is captured in this format for outside events. But 5.1 sound is not always available, and a genuine surround sound mix can add substantially to production costs in HD at a time when we are concentrating the resources available to increase the total volume of programmes made in HD. At present we do not routinely "up-mix" programmes from stereo to surround.

I can assure you that picture quality is a very important part of the work that we are doing in ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD. We clearly have different views on the picture quality that is delivered and the factors that contribute to it, but I do believe that we share a perspective that the quality of images is central to delivery of HD television.

I want to add that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD blog is a very important discussion and communications forum for us, but as you have clearly observed we don't respond to every single comment raised on it. We do take on board all the views expressed, and look seriously at substantive issues that are highlighted, whether they attract one comment or many.

I am sorry that in this case you feel that your original contribution did not receive the attention which you believed that it should have done."

Danielle Nagler is Head of ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision

Editor's note: ´óÏó´«Ã½ Switch launched the new ´óÏó´«Ã½ Switch portal earlier this week. On his personal describes some of the work that went in to making it possible. (PM)

To read more about the revamped Switch portal and to leave comments go to .

Editor's note: As the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Archive website releases selections from the iconic ´óÏó´«Ã½ science show Tomorrow's World, former presenter Maggie Philbin shares her memories of the programme. (PM)

I was ten when Tomorrow's World began in 1965. I remember watching Raymond Baxter (pictured) in flickering black and white, telling me everything the future would hold. He carried me through the first flight of Concorde, the first ATM, and the early years of space flight. And there's a rich choice of 'firsts' in ´óÏó´«Ã½ Archive's collection of Tomorrow's World released today - Europe's first home computer terminal, the first "mobile" phone, and the first computerised credit card machine are all there.

Tomorrow's World's first show, from 1965, opens with a story about a committee who had to choose which patients would get the gift of survival on "life-saving kidney machines". From the start, Tomorrow's World was a show determined to go beyond "what's happening" in technology and also ask ethical questions.

Of course, the early shows are also very much of their time. Throwaway references to, for example, secretaries who spend all day filing their nails, were common. But by the time I turned up in 1982, not only was Judith Hann firmly in place but so were some outstanding female producers and researchers. And the editors were scrupulous: references to surgeons, engineers or mechanics as "he" came to an end. If a film involved dropping from a helicopter, driving a juggernaut, or testing a one-person submarine, then that item would have Judith's or my name against it. It's very touching to meet women who insist that watching us handle technology with confidence was the reason they chose careers in that area themselves.

Tomorrow's World is the best programme I have ever worked on. But it was also the most frightening. I still can't hear the opening music without my stomach churning. I was lucky enough to demonstrate the first fax machine, digital camera, sat nav and the first supermarket barcode reader. Cutting edge technology, for sure, but it came at a price. Frequently, the inventions were fragile and temperamental prototypes. The show was live and they had one chance to prove themselves. Typically, they would work perfectly all morning, then begin to play up during the afternoon rehearsals, introducing an unwelcome element of tension. Just before transmission, the angst-ridden inventors were swept off the studio floor and herded to the other side of TV Centre, to eliminate the possibility of them running onto the studio floor during the live programme in an attempt to rescue years of research from catastrophic failure.

So watch and relish the clip with Kieran Prendiville and "Hissing Sid", the robot "guaranteed" to pot the black on a snooker table. But spare a thought for the poor inventor watching the item through his fingers from the hospitality area.

Tomorrow's World was a show that forged powerful professional and personal friendships. Not only with Judith, Kieran, Howard and Peter but with the people who insisted on that final shot in a dark, wet potato field, or that it was perfectly safe to fly in a metal cage suspended from a helicopter or who had the imagination to see an elegant visual analogy for a complicated story.

At the Friday meeting every item would be discussed in detail. Judith and I would sit at our desks, surreptitiously opening our mail. In the middle of one particularly tense discussion, I passed her a letter I'd received, which I now have framed in my downstairs loo:

Dear Maggie

I hope you are well and happy. I hope Keith is happy too. Peter and me like watching "Tomorrow's World". Peter is my cat. He is very interested in the future.

Love Simone

It's fabulous that these pieces from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Archive are now available online. And I hope the future we predicted matched Peter's expectations.

A new ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four season, Electric Revolution, which charts the rise of consumer technology over the last fifty years, begins later this month.

It's that time again where we throw open the doors and invite your feedback, comments and questions on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Online, ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer, ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD, and the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s digital and mobile services.

Having said that we already have two lively posts covering ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD so I'd like to keep comments on HD picture quality over at Andy's post ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD: Picture Quality and Dolby Research (601 comments and counting - I'm not sure what happens when we hit four figures) and comments on the HD schedule on Danielle's post ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD: Autumn Schedule
.
And finally, I'd like to hear about subjects you think we should be covering, should cover more or shouldn't be covering at all.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Internet Blog.

Editor's note: If you've ever been embarrassed about your knowledge, or lack of knowledge, about the Semantic Web, RDF or Linked Data (I'm at the front of this particular queue) then have a look at the slide-show on the Radio Labs blog. (PM)

me and gave a presentation to the group on . We promised to put the slides online...

Go to the Radio Labs blog to read the rest of A skim-read introduction to linked data, to view the slide show and to leave your comments.

Hello Everyone

There has been a communications lull from me over the summer - although I know that a number of you have been engaging vigorously with Andy Quested's entries about our new encoders, and debating picture quality.

Unfortunately I've not spent the last six weeks with my feet up in hot and sunny places where ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD doesn't penetrate - unless a week in Devon experiencing analogue/digital swtichover at first hand in a rented cottage counts. I have been working on a range of issues relating to the future of HD and the ´óÏó´«Ã½.

They don't address entirely the points that many of you regularly raise with me around your desire to see all the ´óÏó´«Ã½ channels, and certainly all the programmes you regularly watch, in HD. But the demand for more HD from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ has been heard and understood, and this Autumn will see a wider debate within the ´óÏó´«Ã½ around the pace at which we can grow our offer to you.

When I started as Head of ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD a year ago, I was concerned at what I perceived as the gap between the ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD promise - the best content from the ´óÏó´«Ã½ - and the reality. I also felt that the channel broadcast was limited and unpredictable.

Those concerns haven't entirely gone away - and as contributors to this blog you frequently remind me of them too. But looking at the Autumn schedule I do feel that we are moving in the right direction and I would hope that you agree.

Returning to the channel at weekends are Strictly Come Dancing (this time, with the results), and Antiques Roadshow. There are channel debuts for Hole in the Wall, Countryfile, Waterloo Road and political satire The Thick of It. There's a range of new comedy, from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two's Home Time, and series two of Beautiful People, to ´óÏó´«Ã½ Three's Lunch Monkeys (pictured) and How Not to Live Your Life, as well as the channel's new horror title Harper's Island.

You'll find the majority of big ´óÏó´«Ã½ programmes for the Autumn on the channel, including Life, the Electric Proms, Lost Land of the Volcano, Emma, and The Art of Russia. As well as the Doctor Who specials, we'll be showing the animation series Dreamland, and the next Sarah Jane Adventures, and younger viewers may also appreciate the arrival of Shaun the Sheep and new Justin Fletcher (aka Mr Tumble) series, Gigglebiz, which is a bit like Little Britain for under 6s.

I do try to ensure that we look across everything the ´óÏó´«Ã½ is doing, to bring you some pieces that can benefit from HD but might otherwise get overlooked. My personal recommendations for viewing in the next few weeks both fall into this category. Land Girls is a great light drama which looks fabulous, with rich colours and landscapes, and which is running through the week starting 7th September every day at 7.15pm on ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD, with a repeat run which will be simulcast with ´óÏó´«Ã½ One on successive Sundays at 6.15pm.

Crash is a production for ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Wales which can currently only be seen across the UK on ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD (and of course ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer). It begins on the 9th September (09/09/09) appropriately enough for a drama about junior doctors and the issues they face as they move from the classroom to real live medical situations. The writing is really fresh, the young cast do a good job, and the story moves fast to a dramatic conclusion in episode one - subsequent episodes are lighter, and funnier, and each offers a separate story although there are some running threads.

Finally, please don't feel your thoughts/ pleas/ paeans of praise for Top Gear have disappeared into the ether, or into my recycling bin. I really value your contributions to our thinking, and hope to be able to update you very soon. But I also want to work through this Autumn to make it easier to get information about what is on ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD when so that I can tackle the frustrations you air around missing programmes in HD or not knowing what is available.

I'd value insights from you about how you decide what you are going to watch and where you get information about schedules (not just for ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD) from.

Thank you as ever for the part that you are playing in developing ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD.

Danielle Nagler is Head of ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Vision

Editor's note: Comments about ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD picture quality will be considered off-topic for this post. If you wish to continue to comment on HD picture quality, please do so here. (NR)

The new 5 live website is finally visible to the world. This first phase sees the launch of a new look and feel, chapter points, better navigation, a new archive for Mark Kermode's film reviews and full use of the programme brand pages. See my previous post for more information. It's early days for the new site and experience tells us that some of the new features won't be 100% operational for a day or two. If you see anything that's not working as you'd expect it to, please leave a comment to let us know.

The second phase will see the launch of 5 live Now pulling together the best comments sent via text messages, email and online onto a single page, in real-time, alongside the on-air discussion. We'll also be launching new presenter videos from across our network.

Read more and comment on the 5 live blog.

Jags Parbha is senior content producer at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 5 live and is responsible for the site redesign.

(This blog post is about a web-based version of ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer launched in 2009. You may also be interested in the ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer application for PS3, designed for the remote control in the living room, that was launched August 8th 2011 - inserted Ian McDonald 12 Aug 2011)

Good news for PS3 owners - last week we released an updated version of iPlayer that offers improved video quality and an enhanced user interface.

We first released a . It worked pretty well, but back then the PS3 used an older version of Flash that didn't support H.264 playback and didn't support full-screen mode, which somewhat limited the playback experience we could provide.

A few months ago Sony released an updated version of Flash that provided support for H.264 content. However, that version of Flash was still unable to play back our higher quality streams at the full frame rate of 25fps.

Since then, Sony have done a great job of enhancing the PS3's Flash playback experience, and the latest V3.0 firmware update now includes hardware acceleration in full-screen mode, allowing for a substantial improvement in the playback experience.

Over the past year, we've also done a lot of tuning and enhancements to our iPlayer video encoding, including adding a new 1500Kbps "SD quality" format. Put the two together and the result is an iPlayer on PS3 with brilliant video quality - almost as good as broadcast television!

As part of the, Sony have added a big iPlayer icon to the PS3's cross-media bar, giving easy one-click access to iPlayer:

As well as optimising the video quality, we've also optimised our "designed for TV viewing" BigScreen interface in a new larger size to take advantage of the extra real estate offered on high-def displays:

iPlayer BigScreen interface on 576p screens

iPlayer BigScreen interface on 720p and 1080p screens

By the way, you can experience our BigScreen version of iPlayer on your PC as well - just head over to /iplayer/bigscreen on any computer. Connect your computer's video out to your TV set and use our BigScreen interface to play your favourite programmes on demand from the comfort of your couch.

Finally, some iPlayer on PS3 tips and tricks:

1. If the iPlayer icon doesn't appear in the XMB
Some users have reported that the iPlayer icon hasn't appeared after they've installed the V3.0 firmware update, so if you're not seeing the iPlayer icon here's what to do:

• Sign up for the PSN network (it's free) using a UK address, which seems to be a requirement for getting the iPlayer icon to appear.


• Reboot (important). You should now see the iPlayer icon in the XMB.


• If you still don't see the iPlayer icon, check the serial number on the back of your PS3 - it should end with CECH-XXX3, where the "3" indicates a UK model. Only UK models get the iPlayer icon, meaning that if you purchased your PS3 abroad or through a retailer that imported non-UK models then you won't get an iPlayer icon.


• If the iPlayer icon still doesn't appear, don't worry about it - you can get exactly the same iPlayer experience by launching the PS3 browser and going directly to the iPlayer site at /iplayer

3. Turn off the screensaver
By default the PS3 screensaver kicks in after 20 minutes, dimming the screen right in the middle of your favourite programme. So you might want to disable the screensaver: Settings > Display Settings > Screensaver

Over the coming weeks we'll be adding some extra functionality and fixing a few glitches in the UI.

User response to our new iPlayer for PS3 has been amazing. Although it's less than a week since we launched, iPlayer on PS3 now accounts for a massive ~10% of all iPlayer viewing, overtaking Mac (8.5%) to be our 2nd most popular platform for IP-delivered content. We'll have to wait and see whether this holds up in the coming weeks, but this enthusiastic reception makes it clear that users do want iPlayer on their TV - something that bodes well for Canvas and other IPTV propositions.

Anthony Rose is Controller, Online Media Group and Vision, ´óÏó´«Ã½ FM&T

Most of us using the mobile internet have specific goals when it comes to using the ´óÏó´«Ã½ site - finding out the latest sports updates; checking the news and weather; finding out when a favourite programme is on, or watching it on mobile iPlayer.
There are thousands of ´óÏó´«Ã½ web pages on the mobile site, a whole world of additional content that you more than likely don't know about.
Offering search on mobile is a no-brainer - it gets you to the content you want with the least possible effort - so I'm very pleased to announce that we have finally launched a beta search on the mobile homepage.

I say finally as we in the mobile team, and our colleagues in Search have had many 'interesting' challenges developing ´óÏó´«Ã½ search for mobile. We know it's crucial to get the results right first time on mobile - and taking our website search and making it work to that goal was a complex project. We had to work with many different content providers across the ´óÏó´«Ã½, getting the right metadata into their pages - no mean feat.
We spent weeks fine tuning the search logic, weighting our search terms, and we now know more about the idiosyncrasies of search logic that we ever thought we would need to.
Mobile search is still not perfect, but it's been a long time coming and we wanted to get it launched and YOU using it, to get your ever-valuable feedback on where it needs more work.

What can you search?

What can't you search?

Adding the Search box

Try it out, leave us your comments, but most importantly, get where you want quickly , and discover new areas on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Mobile.

Ulyssa MacMillan is Executive Producer, Mobile Browser.

As well as the key contemporary broadcasts such as Chamberlain's declaration of war and Richard Dimbleby at the scene of Chamberlain's return from Bad Godesberg a year earlier (pictured) the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Archive collection "World War II: the Outbreak of War" includes a set of ´óÏó´«Ã½ documents. Made up of internal memos, staff guidelines and the covers of Radio Times the week before and the week after the start of war, they give us unique insights into the Corporation at the time.
There are discussions around planned programme changes ("Variety programmes will be of great value in the maintenance of the civilian morale in war time...") and also the role that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ should adopt in wartime.

You've also got until this Sunday to listen to Radio 4's Broadcasting House's piece on the collection.

As the controller of the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s information and archives, , struck a chord.

The ´óÏó´«Ã½'s archive is a phenomenal resource of over 4 million items. It can allow us to experience and understand all sorts of cultural, social and economic aspects of life in the UK from the 1950s onwards. You can see some examples of material from the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s archive online in the Archive collections. But sadly, as Andrew highlighted, we don't have recordings of many programmes that we have broadcast over the decades - and I wanted to share the reasons behind this, and ask for a bit of help.

That lots of recordings were taped over reflects how we have thought differently about television over time. In its earliest days, television was not seen as something you might want to keep. It went out once, live, and that was that. It was simply not envisaged in those days that people might want to view those episodes again decades later, and even if they had, early recording techniques were very limited.

Even as recording technology became more available in the Fifties, other constraints mitigated against long-term collecting of programmes. Concerned about the implications of recording and repeating television on their employment prospects, actors' unions and others with an interest in programme-making sought to limit the rights of broadcasters to re-screen programmes. Meagre prospects for re-screening, along with the high costs of recording tape, meant much that much television of that era still wasn't kept.
In the following decades, the ´óÏó´«Ã½, like every other broadcaster, still couldn't record everything. Tape recording was very expensive, so keeping recordings of shows was often a luxury, rather than a routine, and tape frequently had to be re-used and recorded over.

There was a real shift in thinking in the mid-1970s, when the ´óÏó´«Ã½ began to comprehend the longer-term value of what it created. At that time, ´óÏó´«Ã½ archivists and librarians began to exert more control over the management of its archive in an attempt to safeguard programmes for the future.

As Andrew says, the arrival of digital technology means there's no need to tape over anything, and nowadays, everything transmitted on national television and radio is recorded and kept. The main issue facing audio-visual archives now (and not just those of the ´óÏó´«Ã½) is the long-term preservation of archive material, whether through digitising older recordings, or through maintaining appropriate storage conditions for increasingly fragile older material. Neither of these is cheap or easy. But we have to act now to make sure our archives survive so that future generations can enjoy them and learn from them too.

Amazingly, we do uncover items from time to time that we thought had been lost - with people finding old tapes and sending them in. I do wonder how many "lost" ´óÏó´«Ã½ recordings are sat in storage in people's houses.

So if you do happen to have an episode of Doctor Who from the 1960s , or in your attic, we would dearly love to hear from you...

Sarah Hayes is the Controller, Information and Archives.

Ed's note: If you'd like to find out more about the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s archives there's an interview with Adam Lee on the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Archive website where he answers various questions including "Why aren't there many recordings from the early days of television?" and "Once the technology was available, why weren't all programmes recorded?". (PM)

There's an interesting interview with Richard Halton, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Programme Director, IPTV on about Project Canvas. It's looking to use local storage of the most popular programmes on the service as a way round bandwidth issues:

The best example is that on a Monday, 25% of our iPlayer traffic is from last night's Top Gear. So why have a million people playing Top Gear over their ISP on Monday? Instead just drop it into the hard drive as soon as it has been broadcast.

There will just be a portfolio of people who want to put their content on the platform, so ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer, Demand Five, Channel 4. If all of that is enhanced by Hulu, BlinkBox, whatever, then it just makes Canvas a more exciting platform with more content from more providers.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Internet Blog.

Editor's note: We held off from posting about the recently launched 5 live blog until they'd had a chance to post a few entries of their own. In this exerpt from his post Jags Parbha, senior content producer at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 5 live, talks about the new site. (PM)

5 live's new website is now in the final phase of testing, ahead of launch next week, and we're excited about what we've got in store for you. We've been working hard with the agency , to build a vibrant online home for the network and we're almost there.

I wanted to give you a sneak preview of the homepage and explain a few of the changes that you'll see when it goes live. The first thing you'll notice is that the look and feel will be bigger, bolder and more vibrant. We want to showcase the depth and variety of content that 5 live produces, 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week and make it easily accessible.

Read more and comment on the 5 live blog.

Jags Parbha is senior content producer at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 5 live and is responsible for the site redesign.