FOA Berlin re PTV

Interesting response from Doomcaster, although at least he got back to you, more than PTV did.

Anyway, just sent PTV this ...

The reason for my previous message was to try and establish why the Mac platform is no longer supported. This issue has been raised with Neil Doncaster, the Norwich City FC Chairman and FLI board member. Neil has been good enough to provide a statement.

The two options put forward are to 1) wait for a cross-platform version of flash player, which may be 14 months away and is by no means a certainty, or 2) get Microsoft to come up with a Mac version of their DRM, which given that they have dropped the Mac versions of EI and WMP, would seem extremely unlikely. Flip4Mac is issued free of charge by MS as an alternative to WMP but this doesn't support DRM and would again require an unlikely upgrade from MS.

The proposed solutions assume that Windows DRM is the only mechanism for secure streaming. Apple also provide DRM tools for live streaming. Could you not provide, say a Quicktime stream in parallel with the WMP stream?

I am aware that there are other examples where DRM of digital content ties consumers into specific hardware/software - Apple's own iTunes Store being a good example. The difference with Premium TV is that I have no choice of supply, you are the only vendor.

I appreciate that PTV have bought the rights to the match commentaries and obviously want to protect their commercial property - that's why I subscribed. However, as a monopoly supplier I do think you should be doing something more proactive to ensure that the content is available to more than just "mainstream" users. It is PTV after all that prevent local radio coverage from being streamed free of charge - even though this is paid for from the TV licence fee.

I would very much appreciate a response to this mail.

Posted By: butnooneshome, Mar 10, 15:53:58