media

Media

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Video and Movies
Audio
Television and broadcast video
Oddments

Video and Movies

Anti-pirates

Chris posted this quite fun retake of the terrible MPAA anti-'piracy' (it's not piracy, no ships are involved) video from youwouldnt.net.

Television and broadcast video

World Cup

Apparently the World Cup final viewing figures were 17m BBC and 3.5m itv. Mark Beasley reads this as Advertising is dead, long live advertising but I think it's because itv's picture quality was absurdly inferior to BBC, as discussed at length on uk.tech.digital-tv. We noticed the difference during the group stage when no matches were on both channels, so we had to switch. In fact, itv's pictures had so many blobbies that I watched foreign broadcasters for some matches instead.

BBC World on Free Software: The Code Breakers

A two-part documentary, Code Breakers will be aired on BBC World TV [LyngSat coverage listing] starting on 10 May 2006. See APDIP News.

All GMT/UTC| Wednesday 19:30 | Thursday 09:30 | Friday 16:30 | Monday 01:30 and 07:30
---|---|---|---|---
Episode One | 10 May | 11 May | 12 May | 15 May
Episode Two | 17 May | 18 May | 19 May | 22 May

Source: Dave Berry via fc-uk-discuss from FreeCultureUK.

Oddments

"If their intention was to create obscurity and difficulty for lawyers to debate in future years, they have succeeded handsomely." - High Court judge Mr Justice Mann, on Apple Corps v Apple Computer

Net Audio London is a free internet music festival in London on 15 and 16 September 2006.

Audio

Pirates and ex-pirates

We don't get much pirate radio here in the wilds, as far as I can tell. We do get Caroline, an ex-pirate that pays big money to Murdoch for proprietary satellite channel listings service. The music's not bad, but that's a shame. See Phlegm: Classic British Ex-pirate Pays Ransom, Expands Audience

The Morning Report and the Daily Mail Picnic

Just listened to the Morning Report for the first time. It seems a better way to start the work day than putting the rolling news channels on, as I don't have to wait for them to return to the start on the half-hour. It's also good to hear a different view: I don't watch Channel 4 TV because it's encrypted on satellite.

I tried to download it through the Channel4radio site first, but I couldn't see how to do that. channel4radio kept asking me to register, which involves reading reams of legal bull - far too much for a test download. So, I went to channel4.com/news and found the download there. Why not make it easier to download without registration? Or is this meant to be a registration-required show?

Through uk.rec.cycling, I heard the Daily Mail Picnic, which is crisp and biting. It also let me listen despite not using Javascript and Flash, unlike many so-called comedy pages, which are not funny IMO.

Microsoft + Universal, Universal vs Murdoch

Universal are one of my least favourite companies because of their work on bad laws like TPM and the French DADVSI.

Universal Music Group: iPod/MP3 device owners are thieves [drake.org.uk] describes the creation of a Microsoft-Universal axis of evil as far as free culture is concerned. These protectionists are stealing free culture with lobbying for term extensions and other cunning plans, yet they dare call the population thieves. Culture belongs to the people, not Universal.

However, there is a falling out among the band of culture thieves, with Universal taking on Murdoch in MySpace sued by Universal Music [BBC NEWS]

Micro FM Now Legal Here

The Wireless Telegraphy (Exemption) (Amendment) Regulations 2006 came into effect on Friday 8 December. It is now legal to use CE-marked "micro" FM transmitters, which are intended for linking portable ogg players to nearby FM radios. Transmitters can have at most 50nW power (if I understand page 35 of Ofcom's Interface Requirements 2030), compared for the local 100W commercial station on top of the hill, 25W for a full Restricted Service Licensee, 1W for low-power FM (LPFM) and 300mW for stadium commentary stations.

Update: Kimmo Jukarainen / OH3GNU commented:

"Minor correction - those "micro FM" transmitters seem to be only 50 nW (nanowatts), not 50mW (milliwatts). At least according to http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/exemption/exemption.pdf I couldn't find the final document from Ofcom's web, but that draft's 50nW is in sync with Finland's similar regulation from August."

Good catch! It's IR 2030 from this list and I used a graphical viewer to see the tables. In sans-serif fonts like that, m and n look very similar to my poor eyes. In addition to complaining mightily about the dross that Ofcom call PDF, good old ps2ascii indeed confirms

v 87.5 - 108 MHz 50 nW e.r.p.

Can one do much with 50nW? Does the transmitter have to sit on top of the receiver?

See the statement from government agency Ofcom for more information.

Anyone heard any fun uses of these yet?

Tobias commented:

"These transmitters were legalised some month ago in Germany, too. eBay is still overflowing with illegal HK-imports... I made a small list of device which are allowed in Germany on my homepage (see link, currently only in German, since this is now interesting for people from the UK, I will translate it this week...) - See the list at the bottom of the German page for the currently allowed devices..."

Rob Hart commented:

"If you assume power from a distant transmitter is inverse-cube law, then 50nw at 80cm, is equivalent to 100w at 1km."

Andy Parkins commented:

"The joys of the inverse square law make this not so crazy. Take the 100W transmitter on a hill. Let's say you were 20km away from it. The energy density would be 100/(pi*20000^2) = 79nW per sq metre.

It's fairly clear then that as long as you're close to a 50nW transmitter, you will see a signal strength not dissimilar to the signal strength you're getting from the big transmitter.

(Incidentally, this is the same reason why mobile phone masts are definitely not dangerous, but mobile phone handsets could potentially be (although unlikely))."

The 100W transmitter is 1km away, so 100/(pi*1000^2) = 31830 nW/m^2, compared to my 50nW? And inverse-square or inverse-cube? (Did I mention I hate physics?)

Simon Farnsworth commented:

"50nW should be enough power to just about get from a transmitter in a car to a receiver in the same car, provided you've chosen a frequency that's only used by other 50nW devices. Don't forget when trying to work this all out that the inverse square law applies; my maths suggests that if you can receive a 100W transmission from 45km away, you'll be able to receive a 50nW transmission from 1m with the same field strength.

Given the sensitivities of a car radio (in my case, I can pick up 2-Ten FM on 102.9 from high terrain in Oxford, some 50 km away from the transmitter), 50nW should be enough for a car radio to pick up a transmitter in the car (1m from the receiver).

It's clearly intended to let you use a microtransmitter with your Ogg player in your car, while not letting you use enough power to interfere with the radio in the lorry you're overtaking (whether the driver's listening to their Ogg player through a similar microtransmitter, or to commercial radio)."

Damnit, I wondered about broadcasting to the estate around and beneath me.

Joe Buck commented:

"It's inverse-square. The way to remember the inverse square law is to think of the outgoing signal expanding like a balloon. The surface area of the balloon, if it's a sphere, is 4pir^2, so the amount of power per unit area is the reciprocal of that, proportional to 1/r^2."

Michael Maclean commented:

"A potential fun use - I once used one of those gadgets to replicate the "sorting hat" thing from the first Harry Potter film for a Brownie camp my girlfriend was helping out at. There was a radio hidden in the hat and a transmitter attached to an MP3 player for the samples. Basic, but apparently it worked out quite well."

Enrico Zini told me about the use of Micro FM transmitters for translation at events including the World Social Forum and gave me links to Open- Source Streaming Translations in Porto Alegre [Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends], Nomad [eurotopia], November meetings in Porto Alegre [Babels] and Speechless in Europe [Blogos]

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