BBC's Blog, page 7

Hi, I am a senior product manager for BBC iPlayer on TV devices.

Today BBC iPlayer is being launched on Sony Playstation 4. We have been working with Sony to bring the best possible experience to the device and I hope that PlayStation 4 users will love it.

BBC iPlayer on PlayStation 4

This release was made possible by close collaboration between Sony and the BBC and makes use of the TV Application Layer, that I previously blogged about in March.

TV Application Layer

The BBC iPlayer is being shared or launched on new devices every week, and we can only do that by having a really good engagement and testing process.

Clear process

We specify very clearly what requirements we have of a new TV or device, referencing industry standards. We also have a compliance application that we make available to a manufacturer of a new device. The compliance application can be used to test different requirements independently. For example, we can check that the buttons on a remote control or games controller do what is expected or that you can pause the video and resume the video. These sound very simple things, but every device is different and even the most subtle difference can be a problem.

Step by step

Only once we confirm that the device can run the compliance application sucessfully do we start looking at iPlayer. This means that if the compliance application works on a device, then iPlayer and our other TV applications should do too.

Over 1000 TV devices…

We’ve recently passed a big milestone as we have launched BBC iPlayer on over 1000 TV devices – smart TVs, set top boxes, games consoles, Blu-ray players. Again it is the TV Application Layer that has enabled this and allows us to manage all these applications without a team of thousands.

Where do I get BBC iPlayer on the PlayStation 4?

It is available in the TV/Video Services section of the PlayStation menu.

Other BBC Applications

The BBC Sport and BBC News application will also be available on the PlayStation 4 at launch.

For the full list of devices and features check out the ‘where can you get iPlayer’ site.

Peter Lasko is a Senior Product Manager for BBC iPlayer on TV Devices

As Tony Hall announced in October,  the BBC is revamping its digital live experiences to enable more live events to be delivered across four screens - PC, tablet, mobile and connected TV.

Today, an early Beta version of this new approach to live event coverage across the BBC’s web and mobile offering has been launched.

The success of the first truly digital Olympics in 2012, and this year’s Wimbledon and Glastonbury, has demonstrated both the audience appetite and potential for digital live event coverage. It’s our intention to raise the bar even higher for a wider range of Britain’s biggest social and cultural events.

Starting with 2014’s major sports events - the Winter Olympics, World Cup, Wimbledon and Commonwealth Games - we have developed a new user experience that combines the best video, audio, text, social and stats, alongside the BBC’s world-class digital journalism across screens.

 


A new approach to live Sport

From here we will gradually begin to offer this improved live digital treatment to other events from across the BBC.

The Beta launched today is a small but important first step towards delivering on that vision.

It will run as an opt-in service alongside our existing BBC Sport offer in the coming weeks, starting today with Sportsday Live, focussed around live text commentary.

It will be gradually rolled out for a range of live sports events in the run up to Christmas, adding features like live and on demand media and statistics as we continue to test and iterate the product ahead of the Winter Olympics in February 2014.

The new approach provides the following benefits:

- Speed: It’s much faster at updating content – in some cases halving the time it takes to get the content to the page, and automatically updates across screens

- Control: It makes it easy for users to find and enjoy the content they want around an event in one place

- Consistency: We offer the same great content in a consistent user experience across mobiles, tablet and desktop on a single URL using responsive web technologies

While for the BBC, one of the key benefits of the product is that it has been built in a generic ‘white label’ and modular way that means, in time, we can offer the same experience across different events and genres.

There will be much more to come as we strive to make our event coverage more personal, social and interactive in the run up to the Commonwealth Games.

In delivering this product, we have created a completely new technical architecture to process and publish content, plus a responsive front-end to display the content to users.

We will explain what we have built and how on this blog in the future, but for now please try the Beta today and look out for it in action in the coming weeks.

Audience feedback will, as ever, play a hugely important part in this process so please leave a comment below or fill in the questionnaire here. I would love to hear what you think.

Neil Hall is Executive Product Manager, BBC Sport

I’m Matt Shearer, Innovation Manager in BBC News Labs. BBC News Labs is part of BBC Connected Studio’s pan-BBC innovation and collaboration programme.

Since the #newsHACK event in October, we’ve made some good progress, and in the spirit of open innovation, I’d like to share some updates in two areas with you.

#newsHACK in October this year

1) Collaboration and Open Innovation

We’ve continued to reach out, share innovation tools and collaborate with News organisations and the academic world. Here are a couple of recent events the News Lab team attended.

Mozilla Festival - October 25-27 2013.

We ran a BBC News Labs stand at the Mozilla Festival “Science Fair” to demonstrate and share the News Labs APIs and The Juicer, to talk about Storyline, and to see what was going on in the open source, hacker and maker innovation spaces. Innovators at the Fair in the News space included Data Scientists, engineers from News Organisations, with a general theme of "Story-driven Journalism", and a sense of “what can we get from ambient data”.

Jeremy Tarling explains Storyline at MozFest.

SeedCamp’s "Seedhack" - November 8-10 2013.

Earlier in November we took the News Labs APIs and The Juicer to Seedhack (Seedcamp's Hack event at Google Campus) for competing teams there to use as a source of prototyping content with linked data annotations.

The Juicer API set was 1 of 9 sets brought to the event - others were from Facebook, Google, Getty, Nokia Music, Harper Collins, Imagga, EyeEm, et al.

The Seedhack Winner used BBC News Labs APIs and The Juicer.

The "Best in show" hack "Oppozeit" (pictured below) used the News Labs APIs, and JUICER content to provide the source of content and associated concept tags, and mashed it together with sentiment analysis algorhythms and Getty images to demonstrate opposing views on current News stories side-by-side.

Winning Oppozeit prototype, showing 2 sides of a story based on sentiment analysis.

Another prize winner - William Rood - used the News Labs APIs to show a 3D view of people, connected by frequency of co-occurrence in recent News articles.

People in The Juicer DB, connected by concept co-occurence.

2) Next steps in Story-driven Journalism

We are continuing our focus on the open data model Storyline as a basis for editorially curating News in structured data. You can find out more about Storyline from Jeremy Tarling in this video, and in this Storyline presentation.

Prototyping with Linked Data in the Newsroom

We are exploring internal Newsroom prototypes driven by data from The Juicer (automated concept extraction and linked data annotation) with the News Labs APIs, and using Storyline to tie the content together across the organisation. The aim is to problem space is around helping Jjournalists with content discovery - e.g. “As a journalist working in the Newsroom, I need to see what content we have about David Cameron right now in order to write the best story/update”.

Iterating the open News Curation model “Storyline”.

Led by Jeremy Tarling, we are working with a growing set of News Organisations on the next iteration of the open data model Storyline. Among collaborators are SKY NEWS, The Guardian, FT, PA et al.

#newsHACK II - Spring 2014

We are planning #newsHACK II, for Spring 2014. The focus of the event is likely to be on “The next generation of News Curation”, and we plan to bring the latest News Labs APIs to the event, along with a suite of open data from the BBC and partners. We expect to be making an announcement on date and location during January 2014.

To follow BBC News Labs, you can use these channels:-

BBC News Labs Twitter account

BBC News Labs on You Tube

BBC News Labs on Google+

BBC News Labs on Slideshare

Matt Shearer is Innovation Manager, BBC News Labs

The BBC College of Production (CoP) website is a free online learning resource for the radio, television and online production communities offering videos, podcasts and articles from broadcasting innovators and experts.

As those over a certain age well know, the days of late night learning programmes on TV - all bearded professors in patched corduroy jackets - and radio content for schools have long gone. But where learning institutions remain largely unchanged, content, delivery and user expectations have dramatically moved on.

The internet, freely available content on YouTube, apps, interactive learning tools and communities has changed learning content, but what does that mean for producers?

The internet has changed learning content

With learning now a production industry in itself, new companies are taking it into new territory, perhaps even outpacing what broadcasters can offer. In this College of Production podcast, we discuss how producers can meet these changing requirements and create and distribute learning content which matches much higher expectations.

Our experts discuss online learning environments such as MOOCs (massive open online courses), which can bring the classroom to the individual, meaning that more and more people can access university-standard learning resources.

Add to that massive resources such as OpenLearn and Khan Academy, and with the likes of AudioBoo, iBooks, iTunesU entering the market, opportunities for digital innovation in learning are huge.

Online projects need online project managers, someone who’s comfortable with uncertainty and is dogged in their search for solutions. For technical project manager Onwah Tsang, these are the keys to success when managing complex digital projects. For him, the TPM has the best job in the digital team, working across multiple disciplines, contributing to the design process, technical development, testing and more.

The reality is that often TPMs will be confronted with a problem that has no clear answer and the route to finding it will be just as vague. Onwah shares how, with a bit of creative thinking, investigation, negotiation and ‘borrowing’ technology from other projects, you can find successful solutions to even the most niggling dilemmas.

Handling up to 40,000 tweets per programme and sometimes 2,000 tweets per minute, the small social media team at Question Time have a mammoth task on their hands. Growing from a fledgling hashtag #bbcqt to a Twitter feed with massive global reach, social media activity has transformed conversations on the show.

A tweet about Question Time will appear on about 100 million Twitter feeds each week. When Russell Brand or Boris Johnson are on, at its peak there can be over 2,000 tweets a minute. Everything is handled by one producer, and apps like Tweetdeck, Twitterfall and Second Sync help monitor and analyse everything quickly and accurately.

A tweet about Question Time will appear on about 100 million Twitter feeds each week

It’s a revealing insight into how social media can engage and inspire, and a subject we look at in more detail in this video. As social media producer Barry Pilling explains, “There is no better promotional tool than word of mouth, and social media gives you that on a global scale.”

Denise Roach is a Content Producer at the BBC College of Production

As Doctor Who celebrates 50 years, go behind the lens on the year’s most anticipated television drama. Plus this week you can catch up with the BBC Introducing festival, celebrating the top music acts of tomorrow. Sports fans can tune in to rugby action and watch highlights from the Brazil Grand Prix.

Doctor Who: Behind The Lens

Doctor Who: Behind the Lens

Voiced by the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, catch up with old friends and meet some new ones. It’s a rollercoaster ride and a time to celebrate. Features Matt Smith, David Tennant and Jenna Coleman with Billie Piper and John Hurt, as well as lead writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, discussing their 50th Anniversary experiences.

Sat 23 Nov, 9:05pm-10:05pm
Sun 24 Nov, 3pm-3:55pm
Sun 24 Nov, 8:30pm-9:25pm
Wed 27 Nov, 6pm-10pm
Thu 28 Nov, 6pm-7:55pm
Fri 29 Nov, 6pm-7pm

All details correct at the time of publication

The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot

A star studded special written and directed by Peter Davison. With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who about to film, the 'Classic' Doctors are keen to be involved. But do they manage it?

Sat 23 Nov, 10:05pm-12:40am
Sun 24 Nov, 9:25pm-10:35pm

All details correct at the time of publication

Doctor Who: Mini Episode

This 50th Anniversary features three Doctors - Matt Smith, David Tennant and the mysterious incarnation played by John Hurt. But only one of them will appear in The Night Of The Doctor. But which one?

Sat 23 Nov, 6am-12:15pm, 1pm-2:30pm, 6pm-7:45pm

All details correct at the time of publication

BBC Introducing Festival highlights

This year has been a massive one for BBC Introducing, putting over 100 artists on our festival stages across the UK and beyond. In this programme, Huw Stephens brings a small selection of highlights from 2013 including George Ezra, Moko and Lauren Aquilina, all tipped for future stardom. With live music recorded at Glastonbury, Reading Festival and in Nashville, Tennessee, this is a must watch for music lovers and those looking for a new name to drop to impress your friends.

Mon 25 Nov, 1pm-7pm
Tue 26 Nov, 4pm-6am
Wed 27 Nov, 6am-2:40pm, 5pm-6pm, 10pm-6am
Thu 28 Nov, 6am-6pm
Fri 29 Nov, 12am-6pm
Sat 30 Nov, 4am-6am

BBC Four's Blues Season

Looking for something to wash away the week's cares? Catch up with highlights from BBC Four’s Blues Collection on the Red Button - what could be better on a Friday night? The full collection is available at bbc.co.uk/bbcfour.

Fri 29 Nov, 9pm-4am

This week's sport highlights

There's a selection of action-packed sports on the Red Button this weekend with Rugby Union and coverage from the Brazil F1 Grand Prix. For a full list and times of sport coverage on Red Button see the BBC Sport website.

Please note times are subject to change. 

Keep up with all the latest news by following us on Twitter  @BBCRedButton

 

Lord Birt paid an informal visit to BBC Future Media yesterday. Here he is with the current Director of Future Media, Ralph Rivera at an internal staff event.

Lord Birt and Ralph Rivera in conversation in the Ada Lovelace room

If you're in any doubt as to Lord Birt's importance in the history of BBC Online, read this lengthy article from The Register published last year.

It includes this quote from Lord Birt:

“The BBC is a delightfully creative organisation: whether it's well managed or badly managed, these people will express themselves,”... “People were broadly alert to the internet. But they can't coalesce, so to speak, unless the management stands behind it and invests in it.

“We didn't act perfectly on every insight we had – but the news demo was the critical moment – I knew this is going to be an important public service medium, and it has to be funded by the licence fee, and it's going to be very successful. And we've got to be there, and be pioneers.”

Nick Reynolds is Editor, BBC Internet blog

 

Hi, I'm Mala Vadhia, a Senior User Experience Designer in BBC Future Media.

The BBC Weather app was launched back in June (user experience led by my colleague Stephen Robertson). Since then we've heard from many users about the need for landscape rotation across all Android devices and the desire for a tablet app on iOS (as product manager James Metcalfe last week).

We currently support 438 different screen resolutions on over 1000 Android devices. The key challenge here was to produce a design that scales, rather than bespoke solutions for both iPhone and iPad.

As well as scaling elements of the design we introduce features based on the screen size of the device. For example, for screen heights as small as 320 dips (density-independent pixels) we don't have the height to reveal the five day forecast information within the navigation tabs (or the hourly temperature curve). We reintroduce the five day forecast within the navigation for screen heights 360 dips and above, and the temperature curve for screen heights 380 dips and above. Similarly, for screens that are narrow in landscape orientation, such as devices 433 dips wide, we don’t show the column with environmental information, sunrise and sunset.

Android app on screen heights as small as 320 dips high and QVGA devices 433 dips wide

We aimed to keep a tight relationship between the elements that make up the five day forecast, the daily overview on the home screen and the temperature curve on the hourly forecast. The vertical space in between these areas increases as the app scales, allowing the designs to breathe.

Android vertical stretch points

By focusing on one design that scales we have been able to build on the existing Android app more quickly, while keeping a consistent user experience across all devices.

BBC Weather App on the Nexus 10, 7 and 5

The major difference in the iOS app is that we have exposed the hourly forecast data in both portrait and landscape orientation. The stats confirmed that this is the most commonly used feature by our users.

Most commonly used features on the iOS BBC Weather app

With extra horizontal space on larger iOS devices we had the room to expose the temperature curve which visualises how the weather will develop over a day. For example, if you are likely to get caught out by a rain shower or if the day will become warmer.

We made a couple of smaller enhancements too. The sunrise/sunset time is in a more prominent position following user feedback, and we’ve strengthened the relationship between the refresh icon and the location by bringing them closer together.

BBC Weather app in portrait on iPhone & iPad Mini and in landscape on iPad

Both apps remain optimised for their respective platforms and use bold typography to create strong hierarchies and highlight key information.

On Android, we're using the font Roboto - the bold weight is a little condensed compared with Helvetica bold so it works well for small screens and long location names.

With this update we've taken the opportunity to freshen up the look and feel of the app. We improved the ambient transitions for daytime and added two new ambiances for light rain and heavy rain showers. We also introduced nighttime ambiences for all weather types.

Day and night weather ambiences

We’re now using simple, semi-transparent white blocks on top of the ambiences which let the weather show through (for example behind the five day forecast). We stripped back the use of gradients, creating what we feel is a cleaner design.

I'm always keen to hear your feedback so please leave a comment below.

Mala Vadhia is a Senior User Experience Designer, BBC Future Media

BBC Weather App across various locations

In his speech last month outlining his view of the BBC's future, Director General Tony Hall said:

"At the moment we treat audiences like licence fee payers. We should be treating them like owners. That’s what I meant when I said that we wouldn’t be THE BBC, but My BBC, Our BBC? The public owns us and that is what it needs to feel like."

Which seems like a good cue for another in our occasional series of open posts.

We're open!

The purpose of an open post is to give you the opportunity to make a comment, ask a question or have a conversation about any aspect of the work of BBC Future Media or BBC Online.

As always in an open post, the ground rules are:

1. Comments need to abide by the BBC’s House Rules. Keep the conversation civil please

2. If you want to make a specific complaint about the BBC use the Complaints website

3. This open post is about the work of BBC Online – if you want to have a general discussion about the BBC, try the Points of View message board. Information about the BBC can also be found on the About The BBC blog and the BBC News Editors blog.

I can’t promise to answer every question or comment but I’ll host and do my best.

The post will be open for comments for a month.

Thanks

Nick Reynolds is Editor, BBC Internet blog

Five weeks ago we launched a beta version of BBC Playlister, our new online music product, and I’m pleased to say that we have now removed the beta label and have released the first full stage of Playlister. There are two main changes that we have introduced since the beta launch: presenter playlists, and integration with our native BBC iPlayer Radio app.

At the heart of BBC Playlister is the ambition to transition the BBC’s music curation from being a purely broadcast offering to a fully digital proposition. This means music recommendations from our trusted guides, our music experts, delivered in a way that’s appropriate for the digital age. Our new feature, Presenter Playlists, aim to do just that: allowing well-known names from the BBC to actively curate a selection of music choices that the user can sample and add to their own playlist.

We also allow you to “follow” a presenter which means we can present a more personalised experience when you visit Playlister. So far we have 12 presenters involved, and we aim to increase this number over the coming months, to cover a wider range of music and tastes. Today we have presenters from Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, and Radio 6Music.

Presenter playlists

The second major change is that we have integrated BBC Playlister functionality into our BBC iPlayer Radio native applications for iOS and Android. Now you can add any piece of music from a live or on-demand stream directly to your personal playlist from within the app. You can also view your playlist and export to two of our partners, You Tube and Deezer, and we’re working to bring this functionality to Spotify users soon.

This is the first time we have enabled log-in to BBC iD from within a native app. Today we are using a web view to do this, but in future we’re looking at alternative ways to allow even better integration between a native app and your BBC iD account. The advantage with this is that we are now on track to start making the app more personalised, and allowing that personalisation to work across devices. So, for example, if you add tracks via your mobile phone using the app, you can then view, explore and export those music tracks via your laptop or desktop later.

We’re watching how people are using BBC Playlister so we can learn how to improve the product. One interesting thing we’ve seen is how certain TV programmes use music which seems to capture lots of interest. Peaky Blinders  on BBC 2 was one such programme, where distinctive music was used, and many people added tracks from that progamme to their playlist. Another is that our Most Popular view is being viewed far more than our Recently Played view. We’re also seeing many more desktop users than mobile up to now, but we think that may change now that Playlister is part of our iPlayer Radio app.

We’ve seen alot of positive comments about BBC Playlister, particularly on Twitter. With on-air promotion starting this week on Radio 1, 1Xtra and Radio 6 Music, we hope to receive much more feedback via our Feedback email address , via Twitter, or please leave a comment below.

Chris Kimber is Executive Product Manager, Radio & Music, BBC Future Media

This week the BBC Red Button is packed with music, magic and mystery, from special content for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary and a BBC Children in Need Rocks Encore to an exclusive children's offering with CBBC Extra Behind the Scenes.

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary

doctor-who_day-of-the-doctor_1113_e_em_will-carrodus.jpg

Be a part of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary extravaganza and experience exclusive content on the Red Button. Coverage includes a special mini episode of Doctor Who written by Steven Moffat and music from the Doctor Who Prom.

Doctor Who Prom
Thu 21 Nov, 8:10pm-10:00pm

The Night of the Doctor
Sat 16 Nov, 7.30pm-9.55pm, 10.30pm-11.45pm
Sun 17 Nov, 6pm-9.55pm
Mon 18 Nov, 7pm-10.30pm
Tue 19 Nov, 7.30pm-6am
Wed 20 Nov, 6am-11.15am, 7.30pm-6am
Thurs 21 Nov, 6am-7.00am, 5.30pm-8.10pm, 8.10pm-10pm, 10pm-6am
Fri 22 Nov, 6am-7am, 7.30pm-6am
Sat 23 Nov, 6am-2.30pm, 6.00pm-7.45pm, 7.45pm-9.05pm, 9.05pm-12.30am

BBC Children in Need Rocks 2013 – Encore

Watch Gary Barlow's star-studded concert with Children in Need Rocks Encore, featuring a galaxy of music stars including Robbie Williams, Dizzee Rascal, Ellie Goulding, Rizzle Kicks and Barry Manilow. Red Button viewers can also enjoy a round-up of the best performances, as well as exclusive bonus tracks.

Sat 16 Nov, 6am-7am

CBBC Extra Behind the Scenes Special

CBBC Extra goes behind the scenes on the biggest CBBC programmes this autumn to bring you some exclusive access. Dodge makes a special appearance on Junior Bake Off and causes Mary Berry and James Martin all sorts of trouble, Katie takes a look at what life is like on location for the Hero Squad cadets and Chris visits the set of Wizards vs Aliens. For more from the CBBC office just press red.

Sat 16 Nov, 7am-7pm
Sun 17 Nov, 7am-12pm
Mon 18 Nov, 7am-11am, 3pm-7pm
Tue 19 Nov, 7am-11am, 1pm-7.30pm
Wed 20 Nov, 11.15am-7.30pm
Thurs 21 Nov, 7am-5.30pm
Fri 22 Nov, 7am-11.50am, 1.35pm-7.30pm

Countdown to the Rains

Join Kate Humble and Simon King from their oasis camp for highlights of Africa 2013: Countdown to the Rains. The duo will answer viewers' questions and talk to experts about the impact of the drought, discovering which animals thrive and which struggle to survive. Kate also learns about the camera techniques used to capture the amazing footage featured in the programme.

Sun 17 Nov, 9.55pm-12.25am
Tue 19 Nov, 1.45am-4am

Details correct at the time of publication

This week's sport highlights

There's a selection of action-packed sports on the Red Button this weekend with Rugby League World Cup quarter final build-up and coverage from the USA F1 Grand Prix. For a full list and times of sport coverage on Red Button see the BBC Sport website.

Please note times are subject to change. 

Keep up with all the latest news by following us on Twitter  @BBCRedButton