A powerpoint showcasing and explaining some of the BBC technologies.

1. Technologies - Introduction
The BBC is the world’s largest broadcaster. As such, it sits at the sharp end of the technological revolution
upturning the industry in which analogue, sector specific tools are converging with digital, standardized,
commodity and Internet-based technology. In many ways, the BBC has led that revolution. The corporation’s
iPlayer service – which allows users to consume BBC content over the web – set the pace for the industry as it
wrestled with the move to online video, but the corporation has also struggled with technology deployments at
times. Its 10 year, £1.5 billion engagement with strategic technology partner Siemens has drawn criticism from
the Public Accounts Committee in the past.
Although the partnership has met the overwhelming majority of its performance targets since, in December 2009
the BBC revealed that it was to move the Digital Media Initiative, an £80 million project to digitize its archive,
back in house after Siemens failed to deliver the expected progress. That decision has been credited to John
Linwood, a veteran of Microsoft and Yahoo! who was brought in as chief technology officer back in February
2009. His job is to spearhead the corporation’s technology direction, and to reform the company’s outsourcing
and supplier management practices. At the beginning of 2016, the BBC produced a strategy document, outlining
the core principals it plans to uphold in its technology deployments and supplier engagements. Linwood spoke to
Information Age on the eve of the strategy document’s release, explaining the purpose of publishing such a
document, what it hopes it will achieve and how technology will shape the corporation's future.

2. Technologies
BBC – Ceefax
Launched in 1974, Ceefax was the world's first teletext service, a proto-internet delivering text and graphics to
British televisions. When normal programmes finished at the end of every day pages from Ceefax would carry on
scrolling, keeping insomniacs and night workers company through the wee hours. Its cheesy synthesized music
is arguably as iconic a sound of its time as the squeal of a dial-up modem was to the 1990s.
Ceefax was first developed by the BBC as a way to transmit subtitles using unused parts of the broadcast
spectrum, but researchers at the broadcaster realized that the same technology could just as easily handle full
pages of text. That led to the first test transmissions in 1974, with a formal rollout in 1976. Early television sets
needed a special chip to be able to receive and store the information as it was broadcast, what was iconic about
it was the fact that in order for a page to refresh the viewer had to watch the ticker at the top right which slowly
crept upwards as each page was rebroadcasted with new information.
Wired's July issue reported on the world's first teletext art competition, held by Finnish art collective FixC, the
winning entries were displayed on German teletext services in August. The UK's move away from teletext
services is a bit faster than what's happening in continental Europe, where teletext remains more common.
You can still get continually updated information from the BBC on the red button, but it really isn't the same.

3. Technologies
BBC - Podcasts
The BBC officially launched its podcast service allowing people to download its radio shows in 2007. Since then
The Archers’ daily podcast has been downloaded 35 million times, making it a firm favorite amongst those who
want listen to the show later or again on their own MP3 player or computer. The BBC has 320 radio programs
available via podcast, including news programs, documentaries and classics, like Desert Island Discs.

4. Technologies
BBC - iPlayer
BBC iPlayer is an online service which allows you to play TV and radio programmes from the past week. It's
often referred to as an 'on-demand' or 'catch-up' service. Many other channels offer a similar catch-up service to
iPlayer. These services include ITV Player, 4oD Player (Channel 4) and Demand 5 (Five). iPlayer is available on
various internet-enabled devices. BBC iPlayer left beta and went live on 25 December 2007. on 25 June 2008, a
new-look iPlayer was lunched, originally as a beta-test version alongside the earlier version.
The original iPlayer service was launched undergoing a five month long trial of five thousand broadband users.
The iPlayer came under criticism for the delay in launch, rebranding and cost to BBC license-fee payers, as no
finished product had been released after four years of development. A new, improved BBC iPlayer service then
had another very limited user trial. The iPlayer received the approval of the BBC Trust and an open beta for
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 was launched, where it was announced that only a fixed number of
people would be able to sign up for the service, with a controlled increase in users over the summer.
There are lots of sites on the internet that show how iPlayer abroad can be paid and watched. However while it is
possible to watch iPlayer abroad for free it is not actually shown how. As there is no charge for this service, a
survey needs to be completed, which can be chosen, before getting access to BBC iPlayer. The surveys are all
different, and many of them give free products.

5. Technologies
BBC3 – Online Only
It is not surprising to learn today the BBC Trust has approved the online-only move. It claims to be on the side of
the viewer, but has ignored viewers throughout this lengthy and costly process. Some will argue this was a done
deal from the start with the BBC Trust chair expressing support for the move before consultation begun. Even
the BBC admits in reports there was “very little appetite” for these plans, but they pressed ahead.
Even the BBC executives who proposed the closure of BBC3 as a channel accept it is a decision they would
rather not have made. When then director of television Danny Cohen first mooted the plan more than a year ago,
he did so with a heavy heart, knowing that it would be unpopular with viewers, that a move online was happening
sooner than he would have liked, but that the BBC had no choice. It needed to save money and the £30m from
the closure was essentially low-hanging fruit ripe for plucking.
There is a sizeable constituency of young viewers who only consume BBC television through BBC3 and have
enjoyed a range of programs including Professor Green’s examination of male suicide, the Bafta-winning Our
War series which looked at the experience of soldiers in Afghanistan and hit dramas and comedies like In the
Flesh and Bluestone 42. These are people who simply do not watch BBC1, BBC2 or BBC4.
“BBC3 is not closing, we are reinventing online,” says its controller Damian Kavanagh. ”We will not be a
scheduled 7pm to 4am linear broadcast TV channel but we will be everywhere else giving you the freedom to
choose what to watch when you want."

6. Technologies
1-Player 3D TV
All 3D displays work by showing each eye a slightly different image, which creates the illusion that you're seeing
something from more than one angle. For example, the classic red-and-blue "anaglyph" 3D glasses achieved
this effect by using the colored lenses to filter red light to one eye and blue light to the other.
Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC’s head of 3D who has been overseeing a two-year pilot project, said in an interview that
the technology has flopped with the British public and said that the Corporation will take a three-year break from
developing 3D programming once the trial ends at the end of this year.
An estimated 1.5 million UK households now own 3D enabled televisions, but only half of those watched the
BBC’s 3D coverage of the Olympics Opening Ceremony. Last Christmas’ broadcasts of Mr. Stink and the
Queen’s Speech drew the attention of less than 5 per cent of potential viewers, it has emerged.
Shillinglaw said that the project, which has included multi-million pound co-productions with Sony, failed to take
off because viewers found the experience more chaotic than it was worth. She said she had “never seen a very
big appetite for 3D television in the UK. Watching 3D is quite a hassle experience in the home. You have got to
find your glasses before switching on the TV. I think when people watch TV they concentrate in a different way.
When people go to the cinema they go and are used to doing one thing – I think that’s one of the reasons that
take up of 3D TV has been disappointing.”

7. Technologies
BBC – Robotic Cameras
The robotic camera systems in BBC’s New Broadcasting House are used in the news room, the studios and the
virtual reality studios. They’re ideal for productions where the same smooth shot or movement needs to be
repeated daily or hourly within the same program.
Although called robotic camera systems, they’re actually just ordinary broadcast cameras fixed to robotic heads
and pedestals. The system remotely controls the pan, tilt, zoom, focus and movement of the camera.
The BBC uses two types of pedestal: Furios, which are fixed to a dolly and run on tracks, limiting their movement
to side-to-side, and Shotokus, which are mounted on three wheels and can move freely across the floor. They
can either be pre-programmed or controlled directly by a person.
The operator uses a control unit – either from the studio or the gallery. It sends commands to a computer, which
in turn sends the commands to the units on the studio floor. Each robotic head is given its own IP address that
the computer communicates with.
"Without robotic cameras, we wouldn’t get the distinctive sweeps and fast moves we’ve come to expect during
the news"

8. Technologies
BBC – Red Button
Red Button or Red button+ (previously known as Connected Red Button) is a new service from the BBC that
brings TV, Online and BBC iPlayer together on your TV, all in the simplest way possible. It means you can enjoy
a world of extra programmes and features without having to leave whatever you’re watching.
At the beginning of the 2015 BBC nearly closed down the Red Button service as part of £150m of cuts that
include a £35m reduction in sports rights spending. The announcement that in the first £150m of cuts a "phased
exit" from red button services was being considered makes sense if you thought the BBC will increasingly be
accessed online via the iPlayer.
The red button, for instance, took on what remains of the old teletext service, Ceefax, and offers extra channels
for events such as Wimbledon, the Proms and Glastonbury. It looks a bit old fashioned. The BBC is rolling out its
Red Button+, which gives people a chance to see the iPlayer on the big screen and a number of other internet
services. The direction of travel is assumed to be towards an online system. The problem is sport, weather,
headlines, alternative commentaries and repeats of popular programs on the old red button services are still
used by large numbers of people.