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Trial for Project Kangaroo to start in January
Tuesday 18 November 2008 12:19:26 by Andrew Ferguson

The Guardian has some detail on a time line for Project Kangaroo that may see it launch in March 2009. To meet this deadline it is expected that a closed trial would start in January 2009.

Project Kangaroo is set to take over with providing video on demand content for ITV, BBC and Channel 4 once it has dropped off of their free catch-up services. The catch-up services have proved popular due to being free and the ability to watch shows that you forgot to otherwise record, or was lost due to a PVR crashing.

How popular a paid for service will be remains to be shown, it has competition in the form of DVD box-sets and the various DVD/Blu-Ray rental services.

[ Topic: Content | 18 comments | link to this item ]

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Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
quote"How popular a paid for service will be remains to be shown"
I personally wont be paying for it, why would i want to pay for content i pay a license fee for already, can catch up sometimes upto 30 days after i missed a programme free online and even do the old fashioned thing... record it on the tele. half the stuff ITV2,3 and 4 show is repeats of what was on ITV also a day or so ago.

Posted by c_j_ about 1 year ago
You don't seriously believe the catchup will *stay* free once they've found a way of "monetising" it?

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
If a price creep occurs, then it will require approvals, Kangaroo is up before competition commission already.

Posted by c_j_ about 1 year ago
"If a price creep occurs, then it will require approvals"

Maybe so, but based on the traditional "light touch" at Ofcon and elsewhere, there'll be a lot of very surprised people if any worthwhile regulatory intervention occurs.

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
quote"You don't seriously believe the catchup will *stay* free once they've found a way of "monetising" it?"

No i dont c_j_ and the reason they will get away charging for stuff we pay a license fee for already is because some people are stupid enough to pay it :(
Also agree with you about ofcom and so called regulators in this country of any type of broadcasting, all gutless wonders that let far too many get away with robbing people.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
So DVD's that are produced by BBC should be free on that basis?

Posted by CaptainW about 1 year ago
If this is still under review by Ofcom, then why are Kangaroo able to even talk about a trial? Surely, they should be treated the same way Sky were with Picnic??

One rule for one....ho hum:(

Posted by c_j_ about 1 year ago
"So DVD's that are produced by BBC should be free on that basis?"

Some are occasionally (eg newspaper giveaways), but is anybody seriously suggesting that as a general policy ?

"DVDs produced by the BBC" (and no one else) are as rare as rocking horse poo anyway. There may be plenty DVDs of stuff first shown on the BBC, but by the time they get to DVD, even if the BBC didn't want money, lots of middlemen, "rights owners", etc, would still want their cut. Till the time comes for the DVD to be given away "free" with the papers :)

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
It is these same 'middlemen' who want their cut from it being offered online, and its the Competition Commission not Ofcom doing the review.

Competition, because of concern that it may harm ongoing sales of DVD boxsets.

When I said BBC, I strictly meant http://www.bbcworldwide.com/ who do the various DVD of BBC content. BBC Worldwide is the commerical arm of the BBC. So the sales are used to keep licence fee down.

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
quote"So DVD's that are produced by BBC should be free on that basis?"

You know as well as i do that DVDs are higher quality than web stream content, they also have manufacturing costs, contain extra features and lots more which a web stream does not.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
While a web stream may not have the extra's and a lower bit rate it does not get onto the internet for free, time to encode it, server bandwidth etc etc

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
quote"While a web stream may not have the extra's and a lower bit rate it does not get onto the internet for free, time to encode it, server bandwidth etc etc"
DV which is what i assume most stuff is filmed in nowadays to mpeg or wmv is a quick process as you are going from a lossless format to lossy, a 30 min programme in DV to mpeg even on a non dual core computer should convert inside 15 mins... Yes i agree placing content on the web has costs involved but nowhere near the costs of dvds along with their advertising, production plant, raw materials and much more. CONT

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
In fact in the soon to be future conversion time wont even be a factor as they wont have to compress video down to only a few hundred Kb per second, and should in theory with the development of internet speeds be able to use the original unmolested source. Yes cost for the bandwidth will still be there, but again it wont be nowhere near the cost of producing thousands if not millions of DVDs.

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
Youtube dont charge people to upload or watch content and they hold just a bit more content on a server at any given time than services like this will... They seem to manage costs just fine. Obviously there is money involved but to suggest shoving some 30min grainy video on the internet cost the same as mass DVD production or even compares to it is unrealistic.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) about 1 year ago
So you can see the time when 1.6Gbps uni cast is possible? Which country is doing that...now look ahead to 2k

You are the one going about costs being the same as DVD production, I merely pointed out that there are costs with internet distribution, some sites offset this from advertising revenue, or by burning capital investment until such time as someone bigger buys them.

Posted by mishminx about 1 year ago
Doesn't the channel 4 online service already have chargeable content of a similar fashion. Catchup is free but beyond that you are expected to pay. As surely anything above and beyond the initial free catchup would be a premium product.

Some online newspapers also charge for archive material. Whereas the current edition is free online.

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
quote"You are the one going about costs being the same as DVD production"
I said DVD production costs more not the same.
quote"I merely pointed out that there are costs with internet distribution, some sites offset this from advertising revenue, or by burning capital investment until such time as someone bigger buys them."
And i agreed there are costs to upload and provide video content, those costs are not the same as mass dvd production though and as you point out advertising normally in the form of banners or pop ups etc pays for alot of online content.

Posted by CARPETBURN about 1 year ago
If adverts, popups, banners etc pay for the bandwidth and programme content, then why do we need to?