The Pixel Experience

Due to the ‘unique way that the BBC is funded’ us Brits have long enjoyed a broadcasting institution that has easily rivaled any other in the world. We have benefited from a well funded R&D lab bringing all sorts of technical innovations, fantastic original programming and some truly amazing presenters such as David Attenbourgh and Michael Parkinson. Whilst the grumpy old man in me struggles to come to terms with the gradual demise of these departments, there is one thing really bugs me.

My lack of trust for old Auntie. I’m not talking about the horrific phone-in scandals on Blue Peter, but the News department. How hard is it to present the days local and international events in a truthful and un-biased way?

This has been happening for some time now, and I’ve largely been able to dismiss it on the grounds that the Beeb is going down the pan, and there’s nothing I can do about it anyway. However, over the last couple of days there have been two news stories that really demonstrate the amateurish and misleading way that our license fees are being spent. Neither of which would have cost any extra money to put right! I’m talking about pure bad journalism that should never have been broadcast.

Firstly, when quoting figures in a story, it’s not good enough to simply quote an integer without explaining which units these are in. I’m referring to an article broadcast yesterday (although it could have been the day before) when a news reader was trying to demonstrate the slowdown in house sales. So when referring to London he/she said that there was an increase of 4 and in some other areas a decrease of 38. Now I’m a bright chap, I can get me head around the basics of quantum computing and the solution to Fermat’s last theorem but an increase of 4 means nothing to me without telling me what units they are referring to - are these percentages, individual property sales, or something else. And to think that all the editor had to do was include the units for these figures!

Secondly, yesterday there was a manipulation of footage used in a story about quintuplets born to a Russian woman. Although the footage distributed by an Oxford hospital contained no audio, the babies had respirators over their mouths, and other news services like ITV and Sky broadcast the clips without modification, the BBC felt that the footage would somehow be enhanced by falsely adding the sounds of babies crying. Now I know that links between todays society and the Big Brother of Orwells 1984 are being identified more and more, and that some of these links are quite unfair, but as I remember Winston Smith’s job at the ministry of truth was to manipulate news and history, thereby falsifying it.

Is this really a route that the BBC wants to continue down?

A few weeks ago Radiohead released their seventh studio album as a ‘pay what you want’ digital download. Since their completion of their six album deal with EMI, us Radiohead fans have had to wait longer than any other album release for this one, but it worth the wait. Despite not being able to secure a label through which to release the CD, the band decided to release the digital download version on their own. A music sales revolution, possibly, but do I embrace it? No.

Actually thats a lie, I pre-ordered my copy for £0.00, and enjoyed a great album without offering any of my hard earned cash to the band. I was waiting for the CD release before I was prepared to get my wallet out and you can forget the overpriced vinyl/CD box set at £40. The thing is that despite having a significant hearing loss, I have recently started to discover the difference in quality between MP3s and CDs, and I don’t like it. My entire music collection fits on my iPod, most of which is at 192 kps, and I’m having to re-rip my favorite albums to 320 kbs (the treshold at which I can’t tell the difference between the lossless CD and the compressed MP3, try listening to the opening of Money by Pink Floyd and you’ll know what I mean), so that I can continue to enjoy them. Lucky for me I have CDs of nearly all my music, so the only problem is the huge amount of time it takes to do rip them, but considering the trend in the music industry I suspect the CD won’t live forever, and then I’ll have a problem. The only thing that could save this would be improved technical specs of computers, the internet and iPods so that the sole digital distribution is at a lossless or nearly lossless format. Of course I will miss the artwork and ownership of the material object being bought, but were a consumer society and as such are damaging the planet and need to stop, so that can’t be all bad.

It’s with joy that I read here, the ‘In Rainbows’ CD release has been confirmed, and you can bet I’ll one of the first in queue to replace the low quality MP3s that the band gave me with a CD I can really enjoy.