Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

heise.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 92 posts

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#61

Post by PurpleRamen »

TomK32 wrote: post #46
_tk_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you vote for fascists - whose lead candidates seem to be spying for Russia and China - because of a 17€ license fee per month, then you should reevaluate your perspective on the public broadcasting system and on money.

It's 18,36€ per month, not 17. If you don't want people who don't care for TV or Radio (they do exist) to vote for AfD then you shouldn't have introduced a Rundfunkbeitrag that's very unpopular with many more. Scandals about money being badly spent just adds to the distrust and lack of interest people have in ARD, ZDF etc.

German TV Fee is significant older than AFD. Even the latest reform is older than AFD.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#62

Post by franga2000 »

trueismywork wrote: post #38
qwertox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were a tax, couldn't the collected money be used for anything the government sees fit, like fixing potholes?

Thats a distinction that only exists in German laws. And therefore in German language. That is not a distinction in other languages.

A specific "tax" just for TV/radio exists in many European countries, definitely not just Germany. And in general, there are many tax-like things out there where it's mandatory to pay them in specific circumstances and they go to a specific use.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#63

Post by hoc »

To understand the quality level of their current platforms: they actually manage to recommend the same stream you just watched as the next auto-play entry and even might jump directly into the credits again, giving you a 10 to 20 seconds loop in extreme cases.

While a two-stream recommendation loop is quite common in both systems, the loop above only happened twice for me so far. Still, it might just perfectly highlight the lack of passion and user focus plaguing their current platforms.

So, whatever they come up with in the new and maybe open one... ah, who am I kidding.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#64

Post by jupp0r »

blueflow wrote: post #17
drewmcarthur wrote: post #3

public means public, if something is paid for by tax money, it should be licensed for public use

I was about to call that the Rundfunkbeitrag is not legally a tax (Steuer), but a tax (Beitrag). For some reason that difference does not seem to exist in English and it translates to the same word??

It doesn't exist because the distinction is meaningless. The government forcing you to pay money to a government (adjacent) institution is a tax for all practical purposes.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#65

Post by jupp0r »

TomK32 wrote: post #49
_tk_ wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, not making archived content available longer is due to the legal obligations that the public broadcasters face and that the German Government and the governments of the federal states themselves have put in place because of anti-competitive fear mongering.

I wouldn't call it "anti-competitive fear mongering" when one player in the market can rely on a virtually guaranteed income (you'd have to be homeless to avoid the Rundfunktbeitrag) while newspapers, private TV and radio have to fight for survival. ARD and ZDF buying and thus supporting the insane amounts that some sport events cost in license fees doesn't do FIFA and IOC any good as scandals of recent years have sh…

Are you saying that the German legislature cannot change the law?

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#66

Post by guerrilla »

trueismywork wrote: post #38
qwertox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it were a tax, couldn't the collected money be used for anything the government sees fit, like fixing potholes?

Thats a distinction that only exists in German laws. And therefore in German language. That is not a distinction in other languages.

Nah, this is a thing in Sweden too.

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#67

Post by luoc »

jupp0r wrote: post #64
blueflow wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to call that the Rundfunkbeitrag is not legally a tax (Steuer), but a tax (Beitrag). For some reason that difference does not seem to exist in English and it translates to the same word??

It doesn't exist because the distinction is meaningless. The government forcing you to pay money to a government (adjacent) institution is a tax for all practical purposes.

But there's a difference:

A Beitrag is bound to a well defined objective which means it is determined what the money will be used for at the moment it is collected whereas a Steuer contributes to the household as such.

Also, public TV is not controlled by the government but by a council that is more or less democratic. Still far from perfect, sure

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#68

Post by ancorevard »

aeyes wrote: post #16

Why was the original title changed? They aren't open sourcing anything today. They are planning to develop new tech which they might open source. But all this still has to be approved by the regulator and the government. That said, I have seen some of the tech from the inside ~10 years ago. The ARD player was developed by a third party and there was no budget to bring this in house. Things might have changed but redo…

[flagged]

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#69

Post by deeth_starr_v »

biosboiii wrote: post #54

The current streaming service is shit. If you stream via Chromecast, you can see your connection getting dropped by adaptive bitrate streaming in realtime. It's always low quality, medium quality, high quality, ultra high quality, lag, then low quality again. You cannot change it to a fixed level manually too, on the Chromecast.

The Hulu app does this on LG TV also. Public and private sectors are the same sometimes

Re: German public broadcasters open source their streaming platforms

#70

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

ancorevard wrote: post #68
aeyes wrote: post #16

Why was the original title changed? They aren't open sourcing anything today. They are planning to develop new tech which they might open source. But all this still has to be approved by the regulator and the government. That said, I have seen some of the tech from the inside ~10 years ago. The ARD player was developed by a third party and there was no budget to bring this in house. Things might have changed but redo…

[flagged]

Sigh. I know that dunking on the EU is increasingly a HN meme because most of you lot work for companies that feel threatened by governments with teeth, but “governments waste money!!!” in as much as it is an accurate stereotype is not localised to the EU by any means.
Post reply on HN