Having been the least patient Radio New Zealand website visitor, now that it’s here I have to say it looks like it might have been worth the wait.
While I haven’t spent a great deal digging through it as yet – I received the email alerting me to its presence just 6 minutes ago (thanks, Hugh) – credit where credit’s due… Richard Hulse and the crew seem to have done a magnificent job. It looks good, the navigation is intuitive, the consideration of accessibility in the design is impeccable, the directory structure and naming conventions are entirely sensible and, happily, there is even a link on the front page that reads ‘RSS‘.
I’m sure I’ll have complaints. I’m a grumpy sod when it comes to this sort of thing. Two things that immediately spring to mind are the Windows Media only restriction for audio (which brings with it that “Firefox bug” problem I mentioned earlier)
UPDATE: You can change to a lower quality streaming mp3 (actually a .pls file) if you’re irrationally biased against proprietary DRM-crippled formats. Just go to the audio preferences page to make the switch.
– and this little line on the RSS page:
These feeds are updated each hour if there is new material. If you poll these files more often we reserve the right to ban your IP address for accessing them.
…which just seems a bit unnecessarily harsh. I don’t know how often my RSS aggregator goes and fetches headlines. I’d hope it was more often than once an hour.
UPDATE: The webmaster has now agreed that this was kind of harsh and has removed it. Bonus points for the RNZ team.
But for now, let my assessment of the site simply reflect the pleasure of having my expectations exceeded. Well done.
Dubber,
What a dramatic improvement. I am overwhelmed.
…irrationally biased against proprietary DRM-crippled formats.
You mean like you? ;-)
Who really cares as as long as you can listen. And I note that they have not enabled DRM on their audio anyway..
It is kinda cool that the links on the site do not change when you change audio formats. I wonder how they do that?
cheers,
Dave
> Who really cares as as long as you can listen.
Some people care about quality and ease I guess.
A brief conversation with Richard Hulse (RNZ’s webmeister) reveals that the reason they’ve gone with .pls streams rather than mp3 downloads were twofold:
1) The content management system they’re using can automagically make a streaming mp3 and a streaming wma without duplication of effort. Hence the links not changing when you switch audio formats. I’ve asked what the CMS they’re using is… or whether it’s a bespoke system. I’ll let you know…
2) They’re keeping an eye on bandwidth before they make a decision about downloadable mp3s and improved quality. I’d have gone the other way: put it all up in multiple formats and quality levels – and then make adjustments as the figures start to come in. Still… I do get it.
I’ve promised (at his request) to leave him alone about podcasting for a while. Personally, I reckon they should take a leaf out of bFM’s book. What they’re doing with their flagship current affairs show is exemplary. However, I think he’s probably due a well-deserved break after what must have been a Herculean effort to get that site up and looking as good as it does.
I do think there is an inherent institutional default setting of preventing access rather than allowing access where RNZ audio online is concerned – and an argument has to be strongly made before those restrictions are lifted.
I mean, why streams and not downloads at all for archived content?
It’s as if they’re worried we might transfer them to our portable players and enjoy intelligent comment and debate where and when we want… or perhaps that we might redistribute and make their expensive transmitters redundant?
Anyway – to answer the ‘who cares as long as you can listen?’ question… I do. But then, I am a bit of a geek.
Oh – and thanks to Russell for the link. I’ll have readers this week.
i’m wondering why they didn’t just get round all the “which player” issues and use a flash player instead – much easier to use and control behaviours such as application popups etc
Well, the easiest way to make a file of the streamed content would be to simply configure JetAudio to record the audio to either .wma or .mp3 as it plays.
Storing the bitstream is perhaps not quite so easily doable, but remains doable.
Neither option, off course, is the one we’d prefer.
The site is very good indeed, though still with a couple of typos. Hadn’t ever heard of the Media Player alternative – VLC?
Cheers,
Hal
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