Vancouver City Streaming video format

[Alan Pater]

A while ago I found that the City of Vancouver streams our council
videos in a closed, proprietary format and wrote to them about it. I
received a response from a manager involved in these decisions. They
are willing to look into moving to an open format, but are unsure of
what that should be, as well as the costs involved.

The obvious format would be ogg, no? Does anyone have any examples of
sites which use that, or another format that just works on a typical
unmodified Linux install?

The current videos are available at:
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/councilmeetings/video.cfm

Alan

>Dear Sir,

I understand the issue you have raised.  I have brought this to the
attention of staff who are developing and implementing standards for
our website.  Unfortunately, it will take some time to resolve the
issue.  As there are costs associated with any open source solution, I
cannot say when, or even if, the City will choose to implement an open
standards solution to Council videos.

To support the decision-making process, we are prepared to investigate
the cost of moving towards an open source format to post the Council
videos.  It is not clear to us what the best open source format would
be.  If you have any suggestions, they would be appreciated.

...

Manager, Corporate Information & Privacy
City of Vancouver, City Clerk's Department
Vancouver BC   V5Y 1V4



-----Original Message-----

Hello

I am unable to view the Council Videos, as they are distributed in a
proprietary closed format. Please consider providing this publicly
owned information in an open format.

I was reminded of this issue as the BBC has run into a similar problem.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236612.stm

Alan Pater