You may have heard that the BBC recently decided to use the Windows Media format for its on demand service, called iPlayer. It seems that decision has come under fire from an advocacy group called the Open Source Consortium (OSC) who feel that the BBC is unfairly locking the public into Microsoft products. From The Register:

The OSC compared the situation to the European Commission’s prosecution of Microsoft over its bundling of Windows Media Player with Windows. That case was initiated in 2004 by complaints from other vendors, and resulted in European courts imposing a record fine on Redmond, which it is still appealing against.

The same situation that resulted in Windows XP Edition N? That version of the operating system, which ships without Windows Media Player, has been a complete dud with “roughly 1500 units shipped to OEMS, and no reported sales to consumers.” I don’t think the comparison is accurate at all. This is about DRM, not vendor lock-in.

The main reason the BBC decided to go with Windows Media, it seems, was because the format’s DRM features can enable content to become unviewable after 30 days. That was specified by the BBC Trust as a requirement for iPlayer. I am absolutely not a fan of DRM, and I think that’s a very unfortunate requirement indeed.

The OSC thinks DRM-free downloads would be more in the public interest, and I agree with them on that point. I think it’s a shame they have to spin the argument as “being locked in to Microsoft formats” however. The BBC could very well have chosen Apple’s DRM scheme if they had felt it would work for them.

The long and short of it is that the OSC should be fighting DRM, not Microsoft.

StreamingMedia.com posted an interview today with Ben Waggoner, program manager for Microsoft’s codecs division. The interview touches on the differences between Windows Media Video 9 and VC-1, as well as how Silverlight relates to Flash. Here’s what he had to say about Silverlight and codecs:

[Silverlight’s] native A/V capabilities are chiefly Windows Media-based supporting WMV 9/VC-1, WMV 7 and 8 for video, and WMA and MP3 for audio. For streaming support, it uses Windows Media Services in Windows 2003 Server, and really starts to “sing” with the improvements coming in our new Windows Server, code-named “Longhorn”.

I haven’t seen any demos of the Windows Media Services improvements in Longhorn, but I haven’t spent much time looking either. Perhaps it’s time to dig something up - Ben definitely makes it sound intriguing!

Check out the full interview for much more.