lethargic_man | MHEG+ toolkit released open source

Two years ago, I wrote here:

For the first five years of my time here working for Auntie, I was working on interactive services for digital terrestrial television (OnDigital/Freeview), written in the language MHEG-5. However, MHEG is not very easy to program, and two and a half years ago I was handed the skeleton of a wrapper around MHEG, called MHEG+, to implement. I enthusiastically not only did so, but set about developing a suite of tools to make programming MHEG+ easier, and the resulting programmes more robust.

Last month, the BBC held a hack day called Mashed, in which members of the public were introduced to MHEG+, and encouraged to try and put together programs in it. Here's a report of the event, including a screenshot of a couple of the tools I have developed:

© BBC MMVIII, yadda yadda yadda.

I don't think I can say any more at the present, but watch out for continuing developments here in the next little while. :o)

What I couldn't then talk about was the BBC's intention to release MHEG+ as open source by the end of the year.

Two years later, it's finally happened. (Or at least, half of the toolkit is released; more may be released once the wheels of the BBC's legal department have finished grinding.) So any budding bedroom developers out there, you can now start developing interactive TV applications for Freeview and Freesat using it to submit to the BBC as indies. :o)