It’s not a requirement at the moment, it’s only a recommendation.
Nope, it’s designed for property protection, not data protection - inert systems are used because they are safe to use in these cases, better than a conventional sprinkler system. It’s the best system for the job as it puts the least risk on data loss.
Ahhh apologies hahaha
BBC don’t offer subtitles on Apple TV by default. Would you also consider that an equality/discrimination issue? I just don’t know if it’s something I should/could raise as I am affected (to an extent)
I realise there are alternatives though
This explains a hell of a lot, so thanks for sharing!
So what I’m wondering now is why Channel 4 seem to be disproportionately affected. I know the BBC were briefly, but switched broadcast to another location that duplicates the broadcast anyway.
Channel 5 seem to be able to carry on as normal, with a few minor issues, same can be said with BT Sport.
I have two different answers; morally, it is indeed discriminatory. Legally, I think because there are other ways of accessing the iPlayer, the BBC are not legally discriminating against people.
Not the iPlayer, but at one time there was a streaming app - either the ITV Player or All 4 - where if I used it with an Amazon Fire stick, no subtitles. But I could use it via computer. I complained, but otherwise just got on with things 
As I don’t have Apple TV I did a Google and found someone had done a Freedom of Information request to the BBC about it:
In theory, if I had Apple TV and I wanted to watch the BBC iPlayer… I would use my television’s native version of the iPlayer instead of the Apple TV one.
tl;dr, this differs from the Channel 4 situation as there are alternatives for making the iPlayer work, whereas with the Channel 4 situation, they are legally supposed to subtitle their broadcast TV programmes, and there’s no alternative to All 4 not working.
Just a lack of fail safe I’d imagine, like you said BBC switched to another location where its a duplicate service and they reason they have this option is because they’re governed under a royal charter. So say they had to make an announcement for the death of the queen and a location goes down they can instantly switch to another location and stay live. I doubt the other independent broadcasters have this option or resources to implement it, they’re not governed the same as the BBC are.
Gogglebox dropped to bars and tone last night during the credits.
The version on All4 includes bars and tone too, plus the ads that were broadcast on TV again, so you can skip them by moving the playhead.
MAFS finally went out last night too but the new slot probably cut into the viewer numbers for Gogglebox.
October 12 and still no subtitles on Channel 4.
Ofcom are basically toothless at the moment, it seems.
Just in case anyone isn’t watching CH4 over this issue, it appears to have been resolved.
They are advertising that you can watch with subtitles on free to air and All4.
It’s not completely resolved yet, I don’t think. They seem to have reached the stage which Channel 5 were at very early on, where the most popular programmes are subtitled, some other programmes have as-live subtitles, and there are gaps on some services.
Stath Lets Flats started its third series last week; the first broadcast didn’t have subtitles, the repeat on Friday had subtitled - but I missed the start, so I recorded the Channel 4+1 showing so I could catch the start, only that didn’t have subtitles.
Also when I checked at the start of the week - after finding subtitles on my recording of Bake-Off - they hadn’t yet gone back and put subtitles on all the missed episodes on All 4. I haven’t gone back yet to see if there have been any updates in that regard as I’ve been too busy to fit in any catch-up viewing this week.
tl;dr, the situation has improved, but still falls short of being properly resolved.
It may only be specific programmes, then. I don’t watch much CH4 and I’ve seen the announcement twice, so assumed it had been fully rectified.
I can absolutely understand that - and I should say that I do appreciate you updating the topic.
Like you, I’ve not been watching much Ch4 - though in my case that’s because of it having been inaccessible. I kept some recordings going so that I wouldn’t miss anything when the issue was fixed, and from what I recall of watching Taskmaster this week, the announcement before the programme says “This programme…”
I’m hoping it won’t take too long for them to go back and catch up with Bake Off, because I’d like to catch up to broadcast episodes before the show finishes. Everything else, well, as long as it’s there eventually.
Just came across this.
Interesting I’ve only ever seen the outage referred to as ‘IT issues’ or a ‘failed upgrade’ (which was never a satisfactory explanation of anything).
Sounds like they lost a bunch of hard drives, the other channels invoked their disaster recovery plan, recovered backups and went back to normal and Channel 4… didn’t…
Ahh from a linked article “The reason is that when we activated our emergency back-up, the system that should have provided subtitles failed”
“If you haven’t tested your backups, you don’t have backups.” – Every IT person ever.
That’s right, the vibrations from the inergen system activating knocked all the drive off - similar to dropping an external hard drive, but a much bigger scale lol
More news.
I hope the investigation also covers the fact that there were many shows that people never got the chance to see, because they expired from All 4 with subtitles ever having been added to them. If Channel 4 dare try and say people at least had the chance to catch up, that’s simply not true in all cases.