come anticipate the BBC's iPlayer with me

BBC has always been about branding and distinguishing their channels, even when there were only two of them.

I challenge anyone to point out a meaningful difference between ITV1, 2, 3 and 4 though.

OK, now finally no nonsense about downloading codexes and DRM. It is now officially actually good! Only took them six months!

ITVs

1: coronation street
2: X factor behind the scenes shit
3: poirot
4: police camera action with alastair "one for the road" stewart

I've just looked and yeah the iPlayer actually IS now a lot better. Also, convenient link to the radio stuff as well.

Do you still need to download to go full-screen though? I refuse to watch telly in tiny windows.

I am in the role of Beeb apologist here I realise, but I just want to point out that it's not like they just thought of this (Flash). Flash video simply took too long to encode and also is pretty CPU-intensive on the client side. With the new Flash encoding tools (which include H.264) this is better. Also the BBC has felt for years that the Flash audio codecs are not up to snuff, so a lot of the wait has been negotiating better ones with Adobe.

Matt if you DL and install the latest version of Flash player, it will do full screen (it's the little icon in the extreme bottom right).

I challenge anyone to point out a meaningful difference between ITV1, 2, 3 and 4 though

I am not aware of the differences but neither do I see it as a real problem (OK this is partly because there's hardly anything on them worth the watch but still 'the Beeb' retains the most value as a brand term itself, despite all the compartmentalism). Note that The South Bank Show remains defiantly on ITV1 tho at a day and time you wouldn't expect anyone else to think was a good idea, and hasn't been shunted off to a 'arts programming for the sniffy elitists' digital alcove. So it's interesting that ITV don't see the need to divide subjects/markets up like that. Maybe it would make more commercial sense to do so, even more demographic sense to do so but I like that they haven't.

did they make the radio streams higher quality, too? the radio 3 one is pretty acceptable now (only 65kbps, it says, but it sounds a better than that to me).

booo geolocation

I'm wearing NATO schwag around my neck right now I should be fucking allowed to watch The Mighty Boosh

I watched the George Melly documentary via flash streaming yesterday evening. The picture quality is only barely acceptable in full-screen mode.

http://www.twindx.com/node/276

This is amazing - hopefully this loophole never gets closed.

Very nice, but I don't see it staying open for long.

403
Forbidden.

Sorry, the server is not able to provide the page you requested at this time:

WHat did I do wrong?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/13/iplayer_iphone_drm_loophole_closed/

http://po-ru.com/diary/bbc-iplayer-fix-hacked-again/

Now available on Wii

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/09/bbc_iplayer_wii/

This has probably been commented on 2000 times on ILX, but has anybody else noticed the volume slider on the iPlayer goes up to 11?

Top.

UK ISPs are demanding the BBC help pay for their shoddy networks now because of iPlayer's success. Did they think shaping illegal downloading was going to work forever and there'd never be legitimate need for the bandwidth they promise? xp

There's a good analysis on the Reg about how a large part of the problem is BT not selling dark fibre for the backhaul, only allowing ISPs to connect to their exchanges with their fibre products which, naturally, are a bit over priced.

NV, that nugget has made my day. i don't want to think about what that says about my day.

I noticed the other week, couldn't find an appropriate thread, and then assumed that everybody would already know and I wd be publicly mocked anyway.

more old programmes needed

Match of the Day needed, ffs. Any idea when the BBC might sort out the rights issues for this, anyone?

Never

Note that The South Bank Show remains defiantly on ITV1 tho at a day and time you wouldn't expect anyone else to think was a good idea, and hasn't been shunted off to a 'arts programming for the sniffy elitists' digital alcove.

it's now on Sky Arts :/

haven't the bbc lost motd again?

I thought they'd just lost coverage of England games, not Premiership highlights?

In 2006, the BBC agreed a new deal with the Premier League which means that league highlights coverage will continue on Match of the Day until at least the end of the 2009-10 season.

you are correct so yeah they really do need to sort that out. i might use the thing if they do.

The thing with putting MOTD into an 'anytime anywhere' system is that once you do you'd probably find most people don't need the whole programme and just want to see certain games, goals etc. so separating the content for online/on-demand consumption or at least providing that option makes sense (plus who gives a toss about Alan Analyses anyway).

They've really clamped down on PL action on youtube over the last few months I've noticed.

That could apply to a lot of shows that are broken up into several segments - Newsnight, for example, or the Culture Show. But yeah, probably more so with MOTD but I doubt the Premiership will lose much sleep over that.

I use the iPlayer almost exclusively now. Don't think I've watched the BBC in a few months. And since I almost exclusively watch BBC programmes (with a bit of ITV2 and CH4 thrown in) I've radically cut down my TV watching!

Anyone been following The Curse of Comedy series??

Of course, I could just get a Humax and be done with it.

Internet football rights are sold as a separate package now. So the Beeb couldn't show Match of the Day online as those rights are owned by the company that runs all the individual club websites, by the look of it. For the same reason you usually can't get BBC local radio live commentaries any more.

Anyone been following The Curse of Comedy series??
Yes, thanks to iPlayer

Tried out the Wii one. Quality's a bit low, there's no full-screen and the sound gets out of sync a lot. Not quite there.

also wii browsing sucks doesn't it??

The volume goes up to eleven.

Is the Wii thing any better yet? I could set the whole thing up and find out, I guess, but I thought I'd ask before I bothered my arse doing any hard work.

The .exe on this page is interesting.

Indeed.

k, so i am trying to work out how to download the delicious mp3 stream of a beeb radio show (rather than the old rm stream), and have gotten as far as what info the xml feed gives me:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/b00d25wg

and now i am stumped. WHAT NOW ILX? i feel like i'm close.

(ironically i also couldve just left the stream on, pressed record and had a cuppa in the time i've spent googling this bitch.)

You're actually a long way off - the XML file you linked to specifies a .ram file that links to an .ra file but the actual URL for this .ra file is obfuscated by a RealAudio media server so you can't download the MP3 straight from it, the media server only allows the file to be streamed through an application like RealPlayer or iPlayer.

(ironically i also couldve just left the stream on, pressed record and had a cuppa in the time i've spent googling this bitch.)

Yes...

i know that; i've been d/ling the ram streams for yonks already if i hadnt made myself clear. it was my understanding though that the beeb now does an mp3 stream via flash INSTEAD of the ram stream (which is still being run concurrently for whatever reason). or maybe it doesnt, yet, though it does seem to sound better. does that mediaselector link refer to two streams or one?

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/2008/07/bbc_on-demand_streams_higher_quality.php

there are obviously two links in that xml file you linked to but the first, the mp3:Secure isn't going to be playable in anything but iplayer as it's encrypted. looks like it's using akamai for hosting as well.

iplayer is nothing but trouble for me, i kept getting 'not available in your region' errors at the weekend despite living a mile from bbc tv centre. the little snippets of radio4 breakfast show etc never play.

http://linuxcentre.net/?page_id=6 (lol, perl)

"About get_iplayer

This tool allows you to download or stream any iplayer programme from the BBC in H.264 (Quicktime/mp4) format, any radio programmes in RealAudio format (which is then converted to wav or mp3) and all podcasts in mp3/aac format."

BBC One and BBC Two to be streamed live.

I know there's Zattoo already but the quality's a bit dicy.

i didn't know about Zattoo :(

You fool!