4OD and BBC iplayer issues - in firefox

Shrimply

Hi, I use catch-up services quite a lot and have a few problems wondered if anyone could suggest anything.

Firstly running Windows 7 x64 and I can't get the BBC iplayer desktop to work, I've tried reinstalling it and adobe air several times but all I get is a process running, nothing appears on the screen.

The second is my main issue and I can't find anyone else having the problem, when watching a program full screen from the BBC through iplayer its fine, but if I then exit the full screen to check something the quality drops dramatically, and after that the only thing I can do to finish watching my program is use Google chrome.

My final question is more of shear curiosity, but when I watch a program on 4OD in firefox I never see any adverts whereas there loads in Chrome. Is there a sensible explanation for this?

Thanks.

gwyne

Don't know about BBC Iplayer not showing anything, it may be something wrong with the player itself. It also sounds like you might be straining your processor quite a bit - what laptop / computer are you using? Also I've always seen adverts of 4oD and I've always used Firefox though if it somehow filters ads in Chrome... maybe I'll have to give that a go lol

Shrimply

Thanks, I've looked for problems regarding the desktop player on the internet but all I can find is people saying that it works fine for windows 7 so I don't really known what's going on.

I don't think its a system strain issue, I mean the computers not high end but its got
4GB of Ram
Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz
and the Graphics Card is a Sapphire HD 3650 512MB

It's on firefox that I don't get any ads when viewing 4OD, I have got adblock plus installed as an addon, but can't really see how that would be removing ads in this case. But doing some experiments its not just 4od, I don't get adds on ITV player either, clearly something strange is going on.

To illustrate my quality point

Here's one which decided to go wrong in firefox, it seems to be very temperamental, sometimes the quality is fine and stays fine, but often its on exiting full screen that the quality drops.



And the same in Chrome

SkemTec

This all sounds to me like it may have something to do with the addons you have with firefox. You mention you have add block, do you have others? I would suggest disabling them all then adding them back one at a time to find the one causing problems.

Keep me updated and let me know if Im right GL

Also check the codecs you currently have installed and what BBCi maybe recommends and see if they come with Chrome and how to add them to FF

HoofeHearted

Isn't this all to do with there not being a 64bit version of Flash available yet?
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1201

Shrimply

Thanks, I'll go through all of them and see what happens,

HoofeHearted, no that's only a problem if your using a x64 bit browser, far as I'm aware the only x64 bit browser available is IE8. Currently both Google Chrome and Firefox are x32, so use x32 flash, least that's my understanding, could be totally wrong.

In case anyone is interested adblock plus is definitely responsible for removing the ads from 4od and itv player etc, however doesn't seem to be responsible for video quality problems.

SkemTec

Yeah I thought it was, nice to know we can get around the adverts thanks

Shrimply

Hi, well been on the BBC website and found this, which I imagine is that problem.

"Decreasing the quality
We know that not all internet connections can handle this, and if so it should automatically switch to the lower quality 500kbps format. Once BBC iPlayer has dropped down to a lower bandwidth stream it will stay with that lower bandwidth version for the rest of the programme you're watching."


This is definitely what its doing, the problem is that something isn't working properly, as I still have the "Use lower bandwidth option" at the bottom of the screen, if I click on it then it changes to "Use Normal Version" but the quality stays low. It seems that the website is switching me to the lower quality, but not recognising that it has done so.



Now the problem is to find out why it does this when I exit full screen, if its one of the plugins, troubleshooting is going to take an age, clearly I'll have to clean out internet cookies after I disable each plug-in. Has anyone got any thoughts about what could be causing this, or I'm I going to have to spend a very long time going through all the possible causes


Thanks for all the help.

SkemTec

It seems strange that this would be the case with different browsers tho? Hmmm not sure, did you try disabling the addons in FF?