general rant about BBCiplayer

redux

grai wrote: »

did that

guess what - the downloads are stuttering and buffering!!

I give up - truly a lame site

then choose something less popular, or watch at a less busy time

I downloaded one of the finals of Strictly Come Dancing for my mum, after it was impossible to watch the next afternoon

downloading it then, it predicted about 12 hours, but it worked fine in a few minutes at 1 am

grai

djohn2002uk wrote: »

How many more people need to tell you that it aint the site, it's your PC.

ITV iplayer works fine on my PC - so does 4 on Demand so its defintiely the BBC site that causing everyone all the problems

djdave

grai wrote: »

ITV iplayer works fine on my PC - so does 4 on Demand so its defintiely the BBC site that causing everyone all the problems

It's possible that the other sites use a lower bandwidth.

As others have said, it's almost certainly your PC that's the problem. Millions (literally) of people use iPlayer without problems, including me, so you need to look closer to home.

Windows PCs do get clogged up over time with temporary files and all sorts of other rubbish, and periodically they need a good cleanup.

I don't know if you can post links here, but search for a product called "CCleaner" (don't ask what the "C" stands for ) and install then run it. If you've never used it before it could take up to a hour to scan your computer, then the same again to clean out all the rubbish. After that, get into the habit of running it maybe once a month - it'll normally take a couple of minutes at the most if you use it regularly.

Once you've done that, check you've got up to date virus and spyware protection and - cruicially - that it's actually running. This could be a major cause of your PC running poorly, not to mention other risks. If you don't have any, there's plenty of FREE and legal programmes available, you don't need to pay PC World £30!

Next open "My Computer" and see how much space is free on your main drive (almost always C: ). Less than 10% free and you could have problems as the PC struggles to write files to the disk quickly enough. CCleaner will have freed up a lot, but have a trawl through and see if there are any old files you could delete or back up to an external drive. When you're done, it may be worth running a defrag to tidy up the drive. Again, if you've never done it before it could take an hour or even more.

I realise I've probably given you about a day's worth of tinkering, but get into the habit of doing these tasks even once every six months and I promise you your PC will run better

grai

djdave wrote: »

It's possible that the other sites use a lower bandwidth.

As others have said, it's almost certainly your PC that's the problem. Millions (literally) of people use iPlayer without problems, including me, so you need to look closer to home.

Windows PCs do get clogged up over time with temporary files and all sorts of other rubbish, and periodically they need a good cleanup.

I don't know if you can post links here, but search for a product called "CCleaner" (don't ask what the "C" stands for ) and install then run it. If you've never used it before it could take up to a hour to scan your computer, then the same again to clean out all the rubbish. After that, get into the habit of running it maybe once a month - it'll normally take a couple of minutes at the most if you use it regularly.

Once you've done that, check you've got up to date virus and spyware protection and - cruicially - that it's actually running. This could be a major cause of your PC running poorly, not to mention other risks. If you don't have any, there's plenty of FREE and legal programmes available, you don't need to pay PC World £30!

Next open "My Computer" and see how much space is free on your main drive (almost always C: ). Less than 10% free and you could have problems as the PC struggles to write files to the disk quickly enough. CCleaner will have freed up a lot, but have a trawl through and see if there are any old files you could delete or back up to an external drive. When you're done, it may be worth running a defrag to tidy up the drive. Again, if you've never done it before it could take an hour or even more.

I realise I've probably given you about a day's worth of tinkering, but get into the habit of doing these tasks even once every six months and I promise you your PC will run better

Done all the *tmp files and the disk clean up and defragmenting - made absolutely no difference whatsoever to the PC or the BBC iplayer

I'll just watch 4od and itv! The iplayer is unwatchable as it is anyway because the dialogue isnt moving with the mouths - then it will freeze - nightmare

thanks for all your suggestions though

jem16

djdave wrote: »

As others have said, it's almost certainly your PC that's the problem. Millions (literally) of people use iPlayer without problems, including me, so you need to look closer to home.

I used iPlayer last night to watch Inspector George Gently. It was fine for around 43 minutes and then started stopping with the Loading message. Gave up after 52 minutes and will try again later.

This was via my Sony Blu-Ray player as opposed to PC.

grai

UPDATE word of warning to anyone reading this - the CCleaner and/or using the disk clean up has removed a converter that opens Microsoft Office - there is a problem with getting the converter back onto my pc which I dont have the IT skills to solve which renders my all of my microsoft Word documents inaccessable and from now on Word on my computer is useless till I sort it out

it also deletes iTunes so you'll need to re-install that too

this makes NO DIFFERENCE TO HOW BBC IPLAYER PERFORMS anyway so personally I wouldnt bother

these are just two of the problems I've encountered by indiscriminately "cleaning" the pc of files you may end up with more problems than you started with - I certainly have

I only wanted to watch Mad Men!

jem16

grai wrote: »

UPDATE word of warning to anyone reading this - the CCleaner and/or using the disk clean up has removed a converter that opens Microsoft Office - there is a problem with getting the converter back onto my pc which I dont have the IT skills to solve which renders my all of my microsoft Word documents inaccessable and from now on Word on my computer is useless till I sort it out

I assume you are talking about the converter that allows those with earlier versions of Word to open Word 2007 documents?

If so what is the problem? Have you tried downloading and reinstalling it?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&DisplayLang=en

it also deletes iTunes so you'll need to re-install that too

CCleaner won't remove programs unless you specifically choose to do so.

grai

CCleaner has also rendered my desk top inactive - my cd rom player isnt working to get microsoft word up and running again so god knows when I'll use that again

it also wiped the flash player which I'm now having massive trouble downloading and cant use youtube and other stuff until I fathom why the pc isnt letting me download things - something else that got wiped that needs to be replaced - this means the computer is virtually useless until I get someone here to undo all the damage

this is just stuff I have found today

probably more to come....

this wasnt a good idea

after I "cleaned" the innards of my pc it was just as slow as its ever been anyway!!

Mad Men is now the least of my worries

grai

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/confirmation.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&DisplayLang=en

I pressed download and it begins for 2 seconds but then another window opens and says this site cannot be found or was unavailable - even tho you have to go on the site to bring up that message!

I think it maybe the firewall stopping it - who knows