BBC iPlayer

bauhaus100

The (free) BBC iplayer launched yesteday. This will allow download and viewing of a selection of BBC output for up to a month after inital broadcast. BUT... has anyone managed to get it working yet? I've tried a couple of links on the BBC website without success. Can anyone advise?

stamford

bauhaus100 wrote: »

The (free) BBC iplayer launched yesteday. This will allow download and viewing of a selection of BBC output for up to a month after inital broadcast. BUT... has anyone managed to get it working yet? I've tried a couple of links on the BBC website without success. Can anyone advise?

All is revealed here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=513294

You can register but it doesn't kick off till October

colin79666

I tried it yesterday and got it to work although it's not very smart - you can't download programs without having to launch Internet Explorer and enter your password every time...
I'm not that impressed with the quality either. It's no where good enough to make it watch able on my 20" monitor at full screen.

Crabman

30111987 wrote: »

I tried it yesterday and got it to work although it's not very smart - you can't download programs without having to launch Internet Explorer and enter your password every time...
I'm not that impressed with the quality either. It's no where good enough to make it watch able on my 20" monitor at full screen.

Didn't think it was starting till October...

colin79666

Crabman wrote: »

Didn't think it was starting till October...

you can sign up for the beta from the iplayer homepage

Altarf

Been using it for several months (I was on an earlier trial, so got an early invite to use the new service).

The service is a bit unstable at the moment, but mostly works.

The quality of the videos is certainly not the broadcast quality they claim, but has improved over the last few weeks with the bitrate of the files being increased (as the BBC seek to balance file size against video quality).

Only a small number of programs are available on the service, with very few that you would actually want to watch.

Finally the videos are all DRM'd so have to be played on the machine that downloaded them (so no putting them on a portable device), and expire 28 days after download or 7 days after watching (if sooner). However the DRM has already been cracked, if this is an issue to you.

System

I registered to join on Launch day (FRI) and didn't get the invite email for 48hrs. I made my way through . It proved to be beneficial to log out and in again. I then selected a few progs to download. Some were not available, others were. Some had waiting times, presumably because too many people were after them,(Little Britain) others such as Casualty came up. I've peeped at casualty and both sound and pic are good. 'Suppose I could be picky but if I'd missed something, I'd be glad to see it. Whilst typing this, a box has told me Little Britain is now in my library and will remain there for 7 days.

In all, I'm satisfied and no doubt will find the facility an asset.

amcluesent

The Peer-2-peer system of the iplayer is very unclear. It certainly runs whenever your PC is connected to the internet. I'd be worried about triggering the ISPs bandwidth throttle unless I could set time/volume limits.

Altarf

amcluesent wrote: »

I'd be worried about triggering the ISPs bandwidth throttle unless I could set time/volume limits.

It does even if you close the application. You need to close the service running in the background if you want to stop it uploading.