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BBC iPlayer Now Available for Mac

caribousteaks said:
No, we foreigners don't pay television tax, but online who does? No one!
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The UK does, and we're not going to spend the literally billions of pounds of taxpayer's money it would cost to subsidise you.

US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD.
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Simply wrong. Every US network geo-IP blocks out the rest of the world for a start.

Phazer
 
caribousteaks said:
I find it sad and frustrating that Big Brother Corp has, in the past 30 years, not sorted out its copy-write agreements to allow the viewing of its programs outside the UK. No, we foreigners don't pay television tax, but online who does? No one! US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD. Shows on iPlayer are only viewable in the UK and outsiders are left only with stuffy BBC Radio. In this day and age, that is ridiculous. It has taken way too long for BBC to fumble out an advanced iPlayer, yet this is all for not for anyone outside the island. The new iPlayer is no news for the rest of the planet.
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uhuh, you couldn't be more wrong. You yanks have tonnes of websites us brits visit that tell us for US citizens only, if not just e-stores and so fourth but video streaming sites too. Too many a time i have seen youtube like sites that work in agreement with tv programming corporations like fox to put 'The Simpsons' for free on their site, but wait im told because im in the UK i cant watch it due to licensing issues outside the us. So get off your high horse and get used to it, everyone else outside the US has to put up with the same BS from many a site from the USA. Deal with it.
 
caribousteaks said:
I find it sad and frustrating that Big Brother Corp has, in the past 30 years, not sorted out its copy-write agreements to allow the viewing of its programs outside the UK. No, we foreigners don't pay television tax, but online who does? No one! US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD. Shows on iPlayer are only viewable in the UK and outsiders are left only with stuffy BBC Radio. In this day and age, that is ridiculous. It has taken way too long for BBC to fumble out an advanced iPlayer, yet this is all for not for anyone outside the island. The new iPlayer is no news for the rest of the planet.
Click to expand...

Plenty of video sites don't allow viewers outside the US or severely limit what can be viewed. This won't be resolved anytime soon because as soon as a company allows it's content to be freely viewed legally online then the distribution value of it goes down. It's also not just the BBC's decision, there is no way the watchdogs nor other channels would let the BBC distribute globally using the iPlayer in current markets.

Also most people in the UK with broadband probably pay a TV license so the audience is funding it.
 
caribousteaks said:
I find it sad and frustrating that Big Brother Corp has, in the past 30 years, not sorted out its copy-write agreements to allow the viewing of its programs outside the UK. No, we foreigners don't pay television tax, but online who does? No one! US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD. Shows on iPlayer are only viewable in the UK and outsiders are left only with stuffy BBC Radio. In this day and age, that is ridiculous. It has taken way too long for BBC to fumble out an advanced iPlayer, yet this is all for not for anyone outside the island. The new iPlayer is no news for the rest of the planet.
Click to expand...

I'd just like to point out a couple of things here :

1) The BBC is funded by a license fee and not by advertising. BBC World is the only exception I know of to that model, but that's only broadcast outside the UK. Would you be prepared to pay a subscription to watch BBC programmes, because someone has to pay for them to be made.

2) The BBC isn't the only institution restricting foreign access. You may not be aware that we suffer the exact same thing when trying to access certain American video services - not available outside the States.

3) BBC Radio caters to a broad market - I don't know how you can describe it as stuffy. I'd also like to remind you that it is also free globally, and I'm one of the UK citizens subsidising that.

I'm sure the Beeb will be working on alternative financing models and will be open to all in time.
 
Luke Redpath said:
This means that the *only* advantage of the new AIR app is the ability to download, but since the iPhone version was released, this has been possible using a script by a former colleague of mine, Paul Battley:

http://po-ru.com/projects/iplayer-downloader/

The above script is a command-line utility that lets you download the iPhone version of the programme without any restrictions. Not only that, but the code is open-source and people have started turning this into a GUI for various platforms.
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Indeed, why faff about with a command-line utility when the GUI for this is available? I wonder if the BBC will block these now, as they bypass the DRM time bombs leaving you the programs to enjoy in perpetuity.

This one is quite polished.

http://www.lawrencedudley.co.uk/iplayer-downloader-30-released/
 
caribousteaks said:
US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD.
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Not legally! Just checked HBO.com and SHO.com and neither of them will show me full episodes.. and hulu.com does report "We're sorry, currently our video library can only be streamed within the United States".
 
The Phazer said:
Of course, there is the minor matter that this is illegal, and indeed arguably a criminal offense under the Computer Misuse Act...

Phazer
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Illegal on what basis? Unencrypted movie files are made publically available over HTTP, and all this script does is bypass the weak security by obscurity and download them. Nothing is being hacked, no encryption is being broken.

Your claims are baseless. If this was illegal, then Paul would have no doubt been served a cease and desist by now. Except he hasn't. And he has been very public about the script's development. He even gave a presentation about it at a recent conference:

http://po-ru.com/presentations/iplayer-hacker/
 
caribousteaks said:
I find it sad and frustrating that Big Brother Corp has, in the past 30 years, not sorted out its copy-write agreements to allow the viewing of its programs outside the UK. No, we foreigners don't pay television tax, but online who does? No one! US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD. Shows on iPlayer are only viewable in the UK and outsiders are left only with stuffy BBC Radio. In this day and age, that is ridiculous. It has taken way too long for BBC to fumble out an advanced iPlayer, yet this is all for not for anyone outside the island. The new iPlayer is no news for the rest of the planet.
Click to expand...

Why would the BBC make content paid for by UK license fee payers available internationally for free when they don't even have the rights to? (international distribution rights are owned by BBC Worldwide which is a commercial business). In fact, its these international sales they partly fund the BBC.
 
The Phazer said:
The UK does, and we're not going to spend the literally billions of pounds of taxpayer's money it would cost to subsidise you.



Simply wrong. Every US network geo-IP blocks out the rest of the world for a start.

Phazer
Click to expand...

Umbongo said:
Plenty of video sites don't allow viewers outside the US or severely limit what can be viewed. This won't be resolved anytime soon because as soon as a company allows it's content to be freely viewed legally online then the distribution value of it goes down. It's also not just the BBC's decision, there is no way the watchdogs nor other channels would let the BBC distribute globally using the iPlayer in current markets.

Also most people in the UK with broadband probably pay a TV license so the audience is funding it.
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Since this is true, why can't the BBC create a subscription service for people in the US the view this content? That would solve this problem of funding.....
 
The content is exactly the same quality as the HQ streaming options - it's just the player in the AIR application does a terrible job of scaling it. If you view full screen, then the quality issues go away.
 
Luke Redpath said:
You can purchase BBC Worldwide content on iTunes I believe.
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I gather BBC Worldwide is a separate organisational wing to the BBC. It also licences content to channels such as BBC America and BBC Canada, which are not actually owned by the BBC.

If there is a contradiction here, it is that you don't need a licence to watch non-live iPlayer broadcasts in the UK, so why not allow them elsewhere?

But then you don't need a license to watch 'the Daily Show' in the US, but I can't watch it from here on the Comedy Central website...
 
You may not need a TVL to watch it, but the content is licensed to the BBC by the creators for distribution in the United Kingdom.
 
Just downloaded the iPlayer myself.
Horrible cheap interface and the play back quality is abysmal. I've seen better quality on YouTube. From looking at activity monitor, it's a huge resource hog too. I think I'll be uninstalling this one soon.
 
caribousteaks said:
I find it sad and frustrating that Big Brother Corp has, in the past 30 years, not sorted out its copy-write agreements to allow the viewing of its programs outside the UK. No, we foreigners don't pay television tax, but online who does? No one! US and other foreign shows can be viewed anywhere when accessed online, and often in HD. Shows on iPlayer are only viewable in the UK and outsiders are left only with stuffy BBC Radio. In this day and age, that is ridiculous. It has taken way too long for BBC to fumble out an advanced iPlayer, yet this is all for not for anyone outside the island. The new iPlayer is no news for the rest of the planet.
Click to expand...

Get your facts right before your next rant. :p
 

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if they've resolved DRM issues, does that mean 4od should be on the way soon too?

I'm happy with the online streaming to be honest, whereas 4od is PC only in browser, and has tons of free archive things.
 
I don't understand the "playback quality is awful" argument. Press the full screen button and all of your worries go away.
 
I think any criticism of the BBC's digital services is a bit harsh as (in the UK at least) they are way ahead of the competition. iPlayer is available via my cable TV provider (Virgin), only limited similar content from other broadcasters is available in the same way. Linux, Mac (& iPhone) and Wii users can watch iPlayer content online and now download it - no other broadcaster supports anything except Windows as far as I'm aware.

Coverage of major events is pretty amazing, with anything up to 5 channels broadcast via the web / interactive services - all of which is in addition to their 4 main channels. Which means minority sports at the Olympics and up 4 to matches covered at the same time at Wimbledon etc.

They actually get criticism from other broadcasters who aren't able to compete due to the size and resources of the BBC, though I think a lot of the problem is the incompetence of others. If they were to provide content for people outside the UK without charging them for it, they would get in trouble for that.

So why not praise them for what they are doing, rather than complain at what they're not?
 
farleysmaster said:
I gather BBC Worldwide is a separate organisational wing to the BBC. It also licences content to channels such as BBC America and BBC Canada, which are not actually owned by the BBC.

If there is a contradiction here, it is that you don't need a licence to watch non-live iPlayer broadcasts in the UK, so why not allow them elsewhere?

But then you don't need a license to watch 'the Daily Show' in the US, but I can't watch it from here on the Comedy Central website...
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BBC Worldwide will be bringing out iplayer for worldwide consumption

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/news.php?id=1735

And for those outside the UK that cannot wait, just route iplayer through a UK proxy.
 
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