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I don't understand the "playback quality is awful" argument. Press the full screen button and all of your worries go away.

Yes, it seems to give a similar picture quality as the streaming iPlayer, which is OK but not brilliant.


iPlayer is available via my cable TV provider (Virgin),

This is by far the best way to watch iPlayer content, on your TV. The quality is identical to normal broadcasts over cable or Freeview.
 
I'd pay a limited license fee to be able to watch the beeb over here. BBC America is rubbish. Thankfully there are places where current shows can be obtained...
 
The best device by far for living room entertainment is Sony's PlayStation 3. Not only does it have BBC iPlayer, but you get a Blu Ray Player, great gaming system and a full media playback device in one box. If you buy the £60 PlayTV accessory, you also get dual-tuner Sky+ style functionality for Freeview.

And next year, Sony are to begin selling TV shows and movies on the PlayStation Store. It's the total package.
 
The best device by far for living room entertainment is Sony's PlayStation 3. Not only does it have BBC iPlayer, but you get a Blu Ray Player, great gaming system and a full media playback device in one box. If you buy the £60 PlayTV accessory, you also get dual-tuner Sky+ style functionality for Freeview.

And next year, Sony are to begin selling TV shows and movies on the PlayStation Store. It's the total package.

shame it doesn't work with internet sharing.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Does anyone here realise that iPlayer is not actually run by the BBC any more? They subcontract it to a private firm called red bee media (formally BBC technology, which was privatised) they are obliged to innovate in order to satisfy terms of their contact. And this product is still in public beta, and will most certainly improve with time, just give it a chance.

And btw, I echo all comments from uk users to anyone overseas who want to use the service. Yes.. Subscriptions would be a great idea, but are hulu doing the same? My flatmates and I watch almost as much us tv as uk and this service would be great!
 
This pleases The Stig that he can now download and watch himself on his Mac...

The Stig

The Stig posts on MacRumors? Awesome! Sadly though, since i'm from the US, I'm not allowed to watch you on my mac. Go smack whoever made that decision, and tell them I want more Stig!
 
I agree: Congratulations on spending £45,000 on a party in the middle of layoffs and mortgage foreclosures, Auntie Beeb.

It was a launch event for a major new drama series, not a piss up. Plus it would have been held before the series was broadcast which means about 4 months ago. They have to promote series like that and I'm sure some of the invites when to people responsible for buying broadcast rights for other countries.

It only made the news because one of their competitors decided to make an issue out of it. Was it really news? Or were they just stirring it up?
 
What do you mean? Shared internet connections from a computer?

A router can be had for little over £30 and PS3 has built in WiFi. Problem solved!

shame it can't join the existing network like everything else.
 
shame it can't join the existing network like everything else.

Well I'd have to argue that you must have a misconfiguration somewhere - I've had no problems with my PS3, a system which supports a broad range of connectivity options and which is capable of joining WiFi networks protected by a number of different security standards.

Out of interest, what brand of hardware was your PS3 not playing well with?
 
Out of interest, what brand of hardware was your PS3 not playing well with?

an iMac with internet sharing turned on.

it won't stay connected unless i turn off every other device in the house which is connected to the iMac and then only for a while. i checked some forums and it's a common problem.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77 Safari/525.20)

Does anyone here realise that iPlayer is not actually run by the BBC any more? They subcontract it to a private firm called red bee media (formally BBC technology, which was privatised) they are obliged to innovate in order to satisfy terms of their contact. And this product is still in public beta, and will most certainly improve with time, just give it a chance.

And btw, I echo all comments from uk users to anyone overseas who want to use the service. Yes.. Subscriptions would be a great idea, but are hulu doing the same? My flatmates and I watch almost as much us tv as uk and this service would be great!

Err.. that is quite a huge way off the mark. Yes the BBC subcontract certain elements to other providers, but to say that they don't run it is simply wrong.

Red Bee Media were formed when the commercial arm of the BBC titled 'BBC Broadcast' was sold, but yes, they provide some services to BBC for iPlayer.

BBC Technology, one of the other commercial arms of the BBC, were sold to Siemens... (who also provide services for iPlayer).
 
Don't encourage proprietary players

iTunes has enough problems (I'm no fan at all), but I only want one place to go to deal with my media.

Now, imagine a world where every content owner has their own proprietary player (every record company, every movie & television studio) and you have hundreds of incompatible players on your computer...

don't go there, don't encourage proprietary players, start now and don't participate, and email the providers and ask them to put it on iTunes.

For all its faults, iTunes financial motivation is the user experience. Distributors are all about 'creating value' by artificial scarcity, so (for example) content is on Hulu one month and gone the next... same 'old' behaviour we've come to expect. Don't encourage them.

Same with territories. The content owners are only controlling distribution by large territories (nations) at the moment, but the internet gives them control down to ISP or even IP address. Don't even open this door for them. The way they're going, they not only don't-get the global thing, they'll perpetuate their current distribution models, and when they get desperate, they'll keep making deals at smaller and smaller granularity, making media unwieldily and (like DRM) screwing the very people who pay for their product.

Don't encourage proprietary players. Don't even try them out. Encourage content owners to go to iTunes.
 
At least BBC iPlayer does what it does and does it well. iTunes is pure bloatware.
 
I found the "High Quality" video on the iPlayer to be poor quality - like watching an old VHS tape, when viewed on my 32" LCD TV.

Improve the picture quality to at least equivalent to an SD Sky box.

They would need to somehow support the Apple TV for it to become anywhere near useful for me.
 
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.

Spot on! We have found the offending code, and the next release will have substantially better picture quality (even with content already downloaded). Sorry for letting this slip through, but please remember this is still beta software and there are big improvements on the way.

Does anyone here realise that iPlayer is not actually run by the BBC any more? They subcontract it to a private firm called red bee media

Not quite true - the iPlayer development team is run by the BBC (as are most of the teams within iPlayer), Red Mee Media are responsible for encoding the video and audio content.
 
When will content start becoming available for this new desktop client? I've seen 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and 'Watchdog' so far only...
 
When will content start becoming available for this new desktop client? I've seen 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and 'Watchdog' so far only...

There are other programmes up there but, I agree, not many, and frustratingly hard to find. As new ones go up, they'll (in most cases) be enabled for download, so over the next week there'll be much more. But NB "series stacked" programmes, i.e. those over a week old which are still on the site because the series is still ongoing, will be streaming only for the time being.
 
don't go there, don't encourage proprietary players, start now and don't participate, and email the providers and ask them to put it on iTunes.

And if iTunes refuses, because Apple has no interest in putting up free content up there when they'd become responsible for the bandwidth bill?

Same with territories. The content owners are only controlling distribution by large territories (nations) at the moment, but the internet gives them control down to ISP or even IP address. Don't even open this door for them. The way they're going, they not only don't-get the global thing, they'll perpetuate their current distribution models, and when they get desperate, they'll keep making deals at smaller and smaller granularity, making media unwieldily and (like DRM) screwing the very people who pay for their product.

You mean... exactly the same as iTunes then?

Worldwide licencing isn't going to happen without a single world government, because while different laws exist there will always need to be territorial restrictions.

That simple.

Phazer
 
Illegal on what basis? Unencrypted movie files are made publically available over HTTP

They're not made publically available - they're under terms and conditions and only made available for the purposes of streaming to iPhones.

Nor is there any legal right to take a copy of those files unless there is some kind of licence, or at least implied licence. Given there are terms and conditions explicitly stating otherwise, that is clearly not the case here.

Using a computer to do this is not only an civil infringement under the Copyright Act, but is also a criminal act under clause 1(1) of the Computer Misuse Act as it is unauthorised access to a computer (it is, of course, only a level 1 offense unless you do it with a profit motivation. If you're intending to flog the files on DVD to people down the pub the maximum sentence would be five years rather than six months.

and all this script does is bypass the weak security by obscurity and download them. Nothing is being hacked, no encryption is being broken.

It is pretty clearly both hacking and breaking encryption since the XOR headers are altered by the script.

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/

The BBC almost never sues anyone sadly. The rights unions have to make them do it kicking and screaming, and that takes time.

I would suggest that Paul is on very shakey ground under Section 37 of the Police and Justice Act 2006, and it would be a good idea for him to seek legal advice sooner rather than later.

Phazer
 
Pffft.

Other stations finance international deals with advertising. The BBC is paid for by people with a TV license IN THE UK. Why on earth would the BBC pay a premium for content distribution rights for people who don't pay anything, when they receive no additional advertising revenue...

I think if you go to the BBC website from overseas there is some advertising to support its costs, but the whole point of the license fee is to have media content that is apolitical, and without commercial influence, resulting in a (supposedly) unbiased, independent media source, quite unlike other broadcasters/propaganda pushers worldwide.

Maybe if you all chip in to the pot, there will be an international version. In the mean time... unlucky :)

---

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.[/QUOTE]
 
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.

not true. if i download, yes but if i go to the website, it says no as i do not live in usa. trust me, uk are not alone in this
 
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