Is there anyway to get ITV or BBC videos to work on a mac?

[budge9]

It's just that it's so frustrating. Thanks a million!

 

[bartelby]

Not yet. The BBC are working on Mac support at the moment. Not sure about ITV.

 

[amnesiac1984]

Umm.. don' the BBC just use real player?

 

[Queso]

Unfortunately this is one area where Apple's stubbornness has led to their users being locked out of services. This market was theirs for the taking, all they had to do was allow companies using Quicktime Streaming Server to deliver content with FairPlay DRM. However, as they refused to allow any other organisation to use FairPlay, the only viable solution out there for content providers was Windows Media.

I'm hoping the EU's court decision yesterday against Microsoft will see Windows DRM becoming available on other platforms, which is the only way we're going to see ITV, Sky and 4od shows playing on a Mac. Don't hold your breath though. Microsoft aren't even allowing the people behind Flip4Mac to see the code, so there's no way they're going to open it up.

Umm.. don' the BBC just use real player?

Only for their news and radio content. Everything else is currently Windows DRM encoded and delivered via the XP-only iPlayer.

 

[edesignuk]

Do you mean for just general streaming of clips from their sites (like on BBC news), or download services like the BBC's iPlayer?

 

[amnesiac1984]

Unfortunately this is one area where Apple's stubbornness has led to their users being locked out of services. This market was theirs for the taking, all they had to do was allow companies using Quicktime Streaming Server to deliver content with FairPlay DRM. However, as they refused to allow any other organisation to use FairPlay, the only viable solution out there for content providers was Windows Media.

I'm hoping the EU's court decision yesterday against Microsoft will see Windows DRM becoming available on other platforms, which is the only way we're going to see ITV, Sky and 4od shows playing on a Mac. Don't hold your breath though. Microsoft aren't even allowing the people behind Flip4Mac to see the code, so there's no way they're going to open it up.


Only for their news and radio content. Everything else is currently Windows DRM encoded and delivered via the XP-only iPlayer.

Well thankfully the iPlayer is still under trial and as you can read on various websites the BBC trust will not give it the go ahead until it works on multiple platforms. This means it will work on Mac os X and Linux.

"In the case of the iPlayer, following the consultation, the Trust noted the strong public demand for the service to be available on a variety of operating systems. The BBC Trust made it a condition of approval for the BBC's on-demand services that the iPlayer is available to users of a range of operating systems, and has given a commitment that it will ensure that the BBC meets this demand as soon as possible. They will measure the BBC's progress on this every six months and publish the findings..."

Link here

 

[budge9]

Well I was actually thinking more about clips from itv catch up. With leopard now enabling you to run windows do you thik this will allow us to watch the video clips??

 

[Queso]

Well thankfully the iPlayer is still under trial and as you can read on various websites the BBC trust will not give it the go ahead until it works on multiple platforms. This means it will work on Mac os X and Linux.

OSX yes. Linux will be more of a challenge. It's likely that Adobe's DRM built into Apollo will feature, although unfortunately that would make it x86 Linux only as Adobe currently do with Linux Flash.

And remember that iPlayer is only the BBC's effort. The other UK broadcasters, plus DRM-based Internet streams such as football commentaries will still be unavailable to Mac users

 

[weckart]

Well I was actually thinking more about clips from itv catch up. With leopard now enabling you to run windows do you thik this will allow us to watch the video clips??

Beg pardon? Leopard and Windows are different OSes. You still need Bootcamp + XP/Vista; Parallels with Windows of choice or CrossOver (unlikely to work with DRM or streaming video). Leopard will have Bootcamp included instead of downloading separately, but you will still need to install Windows separately.

 

[budge9]

Yes that's what I mean. But will it work if I install windows on leopard? Thanks.

 

[Peterkro]

Until the beeb make iPlayer work on OSX I'm sure lots of people will use the very efficient UKNova.