News - BBC unveils an all-new iPlayer

[HEXUS]

Public beta of the third-generation video-on-demand service now available.

Read more.

[Ciber]

It seems they made a great service even better!

[Philipp]

Just wish they (BBC/Microsoft) would get their acts together so I can watch on the Xbox

[jim]

I still can't watch iPlayer because the BBC can't come to terms with the notion of buffering.

That would be an appreciated improvement.

[oolon]

Don't like the new version, radio "pops out", TV does not, no consistancy. Pop outs are a step backwards.

[crossy]

Never mind all this "next generation" crap - how about the Beeb stop being a bunch of a**h**es, and let some of the open source utilities out there back into use?

I use the get_iplayer software (luckily I managed to get a copy before it got closed) - and it makes a fantastic PVR for iPlayer-hosted radio and television. It's great - web driven, cross-platform, and dead simple to use. Heck, it's so good that if the Beeb were to buy it and offer it for a small fee (£5-£15pa) then I'd probably stump up the cash.

Interestingly enough, it seems that more and more of these "external" iPlayer utilities are starting to fail. Which kind of makes a suspicious person think that they're being "broken" deliberately.

Sorry, I won't have a good word to say about the Beeb unless they were to do what I'm saying above, and/or reinstate 6Music.

Bob

[Sumanji]

The new iPlayer allows users of Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger to watch programmes simultaneously, with a built-in chat window allowing friends to discuss the show.

That sounds amazing! My friend and I usually watch F1 practice/qually from varying locations and communicate via text constantly - using this feature would be much better!!

Liking the idea of linking with friends over FB/Twitter (although I wouldn't link with the former due to privacy concerns...!).

Su

[jim]

Interestingly enough, it seems that more and more of these "external" iPlayer utilities are starting to fail. Which kind of makes a suspicious person think that they're being "broken" deliberately.

They are IIRC.

The BBC introduced some encryption a while ago that locked a lot of the external players out of the service... I don't know much more about it though, my recollection of the articles is a bit vague.

[cordas]

I still can't watch iPlayer because the BBC can't come to terms with the notion of buffering.

That would be an appreciated improvement.

That drives me insane as well.... usually I get fine service but every so often (usually when I really want to see something) I get stuck in buffering hell.

They only need to buffer a minute or 2 at most and all the pain would go away, I just don't get what the problem with that is... after all its my PC that has to buffer....

[oolon]

They only need to buffer a minute or 2 at most and all the pain would go away, I just don't get what the problem with that is... after all its my PC that has to buffer....

But how fast do you fill that buffer is the question, a large buffer could mean people download a lot more of a program they just abandon. Buffering Live increases latency. Filling a buffer x2 normal speed, needs the bandwidth of 2 streamers to begin with, yes you will tell me but they will make that back at the end... NOPE people abandon before the credits which would have all been buffered.