BBC iPlayer Launches Beta Service July 29, 2007
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After a week in which the BBC has come under increased fire over the lack of platform support for the iPlayer, the service is finally open – at least for public beta.
The service went live on July 27 and anyone who wants a chance of receiving/testing the online TV download service can register their interest here. You have to be UK-based and you might want to prepare for some problems as some people have been encountering numerous technical glitches.
You will also need to be running Windows XP [ not Vista] and Internet Explorer 6 or higher. The iPlayer will allow users to download and view the previous week’s worth of BBC programmes with a 30-day deadline to watch them.
Linux and Mac users are still left out in the cold but the Beeb has promised to support them as soon as possible.-Martin Lynch
Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
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Comments
Well, my fisrt impressions werent exactly good...
Read my review here:
http://www.gambituk.com/2007/07/28/bbc-iplayer-first-impressions/
It's not as anti-mac/linux as you make it seem on reading this post. The program is not Vista compatible either.... By all accounts this just looks like a bad rush job.
Why is the BBC doing anything with licence payers money that not every licence payer has access to. If the BBC is to continue in this vain (which it has to to survive), then the licence fee should be abolished and the Corporation should rely on advertising like other commercial stations, especially as they already advertise their on products.
According to the latest BBC news update on this, they are actually working towards getting cross-platform support as soon as they can, hence the beta status. However, I too was disappointed at being rejected by iPlayer for using Firefox. After testing it out successfully using IE, I followed this Engadget post and found that FairUse4WM will strip out the DRM.
im testing it at the moment and wasnt impressed at first. there are so many errors and loads of rubbish shows up that bete testers are not going to want to watch (like endless episodes of ballimorie. but then i found some good programs like mock the week and 2 pints. the download speeds are really slow and the quality is not great but i had no trouble watching the show. i think the iPlayer still needs alot of work and should learn some things from 4OD. id give it 7/10