BBC iplayer

[ECA]

Choo choo!

TV is so dead.

 

[Guest]

well, if they sort out the shit download speeds it is......

 

[ECA]

I've watched an hour or so so far and have nps w/ buffering etc, total playthrough.

 

[rynnor]

You do realise they wasted millions on this silliness and were completely overtaken by market developments?

Its one of the biggest farces by the BBC so far - complete waste of the license fee!

 

[ECA]

Say what?

I can watch whatevers been on the been in the last week online for free no signup/registration and with good quality.

Whats better than that out at the moment?

 

[nath]

You fucking legend - I missed Buzzcocks and I'm watching it now

Why oh why don't they take the piss out of Kate Nash and her ridiculous mockney accent?

 

[rynnor]

Say what?

I can watch whatevers been on the been in the last week online for free no signup/registration and with good quality.

Whats better than that out at the moment?

The BBC are a content provider yet they wasted millions of pounds trying to re-create media delivery systems that already existed - thats where the money was wasted.

The idea of BBC content online is great but they implemented it incredibly badly - here - Why is the iPlayer a multi million pound disaster? | The Register - arm yourself with knowledge friend!

 

[DaGaffer]

iPlayer is utter toss. The original spec was for a public service archive of the BBC's back catalogue, and instead we get a wanky-DRM-crippled seven-day replay service that can't even include all of the BBC's own output because they were two dumb to sort out all the rights issues while they were pouring millions into development.

Its not even if they were doing anything ground-breaking; 4OD uses the same Kontiki software and has far more content and launched earlier.

And now it turns out they're going to bin it anyway and replace it with the Kangaroo project which was announced at almost exactly the same time iPlayer finally came out of beta.

Maybe if someone had actually sat down at the BBC and worked out what this kind of service is for, they might have come up with something more fit for purpose in the first place.

 

[nath]

On the other hand, the volume slider on the iplayer window goes to 11.

 

[Calaen]

Yay another chance to watch all 50 episodes of Eastenders from last week
Waste of money!!!

 

[nath]

Or you could watch the stuff that isn't shit: Have I got news for you, Buzzcocks, Charlie Brookers Screenwipe etc.

 

[Tom]

I want to watch Jeremy Clarkson savage the original Vectra again. Is that on it?

 

[ECA]

Yes a content archive would be super, but that would rather kill the bbcs DVD business and thus require the license fee to go up again

For what it is its pretty darn good.

 

[DaGaffer]

Yes a content archive would be super, but that would rather kill the bbcs DVD business and thus require the license fee to go up again

For what it is its pretty darn good.

No it wouldn't, any more than regular repeats of say, Doctor Who, affect DVD sales. In fact there's shitloads in the BBC archive that never sees the light of day on any format. The original brief was that making the archive available would be the prefect fit for the whole "educate, entertain, inform" mantra, then someone pointed out that the BBC doesn't own the rights to most of its own content, (some it never owned, a lot of other stuff was sold off), and that even with new content they weren't securing online rights - which is why you'll see Doctor Who on there, but won't see Torchwood. How fucked up is that?

 

[ECA]

I'm more in the not caring brigade about not having torchwood.

It lets me watch all the stuff like buzzcocks/etc that isnt available on torrent while all the good stuff is torrented months before its shown in the uk anyway.

 

[Tilda]

I've been in the BBC back catalogue trial for the last year.
Its been pretty shite, really slow to add stuff. And as it has limited funding, they were basically adding just about 1 program per month for each year.
Hardly any of the more recent stuff (ie last 10 years) was around mainly due to rights issues.

Its a real shame tbh, I dont see why they cant merge the two, have BBC media player, outsource some company to digitise all of their back copies, use a readily available media player front end and save mega bucks to spend on payments for production companies who want extra royalties due to new exposure of their material.

 

[DaGaffer]

I'm more in the not caring brigade about not having torchwood.

It lets me watch all the stuff like buzzcocks/etc that isnt available on torrent while all the good stuff is torrented months before its shown in the uk anyway.

That was an example to show the absurdity of the situation. I'm sure other progs that you do care about will be affected. And mentioning torrents only reinforces the logic flaws in the iPlayer model anyway; what's it for? When I was abroad I found almost all the "good" BBC programmes (TG, Buzzcocks, Who, Life On Mars etc.) on torrents anyway. The iPlayer seems to be a service to stop freeloading foreigners who don't pay the licence fee from watching BBC content online, except it obviously won't stop them at all.

I actually think the iPlayer was built to appease rights holders and overseas tv buyers into thinking the BBC was somehow "protecting" content, rather than for any real consumer service reasons, otherwise it wouldn't be so half-arsed; I used to work at the BBC and they're just not that incompetent.

 

[rynnor]

Its a real shame tbh, I dont see why they cant merge the two, have BBC media player, outsource some company to digitise all of their back copies, use a readily available media player front end and save mega bucks to spend on payments for production companies who want extra royalties due to new exposure of their material.

Exactly - they have wasted money on areas they know little about when they could have focused on the material available to download - its a very civil service style fuck up really.

 

[ECA]

You're all missing the bloody point.

You get to watch all the shizzle you might want to watch online in better quality than torrents/streams that are out atm.

The rest will get cobbled together later, its BRITISH damnit, its what we do.

And if what you want isnt on it, you can gaurantee its because its a popular current series/etc and it will have been on torrent for 6 months already.

Archive would be lovely I agree but take it for what it is.

 

[GReaper]

The flash iPlayer is quite good, no problems with it. Just a shame that they spent months of testing the evil Kontiki P2P version until recently.

Would be nice if they had slightly more than just 7 days content, I'd say that 14 to 28 days is more reasonable.

I signed up for the BBC archive trial (the one which gives access to clips/shows from ages ago) and it wasn't that great. Yes they added a fair bit of content, but there wasn't much worth watching.

 

[cHodAX]

I signed up for the BBC archive trial (the one which gives access to clips/shows from ages ago) and it wasn't that great. Yes they added a fair bit of content, but there wasn't much worth watching.

Certainly nowhere near the amount of classic BBC content you can find on acertain Britsh TV torrent site anyway. Such a shame really, the BBC archive could be stunning if done properly.

 

[Calaen]

You're all missing the bloody point.

You get to watch all the shizzle you might want to watch online in better quality than torrents/streams that are out atm.

The rest will get cobbled together later, its BRITISH damnit, its what we do.

And if what you want isnt on it, you can gaurantee its because its a popular current series/etc and it will have been on torrent for 6 months already.

Archive would be lovely I agree but take it for what it is.

Or as most people do already just catch it on catchup tv on virgin media or sky+/v+ the whole series

 

[Ch3tan]

This may shock you cal, but not everyone actually has sky/virgin. And catch up TV misses out lots of programs.

 

[DaGaffer]

This may shock you cal, but not everyone actually has sky/virgin. And catch up TV misses out lots of programs.

Yeah but I bet if you did an analysis of customer awareness/penetration of broadband-enabled PCs and customer behaviour, you'd find that the vast majority of people who'd be even interested in something like iPlayer would also be the kind of people who have PVRs. The exception would be students.

The one time iPlayer would be useful for me is when I'm abroad on business or holiday, which is of course the one time I wouldn't be allowed to use it...

 

[Panda On Smack]

On the other hand, the volume slider on the iplayer window goes to 11.

Winner

 

[Calaen]

This may shock you cal, but not everyone actually has sky/virgin. And catch up TV misses out lots of programs.

I bet there are a lot more with them than without, you can get those freeview boxes with an HD in now.

 

[Ch3tan]

Yeah but that is not catch up TV. Hell, the majority of the nation still do not have digital TV, despite the fact we are not far off from the switchover.

 

[DaGaffer]

Yeah but that is not catch up TV. Hell, the majority of the nation still do not have digital TV, despite the fact we are not far off from the switchover.

That is absolutely incorrect. The majority of households (84%) do have at least one digital TV enabled device in the home.
Broadcasting - News - 84% of UK households have digital TV - Digital Spy

 

[rynnor]

Bit off topic but did you know that freeview is going to be replaced in a few years time with a new standard so that theres room for more HD channels.

Freeview is just an interim thing - it will be dumped pretty quickly - something of a moneywaster eh

 

[DaGaffer]

Well, you have to remember that Freeview was a bit of a last-minute thing that only happened because ITV Digital went titsup. Given its humble origins you have to say its been a resounding success, and has driven digital TV takeup far harder than ITV Digital ever would have.