The BBC is reporting that their iPlayer is overflowing with win (as da yoot would say), with over 1m users streaming or downloading around 3.5m BBC programmes since the Christmas Day launch.
The on-demand Internet TV service notched up over a million users between Tuesday 25th December and Monday 7th January, downloading or streaming 250,000 programmes each day on average during this period.
Continue reading BBC iPlayer Scores 3.5m Downloads
As promised, below is the interview we did yesterday evening with Mark Taylor, President of the Open Source Consortium, following their meeting the BBC Technology staff, giving you the latest news on the BBC’s view on changing the iPlayer to an open platform rather than the Microsoft-only approach they’ve taken until now.
We met with Mark Taylor, President of the Open Source Consortium (OSC) last night, directly after his meeting with the BBC to discuss opening-up the iPlayer to run on more platforms than just the Microsoft browser.
It appears that the meetings were positive and boiled down to two points, the BBC feels they haven’t communicated their desires for iPlayer properly and that they want the iPlayer to run on an open platform.
Continue reading iPlayer: BBC DOES Want Open Platform: OSC
We’ve had a listen to the podcasted interview with Ashley Highfield, Director of BBC Future Media and Technology, put out by BBC Backstage and thought it was worth some comment.
It’s clearly part of a PR battle against those who are voicing disappointment at the BBC making the iPlayer only work on a Microsoft platform.
Continue reading Ashley Highfield & The BBC iPlayer PR Offensive
The BBC is set to unveil a “significant” move into the videogames market, according to a report in The Scotsman.
The Corporation – still smarting from the humiliation of being caught out ripping off viewers taking part in TV phone-ins – is expected to unveil their new gaming strategy next week at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival.
Continue reading iPlayer: BBC To Enter Computer Games Market?
Today the BBC has opened a list for up to 500,000 UK TV license payers to sign up for access to iPlayer – if they have an appropriate computers setup.
Over the next six months, those who sign up will be let on to the Beta trial to use iPlayer. (Those of us who have been on the 15,000 people iPlayer trial will have noticed that there was a new release of the software last night.)
Let’s be clear, we do think that the iPlayer is an advance for the BBC, and the functions and control it gives views are welcome.
Where it really lets itself down is that it is dependant on a very thin slice of technology needs.
Continue reading BBC iPlayer: A Flawed Gem
If you listen to our interview with Mark Taylor, you’ll have heard a very interesting point that was raise in the OSC discussion with the BBC Trust.
The BBC Trust are totally fine with BBC content going out to over the Internet _without_ content protection – ie DRM.
This would be in-line with the BBC’s view of distributing their TV content over satellite in the UK, where in 2003 they made Sky beam out the BBC TV channels without encryption – much to Sky’s displeasure – saving themselves £40m – £85m in the process.
This is of course still an avenue open to the BBC. We wonder how much of the License payers money would be saved on DRM if they were to take this route?
We got the exclusive opportunity to interview the members of the Open Source Consortium (OSC) that has met with the BBC Trust, directly after they had been discussing the BBC iPlayer with them for the first time.
From there we scooped the iPlayer On Linux a must story, but there was a lot more detail in the interview than we could get into the piece.
Various highlights were
If you, like many others, are unhappy about the iPlayer only being available on a particular version of Windows, get yourself over to the iPlayer petition. Every vote counts, so join the current 12,000+ that have said they don’t like it.
Sorry about the popping in part of the recording (like the beginning), but I left the mic windshield at the office – blast!)
[audio:https://digital-lifestyles.info/media/audio/osc-post-bbc-trust-iplayer-meeting.mp3]
We’re all aware that the BBC is planning to make their iPlayer compatible with Macs … and we even know that now that the BBC Trust has committed to make it work with Linux (shock horror).
Well if you’re like most of the tech population, you might be scratching your heads, wondering how the bleep they’re going to be doing it – given that the whole system relies on Microsoft technology to deliver any of it, and in particular the DRM. Especially as, to date Microsoft has steadfastly refused to deliver a media player for the Mac that has DRM built in.
Continue reading Is Silverlight the BBC iPlayer Silver Bullet?
We’ve been in touch with the BBC Trust today, to follow up the statement that was mentioned in our piece about the BBC Trust position on the iPlayer and Linux playback. Here it is in full with our observations at the end.
Continue reading BBC Trust Statement On iPlayer OSC Meeting: Bit Woolly