BBC's iPlayer to launch in late July, Mac and Vista support on the way

The BBC's iPlayer will be making it's official, public beta debut July 27 to U.K. residents who are legal TV license holders--a yearly taxation system that pays for TV ownership and usage. The small desktop software client allows users to download and view episodes or entire series of BBC television programming on their PCs.

Lucky U.K. residents will soon get to enjoy the iPlayer on their PCs, and then Macs as well.

(Credit: BBC.co.uk)

In addition to launching the Windows client, the BBC will also be rolling out integration of the iPlayer to the BBC's U.K. site, and later to YouTube. The team behind it is also working on versions of the iPlayer client for Macs and Windows Vista.

The BBC is in talks with Virgin Media to create a set-top box equivalent, akin to a DVR with on-demand capabilities for watching archived programming. It will also be adding the option to subscribe to a series, and to watch shows right away without having to wait for them to finish downloading.

Also, as a tidbit, from this promo video that was uploaded to Vimeo two months ago, it looks like there's also Web interfaces in the works for Nintendo's Wii and Apple's iPhone. File it in the rumor bin for now.