Crave

The BBC's iPlayer TV catch-up service is making its way to the Nintendo Wii today. British residents who navigate to www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer using Opera's Internet Channel browser will be greeted by the same selection of streaming programs made available for PC users.

The BBC promises to bring a slightly updated version in the coming months that will add additional functionality, the same way Opera did with the specially designed version of its browser made just for the Wii. Best of all, it will be a standalone channel app. The BBC's Anthony Rose hopes this will fit the needs of users who don't want to have to load up the browser and navigate to their iPlayer bookmark, or pay for the Internet application in the first place.

This is the first time the iPlayer has made its living room debut. Previously the only way to get iPlayer programming on your TV set was by hooking up your home PC or laptop to your television. Enterprising iPhone users were also able to take advantage of the streaming on their TV sets, as long as they had the AV cable pack and a universal dock, which costs about £70.00 ($139) combined.

Previous iPlayer coverage:
iPlayer gets iPhone support
BBC's iPlayer getting Mac version in 2008, Web version continues to dominate usage
BBC moving to Adobe Flash, iPlayer on the Web soon
BBC puts shows online

U.K. residents with iPhones can do a little rejoicing after yesterday. Amid the wave of announcements surrounding the release of the SDK, the BBC quietly launched iPhone and iPod Touch support for its iPlayer TV service. We've blogged about this being a feature after footage of the iPlayer working on the iPhone was shown off in a promotional video made more than 10 months ago, but the videos on the streaming service use Adobe's Flash, which is not a part of the iPhone's built-in software.

Unlike the software iteration of the iPlayer, shows can't be downloaded, but users have access to a limited selection of streaming content that's been formatted to work on the handset. Instead of featuring the beautiful Coverflow-approach seen in the video, the service uses a system similar to what's been seen on Apple.com and Break.com, with little blue play buttons to indicate the videos that can be played on the portable device when connected to a Wi-Fi connection.

The BBC has been a little late to the game with putting television content online for its viewers; however, in comparison to content providers in the U.S., it's the first to make its content readily viewable on the mobile device without any special subscriptions through the carriers. In the U.S., Verizon is currently one of the only major players in providing recently released television shows (in their entirety) over the air to its subscribers through its VCast Mobile TV service. Sprint and AT&T will also have initiatives to bring TV and movie content to phones over the air.

It's worth noting the service only works to residents of the U.K., who pay for the programming with their tax dollars. No mention of whether a paid version of the service for residents outside of the region is on the way. See more on the BBC's iPlayer blog.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

If there are lessons to be learned about the need for big companies to create platform-agnostic services, the BBC's iPlayer project may be one of the most shining examples.

Since the launch of the iPlayer, the BBC has been under fire not only from its viewers, but also members of the British Parliament. Parliament members have come down on the broadcasting corporation for its lack of support for open standards, and soaring costs in the development of the Windows-only software whose cost is estimated to be close to £6 million pounds (nearly $11 million dollars).

We've blogged about the service before, although haven't been able to test it because of the application's use of geo-IP tracking to (rightfully) limit viewing to the tax-paying UK citizens who fund it. Many users say the clunky interface and tough DRM make the software anything but user friendly.

The iPlayer software continues to be a Windows-only application, which has led to the controversy of those paying citizens using Mac or Linux who were unable to use the program to catch up on BBC programming without the need for a television. The iPlayer software uses Windows Media Player-based DRM that requires users to have the latest versions of Windows XP or Vista, leaving Mac and Linux users out of the picture.

UK residents can access a variety of BBC programming on the Web via streaming. Windows users can also download the programs to watch while offline.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

In mid-December, the BBC responded by releasing a streaming version of the player that runs in Web browsers using Adobe Flash. Already the service has been a runaway success. According to a blog post earlier today from the BBC's director general, Mark Thompson, 90 percent of the users of the streaming service are running Windows, while 9 percent are using mac, and 0.8 percent are using Linux. Despite the 9-to-1 user ratio, Thompson again confirmed that the BBC was still working on a Mac version, scheduled to be released by the end of the year. He also said the initial rush to make the service available had led to the single-platform offerings.

Based on the early success of TV on demand service Hulu.com in the states, and the recent roll out of Apple's timed-DRM, it's worth wondering if a standalone software version of the service is even worth the headache. The trade off of course is that the software users can "stack" episodes of their favorite shows and watch them without having to be tethered to the internet (except to connect to servers for the DRM). Time will tell.

The BBC's recently launched iPlayer, which allows eligible U.K. residents to download episodes of shows they missed on the telly, seems to be a magnet for complaints lately.

The BBC launched its iPlayer service in beta mode last month.

(Credit: BBC)

The Windows-XP only online service has already peeved Mac, Linux and Windows Vista users who can't, at least for the moment, get direct access (BBC has promised an upgrade this fall) and drawn protests over its use of Microsoft-produced digital-rights management technology.

The latest brouhaha is reminiscent of the Net neutrality debate that has raged here in the States. That controversy surrounds whether broadband operators ought to be able to charge content and application makers extra fees to deliver their content, particularly when it has the potential to consume loads of bandwidth.

In this case, major Internet service providers like Tiscali UK and Carphone Warehouse are reportedly threatening to restrict their users' downloading practices unless BBC foots part of the bill for shuttling the large files, the Financial Times reports.

A Tiscali representative told the newspaper that the new BBC service will undoubtedly clog its networks because it operates on a peer-to-peer network. Unless the ISP and BBC can come up with a "cost-sharing" arrangement, Tiscali will be forced to manage its networks by degrading the service of users who attempt to download large files at peak hours, FT reported. Tiscali is also reportedly considering creating a "two-tiered" system in which it would charge more to customers with higher-bandwidth appetites.

BT, another leading provider has been named in the reports as a "concerned" ISP, too. But a spokesman later denied being part of the extra-fee-seeking gang. In an interview with The Register that ran Monday afternoon, the company's chief press officer was quoted as saying, "We're not up in arms about iPlayer, we're not complaining to the BBC or discussing it with them."

A BBC spokesperson quoted in the service's own story was mum about the conflict, except to say, "We are in regular discussions with the ISP's and together are monitoring the costs associated with video on-demand."

But if the other concerned ISPs get their way, one has to wonder if the BBC's U.K. viewers will see a rise in the price of the license they already must pay to access the network on their traditional TV sets.

We want to love iPlayer, we really do. The BBC is always trying hard to make sure its content is available to as many people as possible on as many platforms, and we love Auntie for that. iPlayer, which we should point out is still in beta, goes far beyond the services from other broadcasters--the amount of programming on offer is vast, with something for everyone.

But as much as we love the concept, there are a few things we hate about iPlayer in practice. Here are the five key things we think need changing before the final iPlayer release.

1. You have no control over the bandwidth it uses

iPlayer uses an application called Kontiki that manages your program downloads. The problem is Kontiki is a P2P application that not only downloads content, but uploads it too. Files are distributed by "seeders", or people who have chunks of the file to upload to others, which means the BBC can reduce its costs.

We think this is a problem, because iPlayer isn't just aimed at people who are confident with computers and technology. It's aimed at the general public, many of whom are on Internet connections with download limits, which uploads usually count towards. And where there's P2P and a download limit, the potential for disaster is greater than when Uwe Boll takes a fancy to a videogame. Imagine if your ISP charges you for any data usage after you reach your limit--British Telecom, for example, does this on some tariffs. iPlayer could get expensive very quickly. What's more, you can't really tell how much iPlayer uploads, unlike on BitTorrent, where you can see what has been downloaded and uploaded at a glance.

2. DRM

We understand that the BBC has its hands tied on this one to some extent. The actors' unions, the music industry, and the production companies are the ones who insist that DRM is present in the downloaded files, restricting how long you can keep it and locking it to one computer--and a specific OS (see 3, below). Obviously, the BBC does have some interest in restricting the distribution of its content, because it makes millions of pounds a year from the sale of DVDs, and this helps reduce the license fee.

But the laughable thing is, every single program on iPlayer has already been blasted through the skies without any such restriction placed upon it. If you get a digital TV card for your PC, you can capture anything the BBC broadcasts, keep it for as long as you want and put it on your PVP to watch when you're out and about.

3. It works only with Windows XP

The press has had a field day with the reaction from the Linux camp about iPlayer not working on that platform, and we can see why. Even if we accept that Windows is the platform the Beeb wants to test on, why isn't Vista support included? There's a version of Kontiki with support for Microsoft's newest OS.

Once again, DRM not only prevents you from using your media in a way that suits you, it also restricts the platforms that can support it. As long as there's DRM in iPlayer, it's never going to be available via Linux. So the argument looks set to run and run. The better solution would have been for the BBC to develop its own distribution system, perhaps based on BitTorrent, that has some custom DRM protection built in.

4. It doesn't work on lots of machines

What annoys us most is that, even if you've got XP, it still might not work. We found this to be a particular problem on machines with Windows Media Player 11, or those where we couldn't perform updates because of some sort of restriction. We've now installed iPlayer on a PC within our corporate network, one laptop connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi, and one home PC on a fast ADSL line. None of them work. There are people who have got iPlayer to work--we've even met some of them--but we've not had a positive experience so far.

Issues we've encountered are: incompatibilities with WMP 11; security update warnings that won't allow you to press "update"; files that simply refuse to download; files that download but will only play the BBC ident and stop before the program starts; and an Internet Explorer error about a "slow running script" in the iPlayer library.

5. Picture quality is rubbish

Although we understand that picture quality isn't really the purpose of iPlayer, we would still like to see files that look a little better than the ones currently on the service, which look worse than VHS quality if you plug your PC into an HDTV. There have also been problems with wide-screen files being encoded in the wrong size, so it's not possible to watch them full screen without black bars all around the image. When we asked the BBC about HD over iPlayer, it was keen on the idea. Let's hope so, because there's no reason not to provide content in decent quality. Especially once you can watch files on your TV through a media streamer, which is only a matter of time.

If you're worried about the P2P file-sharing aspect of the iPlayer, you can buy a piece of software called NetLimiter, which will allow you to restrict the data you upload. You should be aware that stopping iPlayer from uploading anything may result in you being banned from the beta. If you decide to remove iPlayer, you can download a tool called 'Kclean' which allows you to remove the service completely by uninstalling Kontiki. After you do this, though, Sky by Broadband, 4oD and iPlayer will all stop working.

On arriving in the office this morning, we were greeted with a pleasant surprise in our inbox: an invitation to join the BBC iPlayer open beta, which starts today. We didn't waste any time in getting stuck in. Although anyone can sign up, the number of people who will be allowed to join is being controlled by the Beeb to ensure the whole service doesn't collapse in on itself.

(Credit: Crave UK)

Getting into the system is reasonably easy, once you get your invitation. The first step involves accessing the password-protected beta area. Once in, you must register a username and password. When you've done that, you'll be able to download the iPlayer library--a little Web applet that keeps track of your downloaded shows. This is also the part that contains the peer-to-peer application that shares the files with other users.

Using the system is straightforward. After logging in, you are presented with an attractive Web page that allows you to see which programs are available to download. From here, you can search or look at the most recently added shows, as well as pick shows from a specific genre. Downloading something is no harder than clicking a link and waiting for the file to transfer.

There is a problem, though--the iPlayer doesn't work, or at least, it wouldn't on our machines. We will admit that we are using Windows Media Player 11, which can cause problems. However we tried iPlayer on two computers--one in the office and one on a perfectly normal home computer on a regular DSL connection--and were unsuccessful on both occasions.

In the office we got error messages about updating our security, but the application wouldn't allow us to do the update, which was truly infuriating. On our home machine, the iPlayer got its knickers in a twist because there wasn't enough free space, but ignored our attempts to get it to save the files to a different drive with plenty of space. It, too, displayed an error about security.

We have seen iPlayer working on other computers, so we know it's possible. But as a normal user, if you encountered the problems we did, you'd almost certainly give up. It's far less hassle to just set the PVR to record Top Gear than it is to mess about for ages downloading a DRM-crippled low bit rate WMV file that only lasts seven days.

The stupid thing is, iPlayer is being ruined by DRM and the associated technology required to make it work. Anyone can get TV programmes via BitTorrent by pressing one button and waiting 30 minutes or so. They then have a file that doesn't have restrictions, will play on a whole host of devices and doesn't expire. Of course, downloading copyrighted material is illegal, so most people won't do it, but until the iPlayer is as simple and pain-free as getting XviD files from The Pirate Bay, it doesn't stand a chance in achieving what the BBC wants, which is to control how their media is distributed over the Internet.

(Source: Crave UK)