A Consuming Experience : BBC iPlayer: free TV, radio programme downloads on...

DP, thanks for your comment. RadioCentrePlayer is...

2007-06-17T19:03:00.000+01:00

DP, thanks for your comment. RadioCentrePlayer is indeed pretty cool. (I've included the link for those who aren't aware of it, or for those who can't access that version, try this).

It's great that it offers such a range of stations. But that's for live broadcasts. It's the catching up, the ability to download previously-broadcast programmes which you happened to miss at the time, that Listen Again/radio aspects of iPlayer aim to address, and I think that's slightly different.

What about radio?Have you tried new RadioCentrePla...

2007-06-13T00:02:00.000+01:00

What about radio?

Have you tried new RadioCentrePlayer with UK commercial radio, BBC, and rest of the world?

Thanks for your comments mapperz. Guess you're not...

2007-06-03T20:04:00.000+01:00

Thanks for your comments mapperz. Guess you're not on the iPlayer trial itself too, then?

Yes I've tried several of the other on demand services too. As you say, hopefully faster connections will help. It's the content / programming that will drive take up, of course.

I'm looking forward to a working final version of this too!

Good Post. Have used the iMP in the original trial...

2007-05-30T17:20:00.000+01:00

Good Post. Have used the iMP in the original trial though had problems convincing the server that I was in Middle England on a BT Broadband connection (and paid a licence fee).
Once BBC Engineers got on the case and add IP it worked very well.
BBC was ahead on this game, I agree with ex-Director Greg Dyke they have trawled out the red tape in getting these services rolled out, the like of ITV Local, 4OD and other Internet based TV on demand (Joost).
Have used them all.
All have issues but with more use and faster connections this will be ironed out.
Like the News 24 and Local Area News available on the BBC site even when in other countries is available.
Looking for to the public release of this service

Mapperz
http://mapperz.blogspot.com/

David, I've pinned down the source of the confusio...

2007-05-18T17:32:00.000+01:00

David, I've pinned down the source of the confusion about book reading. The BBC Trust in their final decision said (p.21, see (d)) that book readings will be excluded entirely from non-DRM downloads.

However, I think someone forgot to amend the Service Licence on p.29, so that still says "unabridged". It seems fairly clear that this is a mistake and that they meant to delete "unabridged", but the Trust haven't explained their decision on book readings in their FAQ, and p. 14 1st para of their final conclusions suggests ALL book readings are to be excluded, so who knows.

If they'd finally decided to exclude all book readings, even abridged ones, because they were worried about the market for audio books, it's a bit odd that they didn't explain that (because they were consulting on excluding unabridged readings, not excluding all readings altogether!). I expect we'll find out on launch what they really meant.

Thanks for your comment David.That's interesting a...

2007-05-18T16:25:00.000+01:00

Thanks for your comment David.

That's interesting about Sky Broadband. I don't know what the issue is there. If you have XP and IE 6 or 7 and WMP 10, I'd have thought the Net download option would have been OK, but I just don't know enough to know if there's something technically difficult about the Sky broadband setup. I wouldn't have thought it was to keep Sky employees from peeking, but who knows?? Would be interested to hear if any Sky Broadband users at all got accepted on the trial.

Forgive my ignorance but it's not obvious to me - is Sky Broadband a cable service, or ADSL? If the former, I believe the only currently operational cable trials are for Virgin Media and Homechoice, so it could just be that.

Book readings and audio books - my beef is that I don't think the BBC Trust are just excluding full audio book readings from non-DRM downloads. From what I've seen of the final PVT conclusions and proposed service licence changes, book readings are excluded entirely - not just unabridged book readings.

Thank you for providing this very thorough sneak p...

2007-05-18T14:59:00.000+01:00

Thank you for providing this very thorough sneak preview. Two minor comments:
* I was told as a Sky Broadband user I would not be able to participate in the trial for technical reasons. I have to suppose it was actually a crude attempt to keep Sky employees from having a peek. Any idea why otherwise?
* Not being able to get full audiobooks is not a big restriction from present practice - I don't think any of the BBC's book broadcasts hitherto have been unabridged.