BBC i-player

[Edge]

Hands up those who've used it?
I'll be trying it out later if i can get my laptop to run through the tv Going to watch "top gear polar thingy again" just wanna see clarkson getting pushed in that icy water lol.

[MuddyMachine]

Its good, but you have to watch it in the small setting. It not good enough quality to watch it in full screen

[Wolfie]

You also will need to watch your bandwith usage, it's P2P software.

[muddyjames]

i have used it and found it highly annoying as it only allows about 15 seconds to download then another 8seconds to download next 15seconds. very annoying. Might not use it again :(

I also installed the iplayer downloader but everytime I try and download a program all I get is that sorry thier servers are busy, try another time  :twisted:

[thermidorthelobster]

Muddyjames, you do know it's not intended for streaming?  ie, you're supposed to let it mooch off and download the WHOLE programme, and only watch it once it's complete.

I use it with Vista and I've found the quality perfectly satisfactory on a laptop screen;  I've not viewed it on a TV, but given TV resolution is well under half that of my laptop, I would expect it should be quite good.  Might try it later.

[muddyjames]

Yesterday I did try the mooch off and let it download option. I set it going, served up me dinner and made a drink and a few other bits and bobs for about 5 minutes. Played it and yup, I got 15seconds worth of program  :twisted:

I must be doing something wrong  :(

[Henry Webster]

There's some confusion here now.  The iPlayer now supports Flash streaming on the website (at a reduced quality of 500kbps) and full quality download through the aforementioned peer to peer client.

If you are having problems streaming, then this is probably due to your local connection, what speed BB are you on?  You should be able to stream 500kbps on a 2mb connection with few problems in ordinary circumstances.

[Freelander1980]

The only time i have tried to use it i also found only got about 15 seconds at a time, now dont bother with it as cant be doing with the hassle

[muddyjames]

, what speed BB are you on?  

2.2mbps my little box in the bottom of my screen says.

I used to be able to stream programs from VEOH web site but now that doesnt happen either unless I leave it for 5 mins. Think I may remove Iplayer download.

[thermidorthelobster]

There's some confusion here now.  The iPlayer now supports Flash streaming on the website (at a reduced quality of 500kbps) and full quality download through the aforementioned peer to peer client.

Ah, I didn't realise it did streaming as well.  Is that new?

The quality of the downloaded files seems excellent.  It makes sense that it comes in 15 second chunks as it's p2p...  I found the download speed was slow to start with but got much quicker as time went on, but I've not used it recently so I may be out of date now.

[Henry Webster]

Ah, I didn't realise it did streaming as well.  Is that new?

Launched a couple of weeks before Christmas.  Still a few glitches, but works pretty well for me!

H

[Evilgoat]

Virgin/NTL Actively traffic shape P2P traffic so expect probvlems using it with broadband connections from them. They'll also drop your rate if you pull over X Gb per month and traffic shape on top of that, Net result, I have 10k/sec available for p2p

[Edge]

Had no probs watching it on my laptop (vista), on bt broadband.

[muddyjames]

After uninstalling Iplayer downloader top gear streamed for 50 minutes of the program ok. Eastenders (yes I know but tryingit on another program at random) and that is back to the 15sec watch 8 sec stream. but leaving it seems to streem a bit more on pause.

[Henry Webster]

Virgin/NTL Actively traffic shape P2P traffic so expect probvlems using it with broadband connections from them. They'll also drop your rate if you pull over X Gb per month and traffic shape on top of that, Net result, I have 10k/sec available for p2p

The streaming stuff isn't P2P, but I was aware that several of the ISPs are now traffic shaping!

H

[carbore]

BBC are in troublea it only works on Microsoft technologies. Numpties, they really should think this through.  There was a good article about it on the "Register" but I cant find the link.

[muddyjames]

I find that I can now stream 45mins perfectly. the last 15mins does the usual play 8 seconds then buffer. I think it is due to my provider tiscali lowering my down load to the fair useage policy. only thing i can think of.

[Henry Webster]

BBC are in troublea it only works on Microsoft technologies. Numpties, they really should think this through.  There was a good article about it on the "Register" but I cant find the link.

The streaming player is in Flash so works on both PCs and Macs.  If you want to download the better quality version then you will need to use Windows Media Player still.

H