Comments on: BBC iPlayer 2.0 (the-not-so-much review)

By: Candida

Candida — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 22:20:21 +0000

Hi Guys
I am wondering if you can help. I could watch programmes with iPlayers with my MacG4 and MacOS 10.4.7 until th echange this week. Then nothing: I can have access to iPlayer and vbrouse the propgrammes but if I try to watch any, thyere is not the usual arrows to click and select to watch the programme, just the still picture (no option at the bottom of the pics lights up no nowhere to click). Does anybodt knows what’s going on? What the BBc changes that now nothing works? I don’t want to download, was happy to stream…
Many thanks for you help, I was away last week and would like to watch my favourites before they are gone. Cheers. Candida

By: James Cridland (BBC)

James Cridland (BBC) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:39:23 +0000

I should report back about the conflicting programme schedule, since I asked for you.

iPlayer uses what will be “the normal programme feed” – something we know internally as PIPS (and something that also runs http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes ). The Radio 1 page is currently driven by the older programme feed – something we know internally as WhatsOn. They both come from the same company that puts our schedules together for us, but occasionally (very occasionally) they get out of sync. You spotted such an occasion, which means you can pat yourself on the back.

You mention the Backstage RSS feeds above; developers wishing to play with our schedules (for non-commercial reasons) might like to take a peek at the “alternate serialisations”, which you’ll find here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/developers#alternateserialisations which are officially supported and hence should be rather more robust.

By: Donald Kelly

Donald Kelly — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:37:15 +0000

Thanks for your comment. That answers my question as to why RealPlayer showed up. I also found it intresting that the Radio iPlayer didn’t follow the normal BBC Programme feed. Hopefully I didn’t seem entirely negative about the beta, I actually quite like the iPlayer (both the Radio and video version, On the occasions that I’m able to use it.) and the new beta. I’ve been using various BBC services since I moved to America in 2005. I’m also quite a fan of the BBC’s use of Podcasts (For example the Radio NewsPod and the Best of Chris Moyles enhanced.)

(And I’m listening to Radio 1 via the iPlayer Beta as I type this comment.)

By: James Cridland (BBC)

James Cridland (BBC) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:41:01 +0000

Hi, Donald,

Thanks for checking the new iPlayer beta out.

Live radio is not in Flash yet; only on-demand content (for national radio). There’s a ton of additional information here if you want to find out more – http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2008/06/under_the_iplayer_hood_for_rad.shtml – and you’re seeing RealPlayer because you’re using a Mac; PCs get Windows Media Player by default.

The schedule data is coming from a different place – in fact, it’s the same schedule used by http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes – and I’m confused as to why iPlayer showed a different schedule to the feed serving the BBC Radio 1 website. Thanks for that report; I’ll look into it.

Finally, “None of the features that the BBC has been going on about are enabled yet” – I think those that designed the entirely newly-designed interface might have a small word about that! (grin)

Thank you for your blog, and do keep listening to BBC Radio.

By: skiddie

skiddie — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:56:16 +0000

As you seem to be in the states, might this not explain the RealPlayer controls: “Finally, my friends outside the UK get the improved navigation and everything except the Flash player (it should drop into Real Player for on-demand content). Let me know if it does. Or if it doesn’t.”

From here: http://james.cridland.net/blog/2008/06/26/iplayer-gets-radio-properly-this-time/