> Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only
Yes, well. It's not like the publically financed television stations of EUrope have FUCKING MORAL OBLIGATION to help the free movement of people throughout Europe by making the programs that connect them with their home country and that they paid for available to them. And the BBC is _by far_ not the worst offender here.
I mean, even YLE, which should be happy that anybody outside of Finland wants to participate in the madness that is the Finnish language, blocks me based on my IP!
Of course, I am well aware that I am a German citizen and thus not paying into the BBC financing. This is of course an insourmountable obstacle, today in 2014.
It's not like there was any possible way to track which countries the programmes are watched from and then install some transfer payment systems between the publically financed broadcasters of the different countries.
Admittedly, our public broadcasters here in Germany have an annual budget of only 7.5 Billion Euros, so this is impossible to finance.
Man, I'm frustrated about this. Why is the media world so broken? Who runs a television station and then makes a significant effort to _keep_ people from watching it, even though them doing so has no or negligible impact on their budget?
Some of the time this will be an obligation based on content rights - e.g. the BBC only have bought the rights to show Premier League highlights or the Olympics in the UK, where as in the US NBC or ESPN might have bought those rights.
Other times, this will be due to the British government not wanting to be seen to be undercutting commercial providers in other countries (there's enough pressure on the government in how the BBC is run from commercial providers in the UK).
What's more frustrating is when the BBC produces content (e.g. via BBC Worldwide or BBC Foreign Service) which isn't available in the UK. Fortunately that's fairly rare.
The BBC probably gets a better price for externally produced programming if they limit their broadcast rights to the UK because the producer can then go sell the program abroad without having to compete with BBC iPlayer.
Conversely, for internally produced programming, if it's good, there's revenue to be made from selling that programming abroad. In Denmark, BBC channels are premium channels on cable.
Impossible to finance? Probably not. But it's significant cost, and despite your assertion, the BBCs fiduciary responsibility is to the UK license fee payers, not the average european citizen. That said, providing a login with your license fee receipt so those can watch iPlayer abroad would probably be doable.
Hell, I can see frustration at what could or should be a commercially workable model not being in place but saying that there is some moral obligation based on the EU Freedom of Movement is bullshit and then some.
Seriously I love Europe and I love the EU but the minute TV becomes a moral right I will march on Brussels with a flaming torch myself.
I'd like to see them put some more effort on content delivery for their TV partners. I have a Bravia EX and half the time the iPlayer streams don't work i.e. you get sound and no video. Then occasionally we get shot down for a couple of weeks at a time with content region warnings suggesting we're not in the UK.
Having spoken to Sony and my ISP, they're both suggesting that the administrative side of iPlayer is a mess. The former tell them that the BBC regularly breaks their codecs and metadata streams and the latter suggest that the BBC rarely update their geographical IP databases.
Not a great experience.
It's bad when you have to hit the proxy torrent sites to view content you already paid for with your TV license...
It's not just Sony. We have two LG TVs, one that's ~4 years old and one from last year. Funnily enough, the older one almost always works perfectly, the new one (a far more powerful/responsive TV, with a much newer version of the iPlayer software) barely works at all. We've complained to LG and were informed that 'a new version will be released shortly'.
my Bravia works fine for iplayer some one needs to light a fire under ITV and get there on demand service to actually work and be roll it out on to smart TV's.
I wish they made more of the programme information with links. Imagine clicking on the presenter's name and getting a list of other programmes they had done. This would be a great way to find things to watch. The same could apply with production companies and so on. This would bring in some IMDB style functionality they could build on to sell downloads of programmes currently not available. They could even start to sell movies.
I only recently discovered that there's another player lurking over at http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/ that has the schedule overlaid onto the live stream with the ability to easily switch back to an earlier show and a channel selection overlay in fullscreen.
I'm hoping this is going to be incorporated into the new iPlayer when watching live, because it seems mad to have this functionality missing depending on which part of the site you're watching live from.
Also, I'm hoping the keyboard controls will be improved. It'd be nice for the spacebar to function as pause/play and the left right arrows to skip in much smaller increments so they're actually useful.
The skipping increment being too large also affects my Humax HDR-1000S, where you can only jump in 1 minute blocks, which is far too big to be useful when seeking to the start of something. 10 seconds would be far better.
edit: The site's just offered me a go on the trial and it looks like most of the things I wanted have actually been implemented. Excellent stuff!
To announce a big new release and announce vaguely that subtitle support for iOS and Android downloads is still "coming soon" is a massive kick in the teeth. At this point they should at least be able to give us an ETA.
What is it that makes it harder to support subtitles in downloads rather than streaming? I suppose I can see that with streaming you can serve up subtitled or non-subtitled streams according to user preference, but iOS has native support for subtitles in video.
Is this some kind of crappy contractual/rights-holder thing, where "mobile devices" have to be negotiated separately?
I am not an iOS developer, so pardon my ignorance - but does iOS have support of http://www.w3.org/TR/ttaf1-dfxp/ ? That's how iPlayer currently supports subtitles for streaming.
I work on iPlayer. The new responsive design website will use the HTML5 + HLS player on iOS. Currently on Android and desktop we are using Flash + HDS/RTMP, but it's possible this will change in the future. The reason we are using Flash at the moment is partly to do with content protection (which involves negotiations with the content rights holder), and partly to do with the fact that there isn't a standard streaming mechanism across the different platforms we need to support. We would likely move to MPEG-DASH, for example, if it's more widely adopted across the platforms.
I'm still hoping that the BBC will take my money and let me have the iPlayer in the US. My wife is British, and would absolutely love to be able to watch all the BBC content. Let me pay a TV license fee [1], or whatever. Just take my money.
This has always been my position, and seems common in the ex pat community. I would pay the equivalent license fee just to get access online via iPlayer in a heartbeat.
Some of the issues were touched on by QI creator John Lloyd, when they were trying to get QI licensed for the US(only source I found was dead link referenced by wiki). There are so many differences in licensing around the movie clips and songs used in episodes between countries that what the Beeb can play under fair use in the UK would be prohibitively expensive elsewhere.
It's interesting that the iPlayer team are so open about some things but so quiet about others.
I don't expect ETAs I'm just interested to know the differences between PS4 and Xbox One app development.
It's a phased launch. Even though it's a responsive design website, we are launching it by routing mobile and tablet traffic to it first, to make sure everything works properly. There will be an opt-in mechanism on the existing desktop site later today.
However I don't feel that particular pain point because I can currently access iPlayer directly from my Sony smart TV, my Sony Blu-Ray player and my Virgin Media Tivo box. I can also use AirPlay to send from my iPad.
Sadly, apart from the iPad, seeking is real pain. Want to pop back to re-watch something in the last minute? Bad luck - you're skipped back about 20 minutes.
[+] [-] sentenza|12 years ago|reply
Yes, well. It's not like the publically financed television stations of EUrope have FUCKING MORAL OBLIGATION to help the free movement of people throughout Europe by making the programs that connect them with their home country and that they paid for available to them. And the BBC is _by far_ not the worst offender here.
I mean, even YLE, which should be happy that anybody outside of Finland wants to participate in the madness that is the Finnish language, blocks me based on my IP!
Of course, I am well aware that I am a German citizen and thus not paying into the BBC financing. This is of course an insourmountable obstacle, today in 2014.
It's not like there was any possible way to track which countries the programmes are watched from and then install some transfer payment systems between the publically financed broadcasters of the different countries.
Admittedly, our public broadcasters here in Germany have an annual budget of only 7.5 Billion Euros, so this is impossible to finance.
Man, I'm frustrated about this. Why is the media world so broken? Who runs a television station and then makes a significant effort to _keep_ people from watching it, even though them doing so has no or negligible impact on their budget?
[+] [-] richardwhiuk|12 years ago|reply
Other times, this will be due to the British government not wanting to be seen to be undercutting commercial providers in other countries (there's enough pressure on the government in how the BBC is run from commercial providers in the UK).
What's more frustrating is when the BBC produces content (e.g. via BBC Worldwide or BBC Foreign Service) which isn't available in the UK. Fortunately that's fairly rare.
[+] [-] pjmlp|12 years ago|reply
Not to mention how I really hate GEMA here.
[+] [-] mseebach|12 years ago|reply
The BBC probably gets a better price for externally produced programming if they limit their broadcast rights to the UK because the producer can then go sell the program abroad without having to compete with BBC iPlayer.
Conversely, for internally produced programming, if it's good, there's revenue to be made from selling that programming abroad. In Denmark, BBC channels are premium channels on cable.
Impossible to finance? Probably not. But it's significant cost, and despite your assertion, the BBCs fiduciary responsibility is to the UK license fee payers, not the average european citizen. That said, providing a login with your license fee receipt so those can watch iPlayer abroad would probably be doable.
[+] [-] Tyrannosaurs|12 years ago|reply
Hell, I can see frustration at what could or should be a commercially workable model not being in place but saying that there is some moral obligation based on the EU Freedom of Movement is bullshit and then some.
Seriously I love Europe and I love the EU but the minute TV becomes a moral right I will march on Brussels with a flaming torch myself.
[+] [-] bananas|12 years ago|reply
Having spoken to Sony and my ISP, they're both suggesting that the administrative side of iPlayer is a mess. The former tell them that the BBC regularly breaks their codecs and metadata streams and the latter suggest that the BBC rarely update their geographical IP databases.
Not a great experience.
It's bad when you have to hit the proxy torrent sites to view content you already paid for with your TV license...
[+] [-] petepete|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walshemj|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Theodores|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jebus989|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zizzer|12 years ago|reply
I'm hoping this is going to be incorporated into the new iPlayer when watching live, because it seems mad to have this functionality missing depending on which part of the site you're watching live from.
Also, I'm hoping the keyboard controls will be improved. It'd be nice for the spacebar to function as pause/play and the left right arrows to skip in much smaller increments so they're actually useful.
The skipping increment being too large also affects my Humax HDR-1000S, where you can only jump in 1 minute blocks, which is far too big to be useful when seeking to the start of something. 10 seconds would be far better.
edit: The site's just offered me a go on the trial and it looks like most of the things I wanted have actually been implemented. Excellent stuff!
[+] [-] peterclary|12 years ago|reply
What is it that makes it harder to support subtitles in downloads rather than streaming? I suppose I can see that with streaming you can serve up subtitled or non-subtitled streams according to user preference, but iOS has native support for subtitles in video.
Is this some kind of crappy contractual/rights-holder thing, where "mobile devices" have to be negotiated separately?
[+] [-] superbignerd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hellweaver666|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BenjaminN|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] evgen|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superbignerd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pathy|12 years ago|reply
What is wrong with using an establish platform like Flash? iPlayer works, and works well. I happy to see BBC continuing to improve.
I don't see anything close to resembling epic fail with iPlayer.
[+] [-] xedarius|12 years ago|reply
Things for me that I'd like to see (as I can see some of the devs on here)
1. Content - I see no reason why the BBC doesn't put all of it's content on the iPlayer.
2. Timelimit - Abandon the 7 day window time limit, it simply doesn't fit with our modern lives, Netflix has proved that.
3. Ability to log in using my TV Licence as an ID, that way I could stream content from another country (on holiday for example, or a business trip).
Great work though guys, thank you.
[+] [-] johneth|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cschmidt|12 years ago|reply
[1] For US folks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Uni...
[+] [-] Sniperfish|12 years ago|reply
Some of the issues were touched on by QI creator John Lloyd, when they were trying to get QI licensed for the US(only source I found was dead link referenced by wiki). There are so many differences in licensing around the movie clips and songs used in episodes between countries that what the Beeb can play under fair use in the UK would be prohibitively expensive elsewhere.
[+] [-] DanBC|12 years ago|reply
The radio iPlayer is a bit frustrating if you wanto listen to specific programmes rather than just streaming a station.
EG: searchin for "milton jones" doesn't reurn anything, but "thank you milton" does.
Having said that, the BBC is amazing and I buy a licence despite not legally needing to. The "in our time" archive is brilliant.
[+] [-] jamesmoss|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JamesBaxter|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samwillis|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] superbignerd|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeristor|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterclary|12 years ago|reply
However I don't feel that particular pain point because I can currently access iPlayer directly from my Sony smart TV, my Sony Blu-Ray player and my Virgin Media Tivo box. I can also use AirPlay to send from my iPad.
Sadly, apart from the iPad, seeking is real pain. Want to pop back to re-watch something in the last minute? Bad luck - you're skipped back about 20 minutes.
[+] [-] arethuza|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clouds|12 years ago|reply
http://time.com/18867/popcorn-time-is-so-good-at-movie-pirac...