iPlayer Released for Mac, Linux; Adobe Announces AIR for Linux

Zoxed writes "The BBC reports that their iPlayer has just been released for Mac and Linux (download page). It is based on Adobe Air, but unfortunately the service is only available to UK IP address, so I can not test it out from my adopted homeland of Germany. Perhaps a UK-based Slashdotter could review it?" In related news, an anonymous reader writes "Adobe has announced a Linux version of its AIR 1.5 runtime environment that is supposed to allow rich web apps developed on it to run on Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.10 and openSuse 10.3 with no modification. The company released versions for Windows and Mac OS X back in November."

Comments

first

[Dagvl]

first post?

Re:first

[Warll]

Wow, a low uid making a first post comment. Was the account hacked?

Re:first

[Dagvl]

no, i just thought that after that many years here I should have at least on first post :)

Re:first

[DarthJohn]

Wow, a low uid making a first post comment. Was the account hacked?

This is slashdot.

There are trolls.

Same as it ever was.

Re:first

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as it ever was.

And you may find yourself
In a news website for nerds
Fighting the first post trolls
And you may find yourself
Wondering "why, in God's name, am I here?"

And the days go by...

Re:first

[master5o1]

Exactly the same song I thought of! Too bad I don't have mod points.

Re:first

[Anonymous Coward]

"Troll" seems to mean just about anything these days: offtopic, offensive to somebody, annoying to somebody, and sometimes even the traditional meaning.

Re:first

[DuctTape]

And you may find yourself
Wondering "why, in God's name, am I here?"

Beats working.

DT

Re:first

[johnw]

That's not a low UID

Re:first

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is a five-digit UID considered "low"? I mean... two digits, absolutely. Three digits, certainly. Four digits, maybe. But five?

Re:first

[razberry636]

And you may find yourself Wondering "why, in God's name, am I here?"

Beats working.

...in a coal mine.

Pencil

[Anonymous Coward]

A pencil is a sharp object for poking in the eye.

iPlayer? Just out for the Mac?

[ColdWetDog]

How can that be? iWhatever means Mac. Silly Brits. Never could get anything right. Cars, roads, units, food. Napoleon was right.

Proxy, anyone?

[panoptical2]

Could you use a UK-based proxy and download the player?

Re:Proxy, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can download the player, it's the streaming that's going to be a problem.
Make friends with someone in UK so you can VPN in OR
download their shows via bittorrnet, like everyone else...
That's how I got The IT Crowd seasons 1, 2, and 3. It's already in AVI format so I don't
need to capture and encode anything.
Is it really stealing if I cannot buy it anywhere online (USA-based) or in a store?
I see it on amazon.co.uk and overpriced 'imports' that people are pimping on ebay and on amazon.

Re:Proxy, anyone?

[Tatsh]

Streaming works fine over proxy; currently watching Apparitions

Re:Proxy, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparitions is a fantastic show.
Enjoy.

Re:Proxy, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget imports are piracy too, as they are not licensed to be sold in that area of the world!

Re:Proxy, anyone?

[JackieBrown]

So if you stream it through a proxy, would the MPAA consider that to be part of their ever growing, all inclusive word: piracy?

(Well I guess the MPAA wouldn't be involved in a BBC show but you think if we had something interesting on US public channels and people got it through proxy they would try that?)

Re:Proxy, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic show, but they rushed the ending. That should have been split over two episodes.

Proxies ?

[Wirr]

Are there any commercial or free proxy servers which one could use to access the BBC-UK site ?

Re:Proxies ?

[FugitiveMind]

http://samair.ru/proxy/

Re:Proxies ?

[Wizard Drongo]

Our 3rd party mac app lets you use proxies well, and we're hoping to bring in an integrated VPN..
www.lawrencedudley.co.uk/iplayer

Re:Proxies ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"one" should part with some cash and pay for it like every other Brit does if you want to watch quality programming.. You're not showing "the man" by ripping off this stuff, your actions will only effect the average guy in the street who HAS to pay for a license. If you don't pay for it, you get a fine for a £1,000 - even if you never watch the channels..

Re:Proxies ?

[Anonymous Coward]

"one" should part with some cash and pay for it like every other Brit does

Fine but you have to use English sub-titles. With the occassional replay Americans can figure out the Brits are saying but no one knows what the fuck the Welsh and Scots are banging on about.

Re:Proxies ?

[Anonymous Coward]

At this present time you only ever need a TV license in the UK if you receive broadcast television signals across radio waves or by cable/satellite.

You do not need a license to:

• Use your tv to watch dvd's
• Use your tv to play games from a console
• Use your tv to watch iPlayer (provided it's not a live broadcast)
• Use your tv to watch other online tv services
• Use your tv to watch downloaded material (illegal it may be, but you sure as hell don't need a license to do it)
• Use your tv as a dust magnet

Far too many people think if you have a tv you need a license, but it's not the case. Granted that is the norm for most people who own a tv, but there are enough ways around it if you really want them and saying you will get a £1000 fine under all circumstances is just wrong. And in the context of this article, you don't actually need a license as it's using the iPlayer!

Re:Proxies ?

[jabithew]

Won't do you any good. I'm sitting a couple of miles away from White City and I can't get it working.

Re:Proxies ?

[stokessd]

I'd love an easy way. Between Dyndns, my domain name service, and my web hosting service, high speed connection, etc I've already got too many internet related items to keep track of. Rather than buy yet another network service from a third party, I'd love the BBC to actually have a subscription service. For example, the servers know I'm not in the UK, how about an account system (which I pay for) that doesn't check my location if I pay for it?

Sheldon

Re:Proxies ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Listening to the dulcet tones of those quaint peasant folk up north is half the enjoyment of regional programming. Sure, Rab C. Nesbitt and Still Game are fairly funny on the script alone, but would not have that charm nor pull of half the jokes if they were acted in the Queen's English rather than Glaswegian drawl.

Re:Proxies ?

[PhillC]

Do I need a TV Licence?

You must be covered by a valid TV Licence if you watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV. It makes no difference what equipment you use - whether it's a laptop, PC, mobile phone, digital box, DVD recorder or a TV set - you still need a licence.

You do not need a TV Licence to view video clips on the internet, as long as what you are viewing is not being shown on TV at the same time as you are viewing it.

If you use a digital box with a hi-fi system, or another device that can only be used to produce sounds and can't display TV programmes, and you don't install or use any other TV receiving equipment, you don't need a TV Licence.

http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/information/index.jsp

Re:Proxies ?

[Anonymous Coward]

if bbc acquires the distribution rights for a program for the uk, for instance, then it can't send it to you abroad.
But as it's done for satellite tv, bbc could offer just the programs it owns for a reduced fee.

Hulu + Rhapsody = iPlayer?

[XPeter]

"The iPlayer is the BBC's online media player that lets viewers stream programmes for up to seven days after broadcast or download and watch them for up to 30 days." This seems like Hulu.com and Rhapsody combined. Which is an excellent idea.

Hulu lets you watch programmes that were brocasted on TV right onto your computer. Without the need for a TV Tuner or other extras.

Rhapsody lets you download those videos and put them on your iPod or other MP3 device. (Yes, some people do use Zunes...)

I'm going to install this on Ubuntu right now :)

don't do it

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a nazi trick

oh please people.

[Icegryphon]

If you can't find a proxy in the UK to use then you don't deserve to download it.

potential of Air ?

[jawadde]

I'm not a pro with flash development, but given the advances that javascript, CSS and DHTML are making, combined with stuff like squirrelfish extreme and the canvas object, how much potential does flash still have ? don't get me wrong : I don't want to go on a flash-bashing parade here ! I'm just wondering if the current state of javascript in modern browsers isn't up-to-par with flash for 90% of whatever flash is doing right now. The only advantages of flash are code-protection and vector graphics. But I can't really see a bonus for either of those two when it comes to rich-application-development : vectors are irrelevant here, and anyone who thinks he can just copy someone's client-side of a complete platform, and reverse engineer the server side is bound to get his head stuck in someone's ass sooner or later

Re:potential of Air ?

[Alistair Hutton]

Lots. The advantage the Flash Player has over Javascript, CSS and DHTML is the when I code something for the Flash Player I know what my 1 single target platform is. When I code for the browser I'm coding for x number of subtly incompatible targets. Yes, libraries can abstract away that to a degree but not wit the ease of (the admittedly closed source) Flpash Player. Plus the player has lots of bells and whistles that frankly are really nice to use.

Re:potential of Air ?

[Toonol]

Actionscript 3.0 is really a pretty decent language, on par with the newest versions of javascript... and DHTML/CSS doesn't come close to the power of the flash graphics API. A decent flash game, for instance, can look & play better than most Super Nintendo games; DHTML/Javascript is still pushing hard to look like an original NES. Both, of course, are hundreds of times slower than native applications.

Flash has its problems, obviously; it breaks the whole browsing paradigm. However, there's just nothing else out there right now with the same mix of capabilities; it has its niche. (Maybe java applets, but those universally suck. Maybe Silverlight could, but nobody seriously uses it.)

Re:potential of Air ?

[jonbryce]

Sound and video for starters.

And that's what iPlayer does.

Re:potential of Air ?

[greg_barton]

However, there's just nothing else out there right now with the same mix of capabilities...

Oh, really?

Re:potential of Air ?

[Khuffie]

Let me know when you can do apps like picnik or buzzword in JavaScript, CSS and DHTML without having a nightmare of browser incompatabilities to work around.

Re:potential of Air ?

[thetoadwarrior]

I agree. I think JavaFX has the most potential. It just has to take off. Hopefully people will realise its potential.

Re:potential of Air ?

[Anonymous Coward]

A decent flash game, for instance, can look & play better than most Super Nintendo games;

And it only needs a few Gigahertz to look better than almost 20 year old games!

Re:potential of Air ?

[Anonymous Coward]

DHTML/CSS doesn't come close to the power of the flash graphics API.

Not really true, given that absolutely positioned 1px X 1px DIVs give you the ability to create arbitrary images of any size. Couple that with a Turing complete language (JavaScript) and you could create Crysis in a webpage, given enough CPU.

Re:potential of Air ?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the javafx site: "You must upgrade Java in order to continue."

Flash wins.

Re:potential of Air ?

[einer]

JavaFX (Applets 2.0) has awesome potential, but they pretty much said "screw you" to Linux which means I won't be early adopting it and neither will any of my co-workers. That said, they're already so far behind on install base that all Flash needs to nip this in the bud is release a browser independent runtime and a nicer web service binding api and there will be no practical reason not to choose it. I would like to see someone write a browser in Flash for some reason. So you could browse while you browse.

Re:potential of Air ?

[pallmall1]

Hopefully people will realise its potential.

Kind of hard to do that if you're running linux or solaris.

Would holding up JavaFX on 98% of desktops in hopes that Linux will get its multimedia act together really be in the interest of Sun or Java? If so, hold your breath and think "everything should be in Ogg" over and over again until you get your wish. The rest of us have better stuff to do. -- Editor, Java.Net . What this has to do with solaris is unclear.

They promise javafx is coming to linux and solaris, but they don't mention when. Sun promised the same thing with the 64-bit plugin TWO YEARS before it was released, so why should anyone hold their breath for javafx on linux or solaris.

Linux users may have a seat at the back of the bus with Adobe, but Sun doesn't want linux or solaris users to even get on the bus.

Re:potential of Air ?

[Si-UCP]

I take it that you haven't heard of the Canvas element yet?

Re:potential of Air ?

[thetoadwarrior]

I see JavaFX coming to linux sooner and in a better position than silverlight and AIR.

Re:potential of Air ?

[pallmall1]

I see JavaFX coming to linux sooner and in a better position than silverlight and AIR.

Do you have a link to the release date for javafx for linux or solaris?

Re:potential of Air ?

[ogdenk]

You can embed sounds in web pages and stream MP3's just fine without flash. Hell, I was doing that in 1997.

As for video, isn't HTML5 supposed to rectify that eventually? It also isn't hard to stream an MPEG or Quicktime movie without flash.

I for one would be much happier without gay streaming flash ads/movies/games sucking up bandwidth on my network at the office. I can filter MP3's and video files easily enough at the proxy but flash is used as a UI on some pages so I can't justify blocking all of it.

Flash has kinda fractured the web a bit and gone against what the web was intended to be. Searchable, linkable and indexable.

Re:potential of Air ?

[shutdown -p now]

Actionscript 3.0 is really a pretty decent language, on par with the newest versions of javascript.

ActionScript 3.0 pretty much is the newest version of JS :)

Re:potential of Air ?

[thetoadwarrior]

Do you have a release date for Silverlight or AIR for linux or solaris that's up to date with Windows?

Re:potential of Air ?

[Anonymous Coward]

So because you are lazy you go for flash?

That's what it sounds like ("my 1 single target platform", "ease of ... Flpash [sic] Player", "lots of bells and whistles that frankly are really nice to use").

Re:potential of Air ?

[FishWithAHammer]

Abstraction and cross-platform targeting are both "lazy" and "smart."

I mean, we could all write code in assembly language for every architecture we could ever want. Or we could use Flash/.NET/Java/whatever to target everything we might conceivably want with less hassle. Tough choice, that.

Re:potential of Air ?

[FishWithAHammer]

Moonlight's already working in trunk for a good chunk of code. Isn't there yet, but hey--it's open source, they're supposed to get a pass for that, right? :)

Re:potential of Air ?

[terjeber]

Would have been if it hadn't been for the fact that that particularly group of people is firmly placed in the pockets of Microsoft.

Re:potential of Air ?

[pallmall1]

I see JavaFX coming to linux sooner and in a better position than silverlight and AIR.

Do you have a link to the release date for javafx for linux or solaris?

Do you have a release date for Silverlight or AIR for linux or solaris that's up to date with Windows?

So the answer is NO, you don't have a release date for javafx for linux or solaris. Until then, both silverlight and AIR are in a better position than javafx on linux.

The only reason I'm interested at all in Adobe is because they, unlike Sun, have released an SDK for linux.

Re:potential of Air ?

[hercubus]

However, there's just nothing else out there right now with the same mix of capabilities...

Oh, really?

yes, really. i'm sure that "in theory" javafx is just as good as adobe flex/air. in practice, i've yet to see javafx do anything except crap all over itself

Re:potential of Air ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can filter MP3's and video files easily enough at the proxy but flash is used as a UI on some pages so I can't justify blocking all of it.

Then do it on the browser side (if you are free to use any browser with any extensions you like, like Firefox with NoScript and Adblock Plus). Life 's so much better with these!

Re:potential of Air ?

[thetoadwarrior]

It's been out nearly a year for Windows. Longer than that if you count the betas. It's only just coming to Linux. Sun is just doing what Adobe did except for the fact that JavaFX will probably be supported better by Sun after its launch.

Re:potential of Air ?

[Molt]

If Adobe treat it the same as the did with the Linux Flash Player you'll get a first version based on the tech as it was when the Linux branch was forked and then it'll fairly quickly catch up with the Windows version as the extra features are integrated into the branch.

Re:potential of Air ?

[oliderid]

I did install their JavaFX plugin, first I watched a video from the marketing department. A popup appeared telling me that an application was about to be downloaded Ok or cancel, it was signed and verified, I click OK.

Then I moved to the demo site...I click on one of their demo, again a popup appeared with the same warning and OK or Cancel.

My question is, does this popup message appears every single time you browse a new javaFx app?

Looks like JavaFX plans to make money with certified signatures. (not the first time I see this business model with SUN, I remember J2ME and their certified mobile application). Sorry guys even if your technology is interesting, I won't enter into such a business model...It is a total no go for end user (quite disturbing) and pretty scary for developers like me who are supposed to pay their roylaties each time they dare to release a new web app. Find another way to make money.

Re:potential of Air ?

[jonbryce]

It certainly isn't so easy to control what/when the sound is played, and have fast-forward / rewind etc than it is with flash.

You can stream MPEG or Quicktime, but that requires another plugin which is less popular than flash.

HTML 5 will be around eventually, flash is here now.

To an extent I agree with you about streaming flash, but if you are visiting iPlayer or YouTube, then you are going there specifically to watch streaming video.

Re:potential of Air ?

[foniksonik]

Flash allows socket connections, data binding for true persistent state across an application, full complete support for managed vector graphics; audio; video; 3D objects and environments, local storage, remote shared storage (shared between users) and all of it is cross platform/browser.

Some of these can be addressed by running special server apps (a Comet server for socket connections, ie: push data to the client rather than pull from the server or polling from the server) or by using cutting edge browser specific technology (ie: Gears or HTML SQLLite storage in various browsers for local storage, or the Canvas object for managed vector data). However you can't do it all using a single API or cross platform/browser currently. It's rather hit/miss at the moment.

As a web developer I've replaces many of the common uses for Flash with bits of JQuery magic but I can't do things like Tweening audio and video and vector data based on user input for instance, so no media mixing with Javascript. You couldn't build an audio visualizer in javascript for example....

There are many more examples of what you can do with Flash that can not be currently done with Javascript + other tech.... but for 90% of what typical websites use it for... fancy navigation, cross-fading images, animating text - sure Javascript can handle that.

Re:potential of Air ?

[JoCat]

I'll be all over JavaFX when Sun finally releases a browser plugin for 64-bit Linux distros.

Has anyone gotten any Air Error messages? :D

Re:potential of Air ?

[Anonymous Coward]

can look & play better than most Super Nintendo games

What are you smoking, dude? Flash-based games suck.

Re:iPlayer? Just out for the Mac?

[ianare]

Troll mod huh ? I guess that the one redeeming quality of the British - their humor - can't even be counted on anymore.

Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[whoever57]

Adobe has announced a Linux version of its AIR 1.5 runtime environment that is supposed to allow rich web apps developed on it to run on Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.10 ...

Isn't this release just in time for support of those 2 versions to be discontinued?

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[platykurtic]

Those are the minimum supported versions

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[Teresita]

OpenSUSE 10.3, Ubuntu 7.10? Those distros are more than a year old. Is that how long it takes Adobe to crank something out? A year is a long time out here in Penguin land. In a year I'll throw three or four completely different distros on this box just to see how they do.

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[gzipped_tar]

Don't know about Ubuntu, but for Fedora, stuff that works with Fedora N doesn't necessarily work with Fedora (N + 1). They sometimes make rapid changes between releases and you'll have to do a lot of reconfiguration.

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ubuntu 7.10, Fedora Core 8 and OpenSuse 10.3 are minimum supported distros for Adobe AIR. It works fine on Ubuntu 8.04, Opensuse 11 and other newer distributions too.

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

They work for me on FC 9 & 10 as well....

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[francisstp]

They also decided to support openSuse 10.3 for some reason. Opensuse 11.1 was released today, two releases and 14 months after 10.3.

Seems like Linux is on top of the list of priorities at Adobe!

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[abaweja]

Works for me on Ubuntu 8.10 and openSuse 11. Looks like, versions mentioned in release are the minimum versions supported.

Re:Fedora Core 8 and Ubuntu 7.10 -- EOL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Fedora have a problem. They should do something about that.

AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[slummy]

I am on the Adobe Pre-release program and I've been testing AIR Linux since it was in engdrop form, it's never installed on Slackware or Sabayon. When will they release a version that will install across all distros? Nobody knows.

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[Anonymous Coward]

Sabayon? You're aware that the guy in charge is a fucking moron, right?

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[slummy]

I don't see why he's a moron. They insulted him:

ciaranm> other than that there's nothing major. with 0.26 we'll even be able to do special distribution-specific stuff for you... you'd just need to give us a .conf file for your distro and compile with --with-default-distribution=sabayon lxnay> well if you devs are interested in sabayon, just contact me ciaranm> lxnay: we don't care about sabayon, in that none of us use it. but we have no objection to supporting it, if there's demand from users lxnay> bah lxnay> die alone then

I would be pissed off too.

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[dylan_-]

How on earth do you read that as them insulting him?

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[Anonymous Coward]

When all distros adobt something like LSB, so that producing something that installs on all distros doesn't require planetary alignment, animal sacrifice and voodoo.

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[slummy]

Apologies, misread it. I no longer use Sabayon as it won't install on my Macbook Pro. I just installed Slackware 12.2 yesterday.

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[Anonymous Coward]

No FreeBSD love either.

Yet another environment people can put content in and I won't see whatever it is they are pimp'n.
So much for 'universal' access.

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA!

The answer is NEVER.

The BBC considers supporting Windows, Mac and 3 outdated versions of Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE to be platform neutral.

Apparently supporting "more than one" party constitutes "neutral". Here I was thinking it meant "favouring no particular party or parties"

Re:AIR Linux - No Distro Love

[Anonymous Coward]

The third-party get_iplayer http://linuxcentre.net/iplayer will work on sabayon and slackware (and pretty much any platform). It is a perl based BBC iPlayer indexer downloader & PVR.

IPlayer UK only

[Kindaian]

IPlayer be available only in UK based IP is a PITA... And a true fail for BBC...

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Kalriath]

It's not a fail at all. It's legally required! They have paid for the rights to show the content only to brits (who paid for it with their TV license and taxes). So this is a service for the british taxpayers who paid for it. Quite reasonable really.

Now, if they could license the iPlayer tech to other broadcasters running similar schemes (here in NZ, that's ALL of them), that would be cool and a great way to recoup some of that cost for the taxpayers.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[growse]

Why? We pay for it...?

Re:IPlayer UK only

[LingNoi]

Are you paying £1000 a year for a TV license? No? Well fuck off.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Anonymous Coward]

Brits pay for this content. If anybody could watch it the people that pay for the license fee would go fucking nuts.. Everything produced on the BBC comes out of the British people's pockets - there is no advertising revenue.. It's all from Joe Public.

To all the "how can I watch it in the US?" people - you might as well get it from a torrent, because it's just as legal.. At least admit your fucking over normal, hard-working people - they're the ones paying for it, not advertisers..

Re:IPlayer UK only

[jedidiah]

I'd pay the tax in return for online access to all of the BeeB's stuff.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[thetoadwarrior]

To be fair people outside of the UK pay for the programmes they watch via advertising. Even going to the BBC website in a non-UK country should yield ads.

So the question is, have non-British people paid for iPlayer through advertising or not? If not, then why not give them iPlayer but with ads?

Re:IPlayer UK only

[thetoadwarrior]

Who is paying £1,000 for a TV licence? It's £139.50, dumb ass.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who got caught for not having one?

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Jane_Dozey]

Because then it'd give way to British people wanting ads instead of the license tax...er...I mean fee. The BBC have a good thing going revenue-wise and they'll not let up. I'd love for it to become subscription or advert payrolled but this would mean the BBC have to work for their money.

All BBC programmes are paid for with the license fee money, not advertising. IIRC any advertising outside of the UK to non-British audiences is because the BBC sold a show overseas (and the buyer network is the one advertising) or are using it for money to operate in that country.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[thetoadwarrior]

Living in the UK, I'm aware of how things work with the TV Licence. But I also know that BBC Worldwide, the BBC websites, etc, show adverts to non licence payers. I'm not sure why that can't be done with telly on the internet if it's done with telly on the telly or with websites.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Anonymous Coward]

If you flat out refuse to buy a licence year after year and flaunt the fact in their face then maybe they would take you to court and fine you a grand. Usually they just get you to buy a licence at the normal rate.

Most UK government agencies are like that - big scary ad campaigns on the dire consequences of non-compliance, but little real-world follow through.

(I say most, because HM Revenue & Customs is a notable exception - they don't need the scary ads because everyone knows that if you mess with them, they will hang you up by the balls.)

Re:IPlayer UK only

[AeneaTech]

Okay, well, if you want to throw money at the problem rent a cheap UK based VPS and install a proxy server, works like a charm I can tell ya ;)

(And no, it was not the reason to take an UK VPS, just happen to use it for this once in a while...)

Re:IPlayer UK only

[daybot]

So the question is, have non-British people paid for iPlayer through advertising or not? If not, then why not give them iPlayer but with ads?

I'll bet many Americans reading these stories on the iPlayer have no idea how much video content on the internet is US-only. I wish I had a US-registered IP and credit card! Anyway, It's all to do with how TV content is licensed and funded.

1: Bought-in content.

The BBC pays a fee to NBC, for example, to show Heroes in the UK via TV/iPlayer. The BBC then has an obligation to ensure that they only make the show available in the licensed territories.

2: In-house content.

In the same way, some BBC-produced shows are licensed internationally. Top Gear, for example, has a comparatively high budget for a UK show largely because of its high revenue from foreign TV networks who have bought 'exclusive rights' in their respective territories.

In both cases, the amount of revenue achieved by providing the content ad-supported to foreign visitors would be peanuts compared to the lucrative cross-network licensing agreements it would be undermining.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[tolan-b]

I paid the license fee for about 10 years before I left the UK, and I would have been happy for that content to be shown elsewhere. I'd also like to be able to watch it now that I'm no longer in the UK and can't pay the fee even if I wanted to.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Vanders]

To all the "how can I watch it in the US?" people - you might as well get it from a torrent, because it's just as legal.. At least admit your fucking over normal, hard-working people - they're the ones paying for it, not advertisers..

As a UK License Payer I'm quite happy for people outside the UK to have access to the content the BBC produces. Go for it.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Jane_Dozey]

I believe the answer to that is that the BBC only have legal permission to show the iPlayer content within the UK (which I find confusing as I always thought they owned copyright to BBC funded programmes but I could be wrong).

Perhaps a few of the shows are only supposed to be available in the UK and they just can't be bothered to come up with a neat solution so they just blanket block connections from outside of the UK...

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Hittite Creosote]

You can't sell the rights to showing a programme in another territory for very much if you're just going to show it everywhere yourself anyway.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[RiotingPacifist]

There are 3 types of show on the bbc:
1) BBC produced, the bbc obviously have complete rights to these, but make a fair amount of money from selling these to foreign companies. As they make money (a.k.a save the taxpayers money) by selling these to foreign companies, they don't want to put this online as it would harm their revenue (a.k.a the taxpayers have to foot more of the bill).
2) Independently produced by uk companies, these have to make up something like 10-15% of all shows, the bbc will buy limited rights to these programs, so that they can be resold elsewhere in the world.
3) Stuff bought from other companies (heros, etc), the bbc have to negotiate on these contracts, with some (heros) not even being allowed onto iplayer.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is ever fined for not having a TV license but for contempt of court.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Anonymous Coward]

Heroes is on iPlayer

Re:IPlayer UK only

[Kalriath]

You'll just need to get the OK from the other few million license fee payers first. I'm sure this guy hasn't, after all.

Re:IPlayer UK only

[jedidiah]

I don't consider contributing my fair share to be "throwing money at the problem".

Don't let the copyright reform rhetoric confuse you.

Having finished a Flex/Air app...

[ducomputergeek]

I have to say it's decent approach to the problem of deploying Web Apps. Granted we did all the backend work connecting the Flex/Air front end to the database using AMFPHP, but it's definitely a decent platform for web applications and hybrid web/desktop apps. However it still suffers one flaw: it requires a third party platform that doesn't run on everything. (think mobile devices)

I see the Support OpenSuSE 10.3, but what about 11 and 11.1 (currently downloading the ISO).

The other approach is what Google and Apple are taking with HTML/Javascript based web applications that try to be browser/standards compliant. The entity that figures out how to make it work as a standalone desktop app has a winner.

Re:Having finished a Flex/Air app...

[moreati]

Sorry to pick on you, but this is a bugbear of mine.

Applications written in AIR/Silverlight/whatever are not web applications. They're thick client applications that happen to use a bit of http and javascript.

Web applications run in web browsers. Not in one particular browser, and not in a third party runtime.

I'm glad AIR was a good fit for your problem.

Re:Having finished a Flex/Air app...

[thetoadwarrior]

JavaFX will run on anything in the near future. It's the only solution that will run web apps in the browser or on the desktop across the board. Yeah Flash is on Linux but it's always behind everyone else and doesn't always run quite right.

Re:Having finished a Flex/Air app...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the versions on adobe.com Linux is currently ahead. Bit like the old (really old) days with Netscape releases where Windows and Mac played catchup to most UNIX flavours.

Re:Having finished a Flex/Air app...

[terjeber]

I'd be very surprised to see JavaFX ability overtake Flash in browsers any time in the next 3 years. In addition to that, and given the horrid (still) Java plugin performance in any browser I have ever tried, I would be shocked to see JavaFX overtake Flash as a client-side development tool ever.

Sun did a good job with Java, and I have used Java for commercial server-side development since the late 90's. The company I worked for sold and deployed our first major Java app in 1997. I am not a Java basher. Java was however never a decent client-side tool until Eclipse and SWT came around, and those aren't really possible to embed in web pages. JavaFX, too little and at least 6 years too late.

Re:Having finished a Flex/Air app...

[Anonymous Coward]

i tried it on OpenSuse11 and air 1.5 works fine .

Linux whining FTW

[frieko]

I'm glad all the whining us Linux fans are doing is paying off. Everybody's jumping on the Linux-supporting bandwagon, if only to stop us from telling all our friends and relatives and strangers that $COMPANY are a bunch of evil meanie heads.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[at_slashdot]

It's not the "whining" it's the fact that there are already millions of Linux users, companies think twice to restricting access to million of potential clients.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[ThatGuyJon]

Just to clarify: This is the BBC. We are not "potential clients"; we have already paid the license fee. The BBC do cross-platform support because they are required to do it; they just needed a little "reminding".

Re:Linux whining FTW

[funkatron]

Just to clarify: This is the BBC. We are not "potential clients"; we have already paid the license fee.

Not all of us. Watching on iPlayer falls just far enough outside the definition of watching TV that I don't have to pay the fee.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[owlnation]

Just to clarify: This is the BBC. We are not "potential clients"; we have already paid the license fee. The BBC do cross-platform support because they are required to do it; they just needed a little "reminding".

It has taken them far too long to get Apple and Linux versions of this. However, at least they have finally done it. Coincidentally I tried to watch a show on the Channel 4 website today only to find it was completely impossible if you don't have a windows machine.

The DRM really has to go. The sooner the TV nets finally get it into their thick heads that all they have to do is broadcast on the web just as they do on TV, and have GLOBAL launches for shows -- reaping global advertisers at the same time -- the better it will be for all concerned. Not only will this be more profitable and convenient for everyone, fewer good shows will get canceled since the ratings stats will actually show true values, rather than small samples. It is no surprise that Channel 4 is near bankruptcy, they just don't get it.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[thetoadwarrior]

The BBC has to support Linux. Otherwise, quite rightly Linux users should get a discount because we're forced to pay the tax and if a certain group can't have full access to everything then they deserve a discount.

For instance, if ever I get rid of my TV (they'll probably still charge me because I have a PC), I'll get an old black & white TV to get the reduced fee. I know they'll make me pay it so I might as well get it cheaper and let the B&W tv collect dust.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[pandrijeczko]

Can I ask if you would be posting a similar comment if the Linux users already had BBC iPlayer and it was the Windows users who were waiting for it?

I'm a Linux-using Brit who has to the pay the TV License fee (not that I actually mind because I get advert-free TV, advert-free radio, Dr Who and some good comedy) which is essentially a tax that I *have* to pay. Therefore the BBC have a duty to support me.

So end of story and shut up.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[Toy G]

Probably not for long.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, i am not paying anything. No licence at all. But i have BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 ( and ITV) and don't live in Britain. And it's all official thanks to my cable company. Thanks for funding me watching the BBC.lol

Re:Linux whining FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

It was stupid to do the Windows only in the first place, and a typical middle manager decision of someone who's been promoted over his competency level and relies on trained consultants to tell him what to do, based on the restrictions he already gave them in his igonorance.

This is *exactly* what happened, and the people inside the BBC screaming about the problems were told to submit their comments 'through channels' and were roundly ignored because they weren't members of the planning committee.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[Molt]

The BBC doesn't have advertisements though so all a global distribution would achieve for them is a massive cost in hardware and bandwidth. The global idea could well work for a commercial broadcaster but for a pure public-service broadcaster like the BBC it's a non-starter.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[Anonymous Coward]

lighten up.

Re:Linux whining FTW

[RiotingPacifist]

I actually didn't mind the Windows native only in the first place, it meant windows users (~90% of the population) got to use the service a year before they would have if wed all waited for windows/mac/linux. It also meant that linux users could use flash to watch it for that year.

It was clear from the start that windows only was just temporary witch I'm fine with, unlike the rest of the UK terrestrial channels.

Air/Flash License

[ink]

Additionally, Air and Flash have some hefty licensing restrictions. From Adobe:

For the avoidance of doubt, and by example only, Distributor shall not distribute any Adobe Runtime for use on any (a) mobile device, set top box (STB), handheld, phone, web pad, tablet or Tablet PC (other than Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and its successors), game console, TV, DVD player, media center (other than Windows XP Media Center Edition and its successors), electronic billboard or other digital signage, internet appliance or other internet-connected device, PDA, medical device, ATM, telematic device, gaming machine, home automation system, kiosk, remote control device, or any other consumer electronics device, (b) operator-based mobile, cable, satellite, or television system or (c) other closed system device. For information on licensing Adobe Runtimes for use or distribution on devices see http://www.adobe.com/licensing.

So, they can call it "free" all they want, but it isn't even free-as-in-beer free.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Tatsh]

Adobe spends money to develop these technologies as does Microsoft. They are not going to hand out that much for free, even as in beer.

I wish every developer would look past proprietary things like Flash and AIR and use web standards instead, but I know this will never happen.

Re:Air/Flash License

[chrb]

iPlayer-Downloader has no licensing restrictions and no DRM :-)

Re:Air/Flash License

[rHBa]

Distributor shall not distribute any Adobe Runtime for use on any... ...internet appliance or other internet-connected device

So basically any computer?

Re:Air/Flash License

[ink]

I wish every developer would look past proprietary things like Flash and AIR and use web standards instead, but I know this will never happen.

MythTV can't legally use this product -- and not for lame patent reasons, but for copyright laws (it's a set-top box). We'll be stuck with Adobe's runtime until an open standard takes off. Developers can indeed "look past" proprietary things like Flash. They do it all the time when they develop for the web, and they take it for granted until things like this happen. Hopefully HTML5 will use an unencumbered standard for audio and video (such as Ogg/Vorbis). That, coupled with SVG and traditional web technologies would give us the "run time" that we need to keep the web free.

Re:Air/Flash License

[windsurfer619]

You're in luck! Firefox 3.1 will have native ogg theora rendering

That's a step in the right direction.

Re:Air/Flash License

[FishWithAHammer]

Too bad Theora sucks.

(And to head off the "OMG TROLL!" screams: Vorbis is an extremely good audio format, and one I use myself in my own projects because the libraries for it are reasonably good and easy to handle--but Theora is an absolute shit video format compared to pretty much everything else in common use.)

Re:Air/Flash License

[Anonymous Coward]

..and to further shatter the dreams of any aspiring designers wanting a flash UI on their device, Adobe won't respond to any queries about licensing unless your volumes are in the millions per annum. Apparently you can go through authorised distributors for lower volumes, but good luck finding that info on the website, and you won't even get a form email response telling you that.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Tatsh]

I wish they would have Firefox do XviD and x264 natively.

Honestly, though, the whole Firefox source is HUGE along with xulrunner. I hope they trash Gecko and replace it with WebKit, else everyone is moving to Safari or Chrome. I heard a rumour they will do this with Firefox 4.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Rik Sweeney]

Plus it actually works, unlike this steaming pile of shite.

AIR refuses to install because I don't have KWallet installed (I do). And even when I get it installed, iPlayer won't let me download anything anyway.

Re:Air/Flash License

[m50d]

No. Theora is not state-of-the-art, but in terms of what the format specifies it's marginally better than mpeg-4 ASP aka DivX/XviD, which is still the most common video format in use today.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Quantumstate]

If they trash xulrunner they trash every single extension. Also gecko doesn't seem to be all that bad for me. I think it is probably better ot have more than one rendering engine anyway.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Khelder]

"Distributor shall not distribute any Adobe Runtime for use on any... internet-connected device."

Well, so much for distributing it for use on most desktop computers out there.

Re:Air/Flash License

[ink]

Too bad Theora sucks.

You've been to YouTube and Hulu, right? You don't need to have the best format under the sun to make people happy.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Anonymous Coward]

You can call your MythTV a set-top box and exclude it if you want to. I'll call my MythTV a PC and use the software.

Re:Air/Flash License

[RiotingPacifist]

True but its clear that the flashplayer will under an OSS license in 3-5 years

Re:Air/Flash License

[RiotingPacifist]

I use get_iplayer because full screen flash maxes out my CPU (i cant even watch porn on some flash sites!!!!) But id quite like to see a feature and performance comparison to the official product
i know that get_iplayer has:
streaming: x
bandwidth: unlimit
upload usage: 0 (not sure if thats so good, but as it stops virgin media throttling me i wont complain)
performance: ~0 for downloading and player dependent for full screen video (but fairly low in mplayer)
interface: CLI only
search: pretty much anything assuming you know regex
DRM: none (but you soon find out that you have no HDD space left, if i don't erase stuff)

The only missing 'feature' is it doesn't advertise new shows, as i don't have a TV id quite like to know when there is a new show or new season of a show a might like.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Anonymous Coward]

You're using Theora wrong. It's great for those times you need shit video. 99% of porn looks worse in hi-def.

Re:Air/Flash License

[Anonymous Coward]

theora is very competitive at low bitrates, and there's no real other choice at the moment for streaming video with icecast. plus, the new reference encoder coming with the 1.1 release looks very promising indeed (google for thusnelda); if they're speedier about releasing it than they were about releasing 1.0, they could be in a good position to gain wider adoption.

unfortunately, there's zero support for it atm; the only non-CLI encoder available for it is SUPER, which is an abomination of a program and just uses a wrapper for ffmpeg2theora anyway; and only one player i know of supports it out-of-the-box on any OS.

granted, if i could stream 264 over icecast i'd do that any day, but if they play their cards right xiph could have a minor success with theora.

Re:Air/Flash License

[FishWithAHammer]

Icecast-for-video is that big? I use icecast myself for streaming audio (MP3, mostly because nobody can grok Vorbis), but I've never seen it used for video.

Re:Air/Flash License

[dansumption]

Beer's free now? Who knew?

Doesn't work!

[danbuntu]

Went to the download link. It told me I need to upgrade my Flash. So I did. Ubuntu 8.10 and Firefox 3.0.5. Patched Flash 10 to correct version. Still telling me I need to install Flash. Hopeless

Re:Doesn't work!

[cs02rm0]

I've got flash 10 installed, it's not telling me to upgrade. Check your about:plugins.

That said, I don't see a download option though I do get a high quality flash version. I'm installing Adobe AIR now to see if that makes any difference.

Re:Doesn't work!

[cs02rm0]

AIR installed. No obvious difference.

Re:Doesn't work!

[MichaelSmith]

Even on windows I have seen flash sites tell me that I need to upgrade flash to (say) version 9 because I was already running version 10.

Thats what happens when you get teenagers to do your configuration management.

Re:Doesn't work!

[FatOAP]

Go here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/install/bbc_iplayer_desktop

Re:Doesn't work!

[danbuntu]

Never mind config mgt. No-one's bothered to test it!

Re:Doesn't work!

[cs02rm0]

Thanks, that plus this seems to have got me somewhere:
cp /opt/Adobe\ AIR/Versions/1.0/Resources/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

Re:Doesn't work!

[Anonymous Coward]

sudo cp /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/flashplugin-nonfree/

did the trick for me...

Re:Doesn't work!

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't seem to work for me either. Running Ubuntu 8.04 on an Eee.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/install/bbc_iplayer_desktop - told me to upgrade flash.

Flash 10.0 r15 downloaded from Adobe, ignored the deb and got the gz. Unpacked and copied the resulting libflashplugin.so to ~/.mozilla/plugins

Another visit to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/install/bbc_iplayer_desktop - gave me an install iplayer button. Lots of installing later and I now have a nice iplayer logo in my sys tray. Looks like its installed and running. However, nothing seems to work.

'Click here to start downloading' does nothing, neither does the save settings button.

Re:Doesn't work!

[jonaskoelker]

Thats what happens when you get teenagers to do your configuration management.

Competence and incompetence comes in all ages.

(I'm not a teen, I'm not trying to defend myself or my own; I'm just trying to make sure the discussion is accurate)

Re:Doesn't work!

[dansumption]

Try this: http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/download_programmes/desktop_linux And this: http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/download_programmes/air_linux

having trouble already

[Anonymous Coward]

Cant get it working for me. I have the app installed under Ubuntu 8.10 but there are no download buttons on the iplayer website next to the content. It's a shame the searching/browsing of content isn't built into the app itself.

Re:having trouble already

[cs02rm0]

Likewise.

Re:having trouble already

[abhikhurana]

Same here

Re:having trouble already

[Anonymous Coward]

try the buzzcocks - its the only thing i've found that seems to work!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g33d7/Never_Mind_the_Buzzcocks_Series_22_Episode_11/

Re:having trouble already

[jedidiah]

I just hit the little play button.

I tried to watch videos (no go, not a brit) but the radio stuff worked fine.

Re:having trouble already

[abhikhurana]

Yeah, Buzzcocks does seem to work. Seems that they haven't got the right DRM on most of the newer shows.

What about anonymous proxies?

[bogaboga]

...It is based on Adobe Air, but unfortunately the service is only available to UK IP address, so I can not test it out from my adopted homeland of Germany. Perhaps a UK-based Slashdotter could review it?"...

Couldn't you utilize an anonymous proxy?

...that is supposed to allow rich web apps developed on it to run on Fedora Core 8, Ubuntu 7.10 and OpenSuse 10.3 with no modification...

I am disappointed that all distros quoted are "old" versions of their existing ones strictly speaking. Why do software companies do this all the time?

Re:What about anonymous proxies?

[Darkness404]

I am disappointed that all distros quoted are "old" versions of their existing ones strictly speaking. Why do software companies do this all the time?

Err... Because those are the minimum supported versions? It would be like if a program came out that only ran on Vista, not XP everyone would really question the reason why. Similarly, its not bad that it doesn't require Ubuntu 8.10 to be installed, its quite good in fact that it doesn't.

Does this girl look TOO YOUNG to anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say I'ld do her, but my testacles (I have three) aren't all decided. One rises in approval, two falls in protest. Sometimes they stay huddled together to keep warm, sometimes they all jump up. A part of me thinks it's the sack doing all the work trying to fool me into thinking they have minds of their own. Anyone else experience this? It would be much easier if I was diphalic. Speaking of which, there used to be a lady with two vaginas that go upto like her bellybutton and she would have sex with guys on a video. Anyone know where that went?

Re:Does this girl look TOO YOUNG to anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its here http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Wizard Drongo]

The 3rd party ones are better. No DRM, no AIR....

www.lawrencedudley.co.uk/iplayer

Disclaimer: I helped make that on. But it IS good.
We'll be making iTunes playlist support soon....

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Chris_Jefferson]

Of course, it also violates the terms of use so is illegal, and will be prone to the BBC breaking it at any time.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Wizard Drongo]

Actually, it's usage can't be illegal; all it does is allow you to watch the content available to iPhone users.
Of course you can't save stuff on the iPhone, but the BBC offers these downloads. We just allow you to get them. Kinda like changing your browsers user-agent.

I paid my licence fee, I can tape stuff off the TV. Why the hell do they use DRM when they already allow you access??

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Molt]

I paid my licence fee, I can tape stuff off the TV. Why the hell do they use DRM when they already allow you access?? Because without the DRM restrictions the BBC'd never have been able to convince the external content producers to allow them to distribute over the internet without exceptionally high payments which the BBC couldn't afford. They either added the DRM or it wasn't going to happen at all, basically.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Anonymous Coward]

I paid my licence fee, I can tape stuff off the TV. Why the hell do they use DRM when they already allow you access??

Actually, it's only legal to tape stuff off the TV to watch it later (once), not to keep, or distribute.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Paul Jakma]

you're missing the point...

When the iPhone came out the BBC made un-DRMed content available for it...

Your argument holds no water.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[chrb]

Actually, it might be.

Violating the terms of a contractual obligation is not illegal - you can be sued in a civil court by the other parties to the contract, but you can't be arrested and prosecuted in criminal court unless you are suspected of actually violating criminal law. Unfortunately, the BBC could claim that you are in fact violating copyright law, since unless you accept their user contract you won't have a license to reproduce their content on your PC. Think of it as kind of how the GPL works - if you don't accept the GPL contract and redistribute the work, then you are guilty of criminal copyright infringement. If you do accept the GPL contract, then you can redistribute without violating copyright law.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[langelgjm]

Think of it as kind of how the GPL works - if you don't accept the GPL contract and redistribute the work, then you are guilty of criminal copyright infringement.

Uh, I thought copyright infringement was generally a civil issue, and that it only became criminal when you were really going at it, say pressing hundreds of copies of discs or something.

Care to clarify?

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[_Shad0w_]

They don't distribute non-BBC originated material via iPlayer; the reason they restrict it to UK only, I suspect, is because of distribution rights to the material. The BBC sells the rights to show their material to overseas broadcasters; if you could just watch it via the BBC it would reduce their potential revenue stream from those rights.

Not all of the BBC's money comes from the licence fee.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[jeremyp]

They don't distribute non-BBC originated material via iPlayer;

They do actually. Many of the BBC's programmes are really made by independent companies under contract to the BBC. They even distribute some blatantly non BBC programmes via iPlayer (currently you can view an episode of Heroes on it, for example).

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Molt]

iPlayer does include a lot of externally provided content, it's just that people don't realise that this isn't internally producted. Just as a couple of popular examples take Have I Got News For You (Made by Hattrick), and Spooks (A Kudos production). This is ignoring things like The Apprentice which is BBC produced but as is it's based on a US property the distribution agreements are likely to be draconian. In order to keep the license agreement the BBC did end up agreeing to buy-in a certain percentage of programming every year- I did have a quick look to see if I could find the actual percentage but didn't come up with anything. You're right that the geoIP restriction to UK is likely to be to protect the foreign distribution rights but it's also part of the BBC's general remit to provide value for the license fee payer. Giving the fee payers IP access to television is giving them value for money, giving non-fee payers access isn't as it results in money being spent on scaling the service in ways that aren't benefiting those funding the system. The fact that UK-based people who don't have licenses but can access iPlayer can be taken as an acceptable cost here for not requiring registration. You're right though about not all of the BBCs funding coming from licenses, but according to the 2005-2006 annual report for last year it was £3.1bn from the license and about £650m from other sources. This does ignore the BBC World Service which is funded in a different agreement directly from taxes but as that doesn't affect iPlayer-like systems at all it's safe to ignore.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Molt]

The iPhone content wasn't DRM protected for two reasons- the device wouldn't comfortably handle the DRM requirements, and the streams are much lower quality then those downloadable from iPlayer (ie. not really suitable for viewing on a decent home screen) so are viewed as less valuable.

The BBC did still make efforts to obfuscate the streams and make sure they only delivered to the iPhone, the fact that this got broken and the BBC have made repeated attempts to tighten the restrictions does show that they're still trying to protect the content rather than happily give away even this lower-quality version.

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[chrb]

It depends on your national laws. In the United States criminal law can be applied if you knew you were violating copyright, criminal infringement does not have to be commercial (since 1976). As another poster pointed out, since the 1996 WIPO treaty both the US and EU have brought in the DMCA and EUCD respectively, which enables criminal law remedies for circumvention of copyright protection measures (which would apply in the BBC iPlayer case, even though the measures they use to protect the iPhone streams are very simple and ineffective).

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[Paul Jakma]

It destroys the "BBC must have been contractually obliged to use DRM" apologisms made by many. Admittedly your version of it was the weaker "to convince" rather than "contractually obliged", but still..

Re:iPlayer for Mac Third Party much better

[skeeto]

if you don't accept the GPL contract and redistribute the work

The GPL is a license, not a contract. Except for that wording, you basically have the right idea on the GPL.

Someone beat me at Wikipedia

[bogaboga]

I wanted to update Adobe AIR's Wikipedia entry but some fella beat me on that! What the hell? This leaves me more impressed by this Wikipedia paradigm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Integrated_Runtime

Re:Someone beat me at Wikipedia

[nschubach]

At least the story could have linked to the AIR download page. Sure it's a simple URL and it auto detects your OS, but a link would have been nice instead of forcing people through wikipedia or the lame article.

Technology discrimination

[williamhb]

Come to think of it, it's interesting that the BBC got burned for their decision only to support Windows for downloads, but haven't been told off for only supporting Adobe's platform for streaming, and tying even closer to them with the AIR announcement. (They usually draw complaints whenever they distort markets, not just when they make some viewers miss out)

low uid?

[Trepidity]

[*mumbles under his breath and waves cane threateningly*]

Re:low uid?

[Inda]

I can't wait until I'm old, I mean ancient, and have a low UID.

Fedora Core 8????

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF takes them two years? They couldn't take another week and see how it works with the current Fedora release? Are their developers stuck with dial-up? Worthless farging bastages for bosses . . .

Just Need to Clear the Air

[piercep]

I politely disagree with you; AS3, the native language of the flash player is what javascript wants be when it grows up; now i do agree that the antiquated display technologies of javascript, css, and DHTML have made some impressive strides and are able to mimic 90 percent of the things the flash player could pull off with ease five years ago; however what flash is doing very well right now is pushing the internet forward; To say that the only advantages of using the flash platform are non existent code protection and vector graphics is be misinformed; Hmm i think there are few others you could quickly add that list; how about speed; is javascript able to render 3D had a frame rate comparable to say the open sourced as3 papervision library; what about socket connections; can javascript access the read and write to xmpp like the flash player can by utilizing yet another open sourced AS3 library known as XIFF; hmm what else; easy peezey; MEDIA yeah; could you tube exist now in a javascript only world; when will we see that dawn of javascript powered browser based virtual worlds; i'll be waiting; and don't even get me started about reduced development time due to its inherently object orientated nature; if you want to look backwards by all means enjoy your javascript experiences and yes it will be a glorious day when the canvas object is supported by explorer; however in the mean time the inbetween time if you want to be on the edge of web based experiences and applications the flash player is still the best game in town;

Re:Just Need to Clear the Air

[Si-UCP]

AS3, the native language of the flash player is what javascript wants be when it grows up

As a language (i.e. not including the libraries), ActionScript is really just JavaScript in disguise. In fact, it is JavaScript; ActionScript is a variant of the ECMAscript language. As such, the core features of the langauges don't differ much. AS does appear to be more "enterprisey", though.

how about speed; is javascript able to render 3D had a frame rate comparable to say the open sourced as3 papervision library

First off: You're conflating the language with the library, so I'll assume that by JavaScript you actually meant the HTML DOM, and by ActionScript, you actually meant Flash. Now, to answer your question: No, the HTML DOM does not have capabilities for rendering 3D. I'll have to argue that it doesn't need 3D rendering capabilities. Do you need 3D rendering capabilities to read email or post comments to Slashdot? Both use JavaScript and the HTML DOM, and you didn't need to install anything fancy other than your browser to do it.

what about socket connections; can javascript access the read and write to xmpp like the flash player can by utilizing yet another open sourced AS3 library known as XIFF

No, the HTML DOM cannot. This is a problem, but I think the HTML 5 standard includes a model for "pushing" data to the user agent, so this need will be fulfilled in a later version.

MEDIA yeah; could you tube exist now in a javascript only world;

Again, conflating the language with the HTML DOM. The answer is, again, no. The new HTML 5, however, will include a standard for playing multimedia.

could you tube exist now in a javascript only world; when will we see that dawn of javascript powered browser based virtual worlds

No, and it will never happen. You may be thinking: With so many "no"s, aren't you winning the argument? No, you aren't. You've been so drawn into the "cool" factor of Flash taht you're forgetting what HTML is used for - to display web pages. Not 3D virtual worlds, but web pages. The HTML DOM + JavaScript should work to enhance web pages - you can use Flash/Java/Silverlight/whatever for everything else. I have admitted a few flaws of the HTML DOM, but it will be fixed, eventually. What I'm trying to say this whole time is that developers should use the right tool for the job. The obligatory car analogy is obvious here - an SUV (Flash) can go anywhere (those "virtual worlds" you talked about), but for navigating the city (web pages), a sedan (JavaScript and the HTML DOM) will beat Flash at its own game.

and don't even get me started about reduced development time due to its inherently object orientated nature;

The mark of an inexperienced developer. First off, JavaScript is OO - it uses prototypal inheritance, which is more lightweight than the classful inheritance of ActionScript - lightweight being the key word here. Remember that the languages are being used for different purposes.

it will be a glorious day when the canvas object is supported by explorer

The canvas element also works, to an extent, on Internet Explorer. All developers need to do is use the ExplorerCanvas JavaScript library.

however in the mean time the inbetween time if you want to be on the edge of web based experiences and applications the flash player is still the best game in town;

Sure, if you need to be on the "edge". For everyone else, JavaScript and the HTML DOM are just fine. Finally, what's with your... "exotic" use of the semicolon? You need to use the period while you're programming as well, you know.

Re:Just Need to Clear the Air

[piercep]

First let's remember the context of the original discussion, rich internet application development; I was just responding to a preposterous claim that flash player based applications offer little advantage when compared to to the technology stack of javascript, CSS and DHTML; Yes, while AS3 is indeed based on ECMAScript; to say that is it JavaScript in disguise is completely inaccurate; While the syntax may be similar, AS3 is a significant departure from its sibling and there is no disguising the fact that you understand this; Did i read your reply correctly? Did you not mention the prototyplical nature of javascript when compared to as3's class-based inheritance system? Why overshadow such a tremendous difference which directly relates to the first point made in my earlier post and one you very interestingly enough choose not to mention in your response, SPEED; As far as i know javascript fails to receive any efficiency gains from a class based programing approach combined with strict typing; Speed is crucial when trying to take experiences that once where the monopoly of desktop environments and placing them on the web where they can be freely accessed everywhere; And this is why the Flash platform is currently the best choice for rich-application-development especially when compared to the before mentioned combination of javascript, css, and dhtml ;For anyone to suggest applications written in Flash are in the twilight of there importance are whims of extreme ignorance of how both the web and the world are changing; In my opinion and experience with both sets of technologies, a combination of javascript, css, and dhtml fall far below the level of code sophistication and visual richness require to take the internet forward and accomplish all that it possibly can; While yes you may suggest that javascript, html, and the DOM are more than an adequate solution when it comes to displaying text on a page and i am sure many will agree with you; However there is a growing group of us that aren't ok with just being "fine"; And what is wrong with looking at the browser and saying this is not enough and downloading a fantastic extension to its capabilities; To remark the web doesn't need 3d rendering is to belittle the reality in which we live; To over-estimate the daily utility of forms and input boxes and under-estimate the vast entertainment potential of the greatest medium of our lifetimes is a supreme lack of imagination; To envision the internet as best served as a textual encounter ... well these are just the dreams of a Luddite; I believe at the root of this discussion is innovation and the speed at which it occurs; Again there is a growing group of us that aren't ok with the internet being just "fine"; It is this young growing crowd of US that will not wait years for some far away white tower committee to ok the next browser advance; We are a thickening core that values creativity and color and will gladly pay in sweat or cash for these prosthetics to our imagination; And in the end when its all over we're going drive that adobe manufactured SUV right over the top your web 2.0 head;

Re:Just Need to Clear the Air

[Anonymous Coward]

Did someone steal your enter key?

Re:Just Need to Clear the Air

[Frozen Void]

Action Script is harder to learn for people customized to javascript.
If it was more optimized(e.g. even removing/replacing eval) and had some graphic capability it would replace everything else quickly.Its such a design which can be cross-platformed and adapted easily(every modern browser runs the code).
Plus alot(probably more then all other languages) of people have at least some knowledge of programming in JavaScript.
Its inherent advantage over everything else and even Adobe understands it(Air is targeted to such programmers).
There is an possibility JavaScript would be replaced by something like Python or Lua,but they must be clearly superior to switch(in all cases people will not see advantages until they are painfully obvious to everyone).
JavaScript will stay for several decades otherwise.

Instructions - how to find the download

[daybot]

Here's what you have to do:

Turn on the beta 'labs' features here, then get the installer. You might be able to get the installer from this link, but if not, choose "Download" from this page.

Here's some further info for installing on the Mac, and installing on Linux - but the above should suffice.

Of course, you're better off using iplayer-dl to download the flash streams DRM-free ;)

Re:Instructions - how to find the download

[JonathanBoyd]

Thank you! I was beginning to go a bit nuts wondering how I was supposed to get it working. Signed up for the labs, but then there was no information on what to do next.

Re:Instructions - how to find the download

[daybot]

I was beginning to go a bit nuts wondering how I was supposed to get it working

Yeah it was a frustrating 10-minute road for me, so I thought it would be worth posting some instructions that actually work :)

Re:iPlayer? Just out for the Mac?

[ColdWetDog]

We should go on a Troll Roll:

You don't frighten us English Pig-dogs!
Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person.
I blow my nose at you ...

On related news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't seem to find the relation?

mo3 do3n

[Anonymous Coward]

thait has grown up since we made 7he infinitesimally

oh joy

[skoony]

more useless junk. who cares? it does'nt help anyone exept those that can buy new hardware twice a mounth. stop and optimize what you got regards, mike

Flash authoring tools: $700

[tepples]

already so far behind on install base that all Flash needs to nip this in the bud is release a browser independent runtime and a nicer web service binding api and there will be no practical reason not to choose it.

The Java tools (javac and Eclipse) are free and Free by now. Are usable SWF authoring tools even small-f free yet?

Re:Flash authoring tools: $700

[terjeber]

Are usable SWF authoring tools even small-f free yet?

Flex is free and open source, so, yes, usable SWF authoring tools are free. Download Eclipse, download Flex. Voila, you are set.

Re:iPlayer? Just out for the Mac?

[bob.appleyard]

Jokes on us! We're all driving Renaults and measuring in metres and Celsius.

Nasdaq using AIR

[pembo13]

I found this video interesting: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/air/flex/articles/nasdaq_story.html About to try out the Market Replay app myself.

Heh, they asked for feedback.....

[Anonymous Coward]

More DRM.... bleuch!!

A 2.3meg EULA just for the Adobe air client? What the hell does Adobe Air do to me and my computer that requires 2,431,365 bytes of arse-covering?

No thanks.

Try again: Open standards of video over an open protocol. The video viewing platforms will write themselves as far as you are concerned.

I do not support any system these days that is designed to fail in any way. I want to spend money/time only on products that are designed and engineered to be as good as they can be, and DRM is the direct opposite of this.

A bridge might support 1000 people at a time, and if the weight limit was exceeded the engineers may design in some system to set off sirens etc. to make people leave the bridge. If this bridge had DRM, it would have a big trapdoor in the span to just dump people if it got overloaded.

Would you use that bridge? What if the DRM failed? What if my analogy wasn't so far-fetched, and I had used a lift as the example?

I know that CSS on DVDs or HDCP in HDMI implementations doesn't actually kill people, but it is an immense waste of the user's time/money.

(By the BBC's website accepting this submission, you agree to waive all terms and conditions, policies, etc. that you may think I am bound by. The data submitted on this form may only be used to chip away at the idiots who think DRM is acceptable. Stop wasting license fee payer's money on this crap).

I think it is one of my more down-to-Earth incoherant rants....

US Support

[echeola]

All I want to do is watch this in the US. Can anyone help?

My Experiences So Far

[TheRealJFM]

I've installed AIR and the iPlayer downloader, and so far neither have really worked.

Granted this is probably because I'm using 64-bit Linux, and they don't seem to support it yet (not that I was told this at any stage of the installation process, or the website where I downloaded the installer.

To get the thing installed on 64-bit I followed these instructions, and then proceeded to the BBC website to download something. Nothing seemed to work, no download links appeared. I then followed the links to an episode of Never Mind The Buzzcocks that other people reported was working. This time a download link appeared, but clicking it took me to install the program again.

To figure out why it wasn't working, I ran the downloader from the command line. It was printing the following: "Unkown desktop manager((null)), only Gnome and KDE are supported". Aha... I'm using XFCE, yet it must use the inter-process communication of either one of those desktops...

Booted into Gnome, and tried again. This time it tells me that it wants libgnome-keyring.so - I realise that no preferences are savable - it must be saving prefs with the keyring. I think that's a bit odd - what's wrong with ~/.Adobe/AIR?

After installing 32-bit libraries for gnome-keyring, the thing still doesn't work, and still won't download anything.

The problem with this application, or rather with Adobe AIR, is the series of arbitrary choices the designers seem to have made. Linux is not a platform where you can assume many things - and it would have probably made more sense to pick some generic ways of getting things done (there's a reason that text-files have always been used for config!) rather than relying upon fairly specific libraries for basic tasks and then not even falling back to a sane alternative. Perhaps a 64-bit version will fix all of this, I certainly hope so!

re

[JohnVanVliet]

developed on it to run on Fedora Core 8

they do know fedora is now 10

DO NOT WANT

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep your proprietary crap!

Titanium

[_marshall]

Not sure if anyone here has seen us yet .. but Titanium is an open source/open web alternative to AIR that just had it's first Preview Release (PR1) a week ago. We currently support OSX and Windows , and are hard at work refactoring and getting a Linux release into the fold for our PR2 release in January.

We're licensed under ASL and using lots of open source techs (WebKit, Chromium, Gears, libXML, to name a few).. come check us out!
http://github.com/marshall/titanium/tree/master
http://titaniumapp.com/

Well done BBC, but what about the other channels?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might not be perfect, but what other technologies should they have used?

Just about all BBC Content can be streamed to non-windows devices. Which is a brilliant thing if you have an iPod touch. I hardly every watch conventional TV now - just use the ipod for what I fancy on the TV or Radio (and there are some great science/factual programmes on the Radio).

All this is well worth the licence fee just in terms of the content that I watch. And, to be honest, I've never really felt the need to download and save the programmes. If I haven't watched them after a week, then I'm probably never going to.

The same can't be said for the other UK channels. They are only available on Windows PCs. OK, there is nothing on ITV worth watching, but Channel 4 does have the occasional gem. For example, "The IT Crowd". Very annoying that I can't watch that.

Linux DRM

[AndyCanfield]

All this time I believed that Linux was immune to DRM. How did they get DRM to work under Linux?

Re:Linux DRM

[howlingmadhowie]

provided you distribute closed-source software, you can get a sort of drm working under linux. an expert will tell you how difficult it is to crack this though.

Re:Linux DRM

[Zoxed]

Equally, now long before it is cracked ? (As there is more scope for fiddling under the hood in Linux to get a hook in (worst case you stream to a virtual screen and scrape the bits off it (i.e. the analogue hole))).

Re:Linux DRM

[AndyCanfield]

The way I figure it, applications don't really do anything themselves, they just call the operating system. Since I can recompile Linux, I can make the OS lie to the application. My control over the operating system implies control over the application, which overrides the vendor's control. Yes?

mod parent up please

[blackest_k]

That line certainly helps.

Re:iPlayer? Just out for the Mac?

[adunstan]

How can that be? iWhatever means Mac.

iRobot, iAudio, iRiver (now iriver). Seems as though no one can get it right, and AFAIK Apple didn't come up with the whole i prefix.

Illegal across the WIPOsphere

[acb]

Actually, producing or distributing "circumvention devices" is a criminal offence in all countries that have implemented WIPO legislation (such as the US DMCA or the EU Copyright Directive).

Why did the BBC release iPlayer for the Mac...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when only a handful of gay posing art students own them in Britain anyway.

Re:Why did the BBC release iPlayer for the Mac...

[RiotingPacifist]

because the gay posing art students pay tv licenses, so the bbc don't have a choice.

More on the BBC Internet Blog

[iangoldby]

There is much more information on the BBC Internet Blog.

Two particular things that I noticed is that it is no-longer a peer-to-peer application, and there are plans to increase the quality to 1500Kbps H.264.

The PC License

[mooterSkooter]

The BBC has wanted to add 'a PC' onto the list of things that require payment of the license Tax for a long time now. This move has helped them along their way to reaching that goal. They could avoid this by forcing the user to enter the license details upon download of the player or similar. I somehow doubt they will do this though and again choose to force more people into paying.

Re:The PC License

[pandrijeczko]

I suggest that you have absolutely no idea what level of services the BBC actually provide if you feel you can make such an obtuse statement.

There may be more crap reality TV shows than ever on all channels but there is actually a large amount of good quality drama being made by the BBC as well - Dr Who, Survivors and Torchwood are three off the top of my head that if you bought them as DVD box sets would probably come close to the cost of the license fee.

Add to that the excellent drama and comedy on BBC radio plus the phenomenally good language resources on the BBC web site (I myself am learning Spanish) and all of it ***100% ADVERT FREE***.

I don't work for the BBC, never have done and don't even know anyone who works there - but I vehemently maintain that the TV license is great value for money for what you get.

The *REAL* problem is that far too many people sit with their backsides glued to their settees without bothering to check what programming there is, both on TV and radio and just prefer to sit there whining about it.

Re:The PC License

[mooterSkooter]

I didn't say I thought the BBC content was rubbish. I agree there are some decent programmes on the BBC* (the Louis Theroux(sp?) shows come to mind). I would just like to have the option to payor not to pay. If I didn't live with someone who can't live without TV I wouldn't own one at all but I would sure as hell own a PC! *Saying that though, the ratio of good to rubbish seems about 1:100...plus I'd take channel four news over BBC if I had to.

More info on the BBC Tech Blog

[Zoxed]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/12/introducing_iplayer_deskto.html

Re:iPlayer? Just out for the Mac?

[ColdWetDog]

The food hasn't changed. I mean really, you have to take the best from other cultures, not the worst. (OK, metric is fine, but Renaults??). God have mercy on your heathen souls.

silver/moon light

[Anonymous Coward]

the vc1 codec in silverlight would do this fine

now let the anti M$ feeling flow

no 64-bit versions

[viyyer]

Damn , They have given out binaries and it can't be used for 64-bit OSes.

Why not use SWING and JNLP?

[bauhaus9]

If people want rich GUI apps that are portable, why aren't more developers providing solutions using good old Java SWING and delivering it via JNLP (WebStart). This has puzzled me for years.