The Muse said at June 27th, 2008 at 4:25am

Nice one Jim!

iplayerbeta plays video for just fine, the radio on the other hand is still a problem for me.

I have installed the final version of Firefox 3 on Hardy and then tried the non-beta iplayer - still no sound for me???? Although I get the radio player display.

When using the iplayerbeta - selecting the radio I get told that I need to install RealPlayer - which I have and it plays BBC feeds by opening the URI directly from the RP application (not the improved navigation as promised!) - I will have to try it using Windows, pain me as it does.

Video looks good, a bigger window without going to full screen. Bandwidth loading seems to be higher - but then I am not supposed to be watching it anyway!

Anyway, time for bed said Zebbedi

Martin

James Cridland said at June 27th, 2008 at 7:22am

(I’ve replied on Martin’s blog, and charmingly not mentioned his misspelling of Zebedee.)

Jean-François said at June 27th, 2008 at 7:39am

Hello from France,

You did a really good job on the new Iplayer. It is such a pleasure to listen to BBC radios as easily as turning on a radio set. I have no problems with Real Player (well, maybe because of/thanks to me using Windows ;-)

I really like the improvement in navigation (especially rewinding and forwarding the listening of a show), even if I found the “old” IPlayer very easy to use.

I think our public broadcaster (Radio France) should have a look at how the BBC is runing its online “business”. It could be inspiring !

I just regret that people outside the UK can not watch BBC’s Tv programs with the IPlayer but I read that BBC Worldwide is working on this issue. I hope they will sort this out in a near future.

Jean-François

Andrew said at June 27th, 2008 at 9:23am

Hi James, once again great work and thanks to you and the team for all your effort. I managed to miss you at the Techcrunch debate (had to leave before the end) but hopefully we can catch up at a future event. Looking forward to reading the behind the scenes post later today.

John said at June 27th, 2008 at 9:25am

Looking good on the iPod Touch though I’m not seeing any radio stations yet. Will these be available as QuickTime streams like the TV? I’ve been dreaming of the day I can do BBC radio-on-demand on a small wireless device. The podcasts are OK but they do leave out an awful lot of the show content.

James Cridland said at June 27th, 2008 at 10:04am

@john - radio on the iPhone and iPod Touch is certainly on the roadmap; but I can’t give you any concrete dates. The new iPhone interface came as a nice surprise to me, I must say!

William T said at June 27th, 2008 at 10:35am

I’ll save my thoughts on the iPlayer for elsewhere (as they’re no more or less valid than anyone else’s - though very positive) but I did note your choice of photo.

Much as I dislike self-congratulatory posts*, given how much has been written about the BBC/Siemens ever since the BBC Technology selloff was first muted, its extremely encouraging to hear something positive about the relationship for a change, with an (almost) finished product to back it up. Plus pictures of smiley, happy people.

(* that’s more directed at every BBC Editors Blog item I’ve ever read, rather than anything here, you understand.)

Adam Bowie said at June 27th, 2008 at 11:42am

I’m looking forward to giving the new player a good workout (although at time of writing I’m getting a lot of “This content is not available at the moment” messages).

But someone sitting me pointed out something that might be worth considering. When there are lots of daily shows, why not have different pictures for each day. For example, if I got to this page to listen to today’s Chris Moyles show, I see a big picture of Chris in the Flash player and below there’s a nice list of all his other shows this week in “More like this” - four more identical photos plus one of Scott Mills. Wouldn’t it be nice to have different pictures for each day? There must be loads of publicity photos of him around. Indeed, in some future shoot he could actually make a virtue of it, holiding up signs or whatever.

(I realise obviously that there’s probably only the option to have one photo per show in the backend, but still…)

Adam Bowie said at June 27th, 2008 at 11:44am

Must try reading my comments before hitting “post” - that way I might avoid all those awful typos in the comment above.

Giuseppe said at June 27th, 2008 at 6:15pm

@Jean-François:

“I think our public broadcaster (Radio France) should have a look at how the BBC is runing its online “business”. It could be inspiring !”

To be fair, there are also a few things that the BBC could learn from France’s public radio broadcaster. Radio France’s main stations stream at 128 kb/s mp3, and the streams can be accessed directly from any player (the links are provided on their website), unlike the BBC’s flash streams; they also had a “listen again” feature years before the BBC had one, and all podcasts are offered in 128 kb/s mp3 stereo. And all of this is available to net users worldwide, not just to those living in the broadcaster’s home country.

James Cridland said at June 27th, 2008 at 6:29pm

Being fair, the Radio Labs blog I’ve posted makes it clear that we will have streams that can be accessed from any player (currently therefore we offer Real, Windows and Flash-wrapped MP3). We will provide links from our website for other players, though we expect most listeners to use the iPlayer. All our music podcasts are 128k stereo (speech doesn’t need stereo), and all our output is available throughout the world with the exception of music podcasts (out of our hands), football commentaries (out of our hands), and high-bitrate streams (which we’re keeping within the UK for budgetary reasons). So by all means have a go, Guiseppe, but be fair too.

Jean-François said at June 27th, 2008 at 7:51pm

@ Guiseppe

Maybe I should not comment a comment but what I was just trying to say is that I like the BBC IPlayer because it gathers all BBC Audio and Video content in one place. You do not have to search on every radio station website to find a show then click several times before you reach a stream. Everything is just at a click of a button. Switching between stations as well as between live and on-demand is easy and this is what I want a radio player to be: easy to use.

I don’t really know if the bitrates are the best on earth but what I know is that I can listen to BBC content easily…and improve my english (well, I hope ;-)

Giuseppe said at June 27th, 2008 at 8:55pm

I didn’t mean to have a go at anybody, nor do I consider my comments to be unfair, but nevermind, it’s good to see things are set to improve in the near future.
However, if “speech doesn’t need stereo” why is Radio 4 in stereo on FM to begin with?

Peter Jackson said at June 27th, 2008 at 10:37pm

The new iPlayer and interface looks great, and will certainly make it easier to navigate around the various listen again options. The only problem I have is that any Flash content from the BBC site, TV or radio, causes a full reset of my BT Home Hub. This is consistent, although at different time intervals after starting the player, and I’ve seen that other users are having the same problem.

Do you know whose responsibility this is, and if some kind of fix is in the pipeline from the BBC or BT?

I really look forward to using the new iPlayer, but have had to go back to Real for now.

Neil said at June 27th, 2008 at 10:53pm

Hi James

Can you tell me where I can see in black & white that the on demand section is 128k?
It sounds good but I like confirmation that I am indeed listening to an improved audio feed.
Also why should classical music get a 192k bitrate? If I want to hear Giles Peterson in that quality, then its considered not worthy of that.
I pay the licence fee like BBC Radio 3 listeners,is my money not good enough?
I am a football fan and acknowledge football coverage does not merit stereo,but judging Classical to merit a better bit rate does not impress me at all. Bring me David Jacobs show in 192 bit rate please too.

James Cridland said at June 28th, 2008 at 8:45am

@giuseppe - my comments about speech are related to the content of podcasts, which by and large don’t contain stereo speech (like drama, especially) which Radio 4 broadcasts.

@peterjackson - I would report this problem to BT, as well as to the BBC iPlayer team. Follow the ‘help’ link from the iPlayer. There is nothing particularly special about how the BBC serves its Flash content, which is done via Akamai; but with some useful feedback, both parties can look into it.

@neil - the iPlayer doesn’t display bitrates. You’ll just have to trust me. In our tests, classical music (both the dynamic range and specific instruments) are hardest to encode. That should be coupled with the relative popularity of Radio 3 versus Radio 1, remembering the bandwidth costs. If you judge that Radio 3 is nothing special, then I can always cut it to 128k… (grin)

Peter Jackson said at June 28th, 2008 at 8:56am

Thanks James, but it seems from searching around that both the BBC and BT are aware of the problem - what’s missing is any information about potential fixes, or when they might arrive. I was hoping that you might be able to find some inside information…

All the best anyway!

James Martin said at June 28th, 2008 at 9:43am

Love the improved interface and the rollovers.

Particularly amused that when watching a bit of Glastonbury this morning, I was told that I might also like to watch Songs Of Praise!

Nah, your ok thanks…

Rob said at June 29th, 2008 at 2:55pm

Just a quick note to show my appreciation for all your (and the rest of your team’s) hard graft. The new iPlayer is excellent, and I look forward to the new streams (I think I read somewhere you hope to get the streams working in iTunes which would be excellent!). As James Martin said the “You also might like” feature needs some tinkering…. seems to often give polar opposite programs… I guess that wasn’t a design feature, unless you’re trying to broaden people’s horizons!

I’m really impressed with the BBC at the moment. The speed of progress seems top notch - I guess soon we’ll have “Now Playing” display for on-demand, bookmarkable links to specific time-points in programs, atom feeds of series,…. the works!

Cheers!

Stuart said at June 30th, 2008 at 9:14pm

I can see a way to listen to a programme in RealPlayer (although it’s not as obvious as the current setup) but not the live radio.

Flash is all very well, but I can’t pause and rewind live radio streams with the new interface

chris vesey said at July 14th, 2008 at 9:14am

I have listened to radio 1 every day for at least 5 years via the internet. I understand you’re trying to push the iPlayer, but I can’t get it to work. I have followed all the steps several times. Can’t we have the old player as an alternative? At least until all your listeners have the iPlayer working correctly.

anon said at August 7th, 2008 at 7:53am

the new iplayer radio is a big step back. Where’ve the stop and pause buttons gone? Rubbish.

Gary Smith said at August 7th, 2008 at 12:49pm

Isn’t this a step backwards? Where’s the pause gone for live streams?

James Cridland said at August 8th, 2008 at 8:37pm

The “pause for live streams” issue is something that’s popped up over the past few days; peculiar, I think, to Apple Macs only. I’ve reported it as a bug.

Adam Taylor said at August 9th, 2008 at 12:35pm

It’s still very buggy in FF3. Pause and resume play often do nothing, which pretty much means it’s useless, unless I want to sit through an entire show without a break.

It’s been like this for several weeks, which is very poor testing on the BBC’s part.

Michael Rosen said at August 12th, 2008 at 7:38pm

Since Friday August 8th, most Radio 4 Listen Again programmes have been unavailable me in the USA as well as many other listeners overseas, plus some listeners in the UK. This is the biggest crash I’ve ever experienced with this service, by far, in the four years I’ve been using Listen Again. There are various message threads about it on the bbc site, including this one:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbiplayer/F7331805?thread=5756765

So far, no sign of it being fixed - indeed it seems to be getting worse, as I haven’t found a single Radio 4 programme broadcast today (Tuesday) that I’ve been able to listen again to.

Martin said at August 13th, 2008 at 1:43pm

iPlayer is not broken! It is working the way it was designed.

I just tried to listen to the Saturday Play from Canada and I was greeted with the message that the programme was not available at this time. If I connect from a UK ip …… it’s ok!

It’s called DRM - GeoIP filtering. It seems that the BBC is asserting it’s copyright privileges.

James Cridland said at August 16th, 2008 at 10:25pm

Although I’m on holiday, I am unaware of any reason why you should not be able to listen to the Saturday Play from a Canadian ISP. The Olympics has a particularly draconian set of copyright rules; but that shouldn’t affect the Saturday Play as far as I’m aware.

Martin said at August 16th, 2008 at 10:46pm

I think it could just be an intermittent thing!

I just tried again and it was ok. But, I definitely saw the “Audio Stream is unavailable at this time” message when I tried after reading Michael’s posting.

It could be the Olympics copyright rules getting out of control - I hadn’t thought of that. Here in Canada we have the CRTC that (mandate) the blocking of American advertising and port cable channels to the Canadian affiliates of the US stations. This sometimes has a lag and we get to see things that we shouldn’t! This is an illustration that nothing is perfect when it comes the almighty revenue dollar (or pound/Yuan in this case!)

Just to close, I think the new player is going well. You can’t please all the people all of the time! I have it working in Windows and Linux just fine now. Sure there are buttons that are different and controls that respond differently depending on your Flash version - keep-up the good work.

Trace said at December 23rd, 2008 at 7:56am

“The joy is that the iPlayer looks really simple, but behind the scenes it’s a really, really complicated thing.”

The best software seems to always be that way. Thanks for the work.