Interesting iPlayer Stuff
A follow-up to Nick's iPlayer Beta Round-Up below.
BBC DG Mark Thompson's interview with the FT [see linked video above] has attracted a lot of attention, especially this section, which Brand Republic and, among others, TV Squad interpret as a plan to develop a set-top box:
Mark Thompson, BBC director-general, told the Financial Times it was "looking very hard at" forming an alliance to introduce "a very simple standard" for getting online video from computer screens on to standard televisions.
Similar devices such as Apple TV have been on sale for some time but have not gained a mass following.
"There are many things out there in the market, but what we haven't yet got is a simple standard, to mean that you can get services like iPlayer and Kangaroo [a joint venture to deliver archive and popular programmes online]," said Mr Thompson in a video interview.
There are also a few features on iPlayer in today's Online TV supplement to The Guardian [not available online], including a graph of the growth:
the.blog.by.adam reviews the beta and ends with a suggestion:
A suggestion I have for the BBC is to add one more function. Well a button, called 'Random Programme'. This would be an excellent feature and would do exactly as it says on the tin. It would give viewers a chance to watch programmes that they wouldn't select normally and it would just add a bit of character to the page as well.
Another review with a lot of detail, from Donald Kelly, ends with an update after James Cridland feeds back on the feedback:
You can see the response of James Cridland of whom is head of Future Media & Technology in the Audio and Music Interactive team. Phew! What a title!
Phew indeed. The Register focuses on navigation of audio content and Last Played (as well as inspiring this characteristic Backstage thread):
Successful negotiations with music rights holders mean the new radio player will let listeners fast forward and rewind in smaller increments. Licensing restrictions on the old BBC radio player mean music stations cannot be rewound, and can only be fast forwarded in chunks of five or 15 minutes.
Lenina Crowne, having found her TV broken, is considering moving to just 4oD and iPlayer [wot no ITV.com? - Ed].
And at WebTVwire, Dave Parrack takes us through the features and concludes:
With the iPlayer now available on PC, Mac, Linux, Virgin Media, the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and Nintendo Wii, the range of devices, and potential audience are increasing all the time.
I predict good times ahead for the BBC on-demand service, but then, they are using our money to fund it.
Alan Connor is co-editor, BBC Internet Blog.
Comment number 1.
At 21:40 30th Jun 2008, tip2tail wrote:Just a quick note - has anyone else noticed that selecting the BBC News Channel to see all programmes on that station in the new beta produces a "News 24" logo in the top right?
Oopps!
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Comment number 2.
At 13:17 1st Jul 2008, NickReynolds wrote:Hi tip2tail - I've been told this is a bug we are aware of and are fixing.
Nick Reynolds (editor, BBC Internet blog)
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