BBC iPlayer now lets you link directly to your favourite scene in TV programmes
Post categories: iPlayer
| 18:18 UK time, Monday, 6 July 2009
You know how you're watching a programme on TV and there's a moment that's absolutely hilarious - so funny that you just have to tell your friends about it. But how would you point them to the exact moment in the programme? You could call them and say "You just have to see the kosher chicken scene in The Apprentice - it's about, oh, um, around 25 minutes into the programme. Somewhere around there - you can't miss it!". Not exactly practical.
If only you could send them a link that took them directly to the exact moment in the programme...
Well, now you can, thanks to a BBC iPlayer feature we recently introduced which allows you to create links that jump directly to any time within a programme.
For example, I loved Steve Hughes in Michael McIntyre's brilliant Comedy Roadshow - see him here: https://bbc.co.uk/i/lbtbg/?t=16m51s
You'll notice that the above link is nice and short, making it perfect for Twitter posts or pasting into an email. We created our own "short URL" system to save you the trouble of having to use a 3rd-party service, and also to ensure that your users see a trusted bbc.co.uk link instead of one of those obfuscated short URLs that could take you anywhere.
To use this new functionality, just click the Programme Information link below the video playback window in iPlayer to reveal the new Send to a Friend options:
The new direct link functionality is available at the moment for iPlayer TV programmes. We hope to add support for radio as soon as we can.
PS: Remember Mr Collins from the BBC's Pride and Prejudice all those years ago? Well, while watching our new Psychoville production I was amazed to see David Bamber reprising his Mr Collins role - see for yourself: https://bbc.co.uk/i/l9n18/?t=21m29s
Anthony Rose is Controller, Online Media Group and Vision, BBC FM&T
Comment number 1.
At 19:09 6th Jul 2009, Darren wrote:love the iPlayer love the BBC, need it for radio though for when im annoyin my Facebook followers of new songs on R1.
Also, seems it would be logical to incorporate these features into the actual 'share' link on the iplayer console?
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Comment number 2.
At 19:34 6th Jul 2009, TV Licence fee payer against BBC censorship wrote:Nice to see that the developers have used an easy to understand time format in the URL, it would have been oh so easy to use a format that looks more like a set of random charters than something a human can read.
Why is this useful, two reasons, it's editable so that the same basic, iPlayer generated, URL can be used for different start points within the same programme - just edit the (hh:)mm:ss time-code in the copied URL - which means that one only has to navigate through the programme on iPalyer the once, and (probably more importantly) it's understandable be a human should the 'jump to point' doesn't function for some reason.
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Comment number 3.
At 20:02 6th Jul 2009, alaninbelfast wrote:It's an excellent - if long-overdue! - feature. Thank you for listening to users. Now, what about enabling embedding on all content?
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Comment number 4.
At 09:37 7th Jul 2009, cping500 wrote:It's a good idea but maybe producers can use it to help users especially on Radio and Radio 3 in particular. The BBC has not yet got used to the idea that listeners to music of the R3 sort actually would like to listen to what they want to listen to. So why doesn't the player link to the schedule so we can click on the schedule (past week and listen to a particular piece rather than have to 'wind the tape through' Actually if you could sort out the rights this might be extended..... all the last 7 days songs?
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Comment number 5.
At 12:45 7th Jul 2009, Up Your Ego wrote:When will we be able to get this available for radio shows as well. Oh and for embedding try upyourego.com/pip
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Comment number 6.
At 14:52 9th Jul 2009, Minsterels wrote:@alaninbelfast
I doubt the BBC will want people to be embeding their videos on sites else where. I don't know the ins and outs but I'm sure it breaks the rules of licence payers ect somewhere. Embedding will also cost the BBC precious bandwith and will gain nothing in return.
It's better to just link.
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Comment number 7.
At 17:14 9th Jul 2009, Steve - Iver wrote:A nice upgrade to a well used service, in my house anyway.
It's good to see that things are being developed.
A while back, I put an idea to the iPlayer team, a suggestion that is, to enable the user to create a 'play list' by adding programs from the list of available shows and then playing the 'play list'. That would be a neat feature, and not bandwidth hungry, as it's only a filter of what is already there with an autoplay feature.
How about it BBC?
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Comment number 8.
At 23:25 9th Jul 2009, lucas42 wrote:The shortened urls are great, they can be easily used on twitter, and then appear on shownar.
One suggestion: would it be possible to include the shortened url in a link tag in the head of the page? Flickr already do this, which allows applications (e.g. https://revcanonical.appspot.com/ ) to automatically find shortened urls and not have to resort to third-party url shorteners.
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Comment number 9.
At 11:12 10th Jul 2009, Briantist wrote:@Minsterels: lol. The bandwidth is the same, embedded or linked.
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Comment number 10.
At 20:08 15th Sep 2009, Bug-Me-Not wrote:hmm care to explain why this NEW BBC iPlayer new Send to a Friend options feature option does NOT seem to be visably available any more ?
yet if you take the url and add say ?t=16m51s to the end it works, the problem OC is you have to do this manually now and its hit and miss,why did you hide these very good directly skip to options NOW?
https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m196z/Top_Gear_Series_13_Episode_7/?from=r&id=c29a7f12-686b-4033-9944-09b4cf317ab0.0
https://bbc.kongjiang.org/www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00m196z/Top_Gear_Series_13_Episode_7/?from=r&id=c29a7f12-686b-4033-9944-09b4cf317ab0.0?t=16m51s
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Comment number 11.
At 15:34 25th Jan 2010, cliffordson wrote:Just found the blog entry about jumping to a specific time on iplayer.
I got really excited, until I noticed that it was for TV only, with Radio promised real soon...that was back in July...I've tried just adding the "t=" entry to the end of an iPlayer radio URL, but it doesn't work.
Can you comment on when the Radio "Jump to" feature might be available?
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Comment number 12.
At 07:43 30th Mar 2010, U14402580 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 13.
At 05:34 12th May 2010, U14460911 wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 14.
At 16:03 20th May 2010, magic1001981 wrote:The BBC has not yet got used to the idea that listeners to music of the R3 sort actually would like to listen to what they want to listen to. So why doesn't the player link to the schedule so we can click on the schedule (past week and listen to a particular piece rather than have to 'wind the tape through' Actually if you could sort out the rights this might be extended [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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