A great way to catch up with BBC programs (BBC iPlayer)

Member Name: tomo359

Product:	BBC iPlayer
Date:	03/12/08 (832 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to catch up on BBC programs, most shows available, good quality

Disadvantages: Cannot save videos, still having problems on PS3

BBC iPlayer is an online video catch up service so people can watch just about any BBC program online if they missed it on TV.
You can access the site by visiting the homepage of bbc (bbc.co.uk) and clicking iPlayer, or just go directly to the homepage of iPlayer bbc.co.uk/iplayer so its easy to get to it.

When you get to the iPlayer homepage you get a dark background with images from TV shows along the top, and channel selection and other options further down. Recently BBC also added radio shows to iPlayer so you can listen to radio broadcasts on it as well.

To find a program, there are several ways you can find it, firstly you can type the name of the program into the search box at the top and it will show you all the episodes of that program (if it is a series of course). You can also search using the channel option. So if you are looking for Eastenders, search with BBC One as Eastenders is shown on BBC One. There is also TV highlights (this is the top selection of images you see) and you can scroll across to see more shows. These shows are usually shows that have recently been on tv, and popular programs.
Below this is radio highlights, where again you can scroll across to see more shows.
If there is a show and maybe you have forgotten the name and do not know which BBC channel it is shown on, you can use the Catagories option. This allows you to search through genres such as Drama, Comedy, Entertainment, Factual and more.

Once you have found the program you want to watch, you are greeted with a video player on the centre of the screen with various options to choose from. Firstly, you can just watch the video right then by clicking play and allowing the video to load. You can also use a pop up player. This is a recently added option which allows you to watch the video in a separate browser window so you can do other things at the same time, this is a good option for radio shows. You can also download the program to watch later. This temporally downloads the video to an external iPlayer program on your computer so you can watch it later. If you do this i think you get to keep the video for about 30 days. If you just watch the video online, it stays online for 7 days.

Another option which was recently added was high quality option. If you have a good broadband connection, click watch in high quality then the video quality will be improved. This is good when you want to watch something in full screen as the quality does not reduce as much. If you find the video is not playing well, you can easily go back to normal quality view.

Generally videos play very well on iPlayer and most people do not have many problems. Sometimes, especially if your internet speed is a little low, it will pause sometimes while it buffers but if you just pause the video for a few minutes its usually ok.
You can skip and search through videos as well using the drag bar, and the video will usually start playing quite quickly again.

If anyone has not yet tried iPlayer, give it a go. I love it and it has sometimes come in really useful when i have forgot about a program.

Its just a shame you can't keep videos off iPlayer as they use DRM (Digital Rights Management) on each videos so even if you manage to download it and save it to your documents the video will not work after 7 days.

One more thing i have forgot to mention is iPlayer on games consoles. You can now use iPlayer on your Nintendo Wii and on your Sony Playstation 3. The only thing is they still seem to be having some problems with the PS3 version as it always tells you to enable JavaScript, even if it already enabled. It works fine on the Wii though.

Summary: A good online catch up service from the BBC

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