BBC clamps down on illicit iPlayer watchers A gang of British licence fee payers have grabbed their virtual pitchforks and marched on the Beeb in protest against its decision to ban iPlayer RSS feeds. The changes are designed to stop naughty viewers from using third-party clients to watch the Beeb. Several Register readers have contacted us and complained about the …
I have a Philips Blu-Ray player that adds "Smart TV" functionality to my (older and not very smart) TV. Just about the most useful function of this player was that it ran an iPlayer app. However, a month or two back it stopped working and I started receiving "iPlayer is not supported by your device" errors instead. This is. well, annoying, as I now need to find another way to stream iPlayer to my TV.
Is the explanation given in this article why it no longer works?
@Michael Jennings:
The BBC recently retired what they called 'Big-Screen iPlayer' - source http://www.a516digital.com/2014/08/bbc-to-retire-bigscreen-iplayer-as-new.html
The BBC list the supported Philips models at http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/information/philips
"In what way is my x86 machine with Firefox installed a "BBC only device"?
You are thinking hardware, the BBC device is a software device (formerly known as a programme ).
It is a method of locking in the user by not having open standards. It forces licience payers to use BBC manufactured devices (software). This is exactly analogous to forcing everybody in the 1950's to use a TV manufactured by the Beeb (because the transmission format is secret and restricted by law) and not one by Echo, Murphy, Bush etc. It kills inovation and freedom of choice. It stops you building your own TV. It is a monopoly. It is wrong.
You will, in the future, give up your soul by agreeing to the T's & C's to receive the benifits (Apple, Google) - and thus become a serf. You will also give up the souls of your friends by registering (and you didn't ask your friends permission), this happens now, try registering to anything using facebook.
Nothing wrong with that ! ! (Irony)
Indeed. I can't really see the BBC being able to argue in court that the licence to view the materials online extends only to BBC-approved clients.
And of course, it would be possible to replicate much of the functionality of get_iplayer by screenscraping the programme catalogue from the iPlayer website. At least get_iplayer played nice and cached the information for 24 hours - I suspect the author of the next hack to come along won't bother.
And, incidentally, it appears Nitro will have an API key (like Google Maps), so anticipate that as soon as anyone comes up with a useful app their key will immediately be revoked.
Back to vdr it is, then... They haven't yet worked out how to prevent us capturing the off-air signal, but I'm sure some "creative" is working on the idea at this moment...
"Back to vdr it is, then... They haven't yet worked out how to prevent us capturing the off-air signal, but I'm sure some "creative" is working on the idea at this moment..."
Well..... the HD channels on Freeview all have the copy protection flag set to on permanently so devices that play nice with the rules have been hampered already. My Panasonic freeview box will happily let me watch stuff it has recorded over the network, and by extension using something like MediaMonkey I can download said content. But it refuses to let me watch anything remotely that was recorded from a HD channel.
Quite a while I would think. The important point that is missing in this article is that Nitro is NOT available yet. Even then, it's going to be problematic since nitro requires an API key. Obviously, if get_iplayer embeds one of these in its code base, it will be freely available.
It's sad and unfortunate, really. The BBCs viewer runs like a pig on stilts on my TV replacement machine, so I download and use VLC instead which works well. Of course, the BBC are deliberately choosing to make this harder. Shame.
You can still download referencing the PID contained within the iplayer URL for a given programme. Removal of the index just means you can't schedule downloads and search them within the get_iplayer client.
I'm sure the BBC will close the DRM free feed that get_iplayer utilises soon enough, then there's going to be problems!
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there is already an alternate plugin available that works. Plus if you need your own nitro API key then I can assume future plugins will simply need people to generate their own nitro APIs. A little more of a mess about but still doable (if they allow regular joes to generate their own keys). If not, it wont take long to leverage someone elses key etc.
I have a 'SmartTV' with iPlayer. Generally the entire TV now crashes after watching one HD programme. Sometimes it crashes before watching any. That's when I have had to resort to watching iPlayer via XBMC.
Looks like they're determined to reduce the number of iPlayer users.
(Also, encrypting/protecting the feed, like encrypting the DVB-T2 version of the programme guide - I assume it's just a management "hack" because they were told not to DRM the video itself?)
...I am an avid user of XBMC (now "Kodi") as it is *the best* media front-end bar none. Why don't I use a browser? Because a browser on the TV is feckin' crap, that's why!
Why don't I use the "Smart" features of my TV? I don't have a "Smart" TV, but even if I did I would still use XBMC as it link to the other content on my network.
Why don't I use iPlayer on the set-top box? Because for some STUPID reason, it doesn't allow me to watch films.
Do I download videos via the iPlayer plug-in? No, I just watch 'em and move one.
If you are upset with "get_iplayer" etc, why not take some of the energies you just wasted in going and write something better for XBMC et al.
edit: There are workarounds it seems. Hopefully the community will deliver what the BBC refuses to (despite the BBC being paid millions to provide a service).
I wonder when the BBC will start trying to detect VPN usage....
Good to know. I only use get_iplayer to download audio streams (mostly plays and spoken books) so that I can store them for long car journeys. It will be a pain if I have to go back to the old model of streaming them in realtime and recording them 'live'.
This.
I use[d] it extensively so I could listen to my favourite shows on car journeys rather than when they're broadcast (usually when I'm at work or asleep, or not on a long car journey!). And no, streaming to the car is not an option..
Screw you BBC, we paid for those shows, why can't we listen to them in the way we choose?
I'm a get_iplayer user and, to be honest, I don't expect much sympathy from the BBC but it's wider than that, they've hit people with smart TVs too as this post to their site acknowledges:
"We are aware of reports that some viewers are encountering problems playing programmes on their Smart TV or connected device. We understand that some of the reports refer to the service not loading or the buffering ‘circle’ being displayed on-screen.
"This is currently under investigation and we’ll update this FAQ once we have further information."
-- http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/tv/smart_tvs_connected_nov2014
Apparently it may be possible to fix some TVs by upgrading the firmware ... which is fine if you understand the concept of "upgrading the firmware" and have the means (PC, memory stick) to do so, but lots of users will be completely baffled. BBC shooting themselves in the foot I fear.
The Beeb ended support for the "Bigscreen" Iplayer that was used in a number of consumer media products (including a number of Sony Bluray players) in September, citing a low usage and the fact that the product was 5 years old. However, the Sony models affected are from 2010 and 2011, so buyers would have had access to the advertised-on-the-box feature for perhaps only 3 years or less.
The BBC keeps saying it doesn't have the engineering resources to support all these different devices (that doesn't stop it launching services on these devices and then abandoning them), but steadfastly refuses to produce a stable API that would allow connected device manufacturers (and everyone else) to build and maintain their own clients at their own expense.
But, the general advice to everyone buying "smart" anything is to get a throwaway separate box - anything built-in will be useless long before the device into which it's built stops working.
"but steadfastly refuses to produce a stable API that would allow connected device manufacturers (and everyone else) to build and maintain their own clients at their own expense."
Because the BBC is run by technology ignorant middle managers who are only interested in expanding their fiefdoms than providing an actual service to the public.
iPlayer could become a reference implementation and the community could pick up the slack. This would allow any OS, any device to be supported that the community saw fit.
As to unflashable TVs...that's a matter for OEMs. Consumers can help by simply not buying a TV that they can't upgrade or install new software on. Which is all of them at the moment!
"The BBC keeps saying it doesn't have the engineering resources to support all these different devices"
If they've told you that, they're lying.
They need to get rid of all middle managers who cannot come up with a meaningful answer to "what did you do, today, to make things better for licence fee payers"; when i worked there fifteen years ago we could have taken a support/development team of forty to fifty, stripped out the dead wood, and been left with the eight or nine who actually did anything, and not one person would have noticed or cared (apart from the dead wood, the fungi growing on the dead wood, and things living off the fungi, etc).
"Seat polishers" we used to call them. They'd have meetings about meetings. The actual techy people used to be the best in the business but as time went on they couldn't even pass wind without 3 meetings and a load of interference. It's probably got even worse in the 10 years since I cut and ran.
I have an early (2010 or 2011 model) Toshiba "smart" TV - it was never that smart but did have a iPlayer and youtube apps.
Recently the BBC discontinued the iPlayer service that was used by my TV so the app no longer works.
Toshiba have had no updated firmware available since I bought the TV in 2011 - I guess once they've sold the TV, they aren't interested any more.
So, for now we need to use a laptop to get iPlayer through the TV, and the "smart" TV is basically "dumb" again.
My supposedly 'smart' Toshiba (about a year old, though admittedly end-of-line at the time) which was sold with BBC/iPlayer logos plastered all over its box, stickers and paperwork, now seems unable to digest the new iPlayer format using its inbuilt app, and just hangs on its loading page. No sign of a firmware update on the manufacturers support website, and given their past record, I don't particularly hold much hope for one. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in iPlayer-on-a-device. Interestingly, both Netflix and Youtube HAVE managed to maintain compatibility with this model despite significant revisions to their own offerings.
Happily, it's only just occurred to me that the Sky+ HD box has an iPlayer client, which I've never got around to firing up...
One would hope that enough people within their warranty period for "advertised as works with iPlayer" devices will lug them back to the retailers and the advertising standards folk.
Money talks etc. And if retailers/manufacturers start getting enough of a chunk of inventory back, they'll be asking questions of the BBC Board.
I have said it numerous times, only dumb people buy smart devices (smart tv's, blueray players etc ) and expect the functionality to last. And firmware updates are very uncommon because the devices in question have a short shelf life ... better processors, more memory etc means these TV's only remain on the market for a year or two ... then they get replaced by bigger and better ... the manufacturers have no incentive to release new firmwares ... get something of which you have full control ... a SOC device with your OS, such as a raspberry pi or the like ...
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