Hi everybody,
As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux!
I've tried it this afternoon, and started downloading stuff into my Ubuntu for my Christmas journey.
Word of caution, the player will complain that you have reached the download limit very soon, unless you go to Settings and define a bigger "Hard disk space allocated".
I haven't found any glitches or problems so far, apart from the fact that one cannot download stuff that is older than a given date. I wanted to get the full collection of "Stephen Fry in America" but I can only download the latest one.
There is a "reporting participation" in the Settings that I am sure all the Linux users will leave ticked as to show how grateful are we of having a Linux version :-p
Cheers,
Albert.
2008/12/21 Albert Vilella avilella@gmail.com:
Word of caution, the player will complain that you have reached the download limit very soon, unless you go to Settings and define a bigger "Hard disk space allocated".
Mine started at 0GB!
I haven't found any glitches or problems so far, apart from the fact that one cannot download stuff that is older than a given date. I wanted to get the full collection of "Stephen Fry in America" but I can only download the latest one.
That'll be because they usually only allow downloads for 7 days after original broadcast. The DRM then restricts you to watching it within 30 days, and only for 24 hours after you start watching it. This is to discourage viewers from hoarding shows.
The interesting news from the BBC blog is that they are moving away from P2P to direct downloads because the cost to the BBC of bandwidth has fallen. They also cite the cost of P2P uploads to users.
Tim.
On 21-Dec-08 23:07:47, Tim Green wrote:
2008/12/21 Albert Vilella avilella@gmail.com:
Word of caution, the player will complain that you have reached the download limit very soon, unless you go to Settings and define a bigger "Hard disk space allocated".
Mine started at 0GB!
I haven't found any glitches or problems so far, apart from the fact that one cannot download stuff that is older than a given date. I wanted to get the full collection of "Stephen Fry in America" but I can only download the latest one.
That'll be because they usually only allow downloads for 7 days after original broadcast. The DRM then restricts you to watching it within 30 days, and only for 24 hours after you start watching it. This is to discourage viewers from hoarding shows.
Hmmm ... I wonder how they work round the possibility that you might clone copies into other directories, and then you could watch one copy, then another one more than 24 hours later, and then ... ?
Not to mention falsifying your system clock if you wanted to watch it more than 30 days later.
Or, maybe, do you have to be on-line to watch, so that the download can "call home" and check on what may have been happening to itself?
The interesting news from the BBC blog is that they are moving away from P2P to direct downloads because the cost to the BBC of bandwidth has fallen. They also cite the cost of P2P uploads to users.
Now that is interesting.
One question: I've yet to install the Download Manager on Linux, because the distributions the BBC says it's for are not what I am using (I'm on Debian Etch, not Ubuntu or Fedora or Suse).
Have people had sucess on other distributions, specifically plain Debian?
Ted.
Tim.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Dec-08 Time: 00:07:22 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Sun, 2008-12-21 at 16:20 +0000, Albert Vilella wrote:
As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux!
Whilst it is good to see the BBC finally supporting Linux users. For anyone that doesn't already know, we had to wait so long that an OSS alternative to the BBC download software exists that actually provides more functionality.
http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/
No GUI I am afraid but no DRM on the downloads either..plus it can pick up files past the download time limit, just a h.264 file you can watch when you feel like it.
To use get_iplayer.pl "search string" will look at the site and return matches. Adding a -g will download them.
Look in the help pages for more information, it is aware of what it has previously downloaded so you can for example cron it with a list of favourite programmes and it will work as a sort of retrospective PVR getting the latest one as soon as it appears.
Yes it could do with a front end of some kind for those who are allergic to the console, actually I am surprised there isn't one and Downloads often appear throttled to realtime (although you can save to a file and stream into Mplayer at the same time if you are in a hurry)
Whilst it is good to see the BBC finally supporting Linux users. For anyone that doesn't already know, we had to wait so long that an OSS alternative to the BBC download software exists that actually provides more functionality.
http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/
No GUI I am afraid but no DRM on the downloads either..plus it can pick up files past the download time limit, just a h.264 file you can watch when you feel like it.
To use get_iplayer.pl "search string" will look at the site and return matches. Adding a -g will download them.
Look in the help pages for more information, it is aware of what it has previously downloaded so you can for example cron it with a list of favourite programmes and it will work as a sort of retrospective PVR getting the latest one as soon as it appears.
This is really good and it sounds then as we have even more functionality in Linux than Windows or Mac! Excellent!
On 22-Dec-08 08:59:52, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Sun, 2008-12-21 at 16:20 +0000, Albert Vilella wrote:
As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux!
Whilst it is good to see the BBC finally supporting Linux users. For anyone that doesn't already know, we had to wait so long that an OSS alternative to the BBC download software exists that actually provides more functionality.
http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/
No GUI I am afraid but no DRM on the downloads either..plus it can pick up files past the download time limit, just a h.264 file you can watch when you feel like it. [...]
Brilliant! I just downloaded get_iplayer, installed libwww-perl as well, and then ran 'get-iplayer > iplayer.list' to see what was available.
After browsing the list, I decided to test it on "Welsh First Minister's Questions" (No 740), so then ran
get_iplayer --get 740
and after about 10 minutes download was able to watch
Welsh_First_Ministers_Questions_-_09_12_2008_b00g336f_default.mov
in the Gnome Movie Player (totem). (Closed it down after a few minutes, once I was satisfied with success and quality ... ).
Download was sublimely simple:
wget http://linuxcentre.net/get_iplayer/get_iplayer chmod 755 get_iplayer
and then you're set. Good summary documentation at
http://linuxcentre.net/getiplayer/documentation
Thanks, Wayne! Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 22-Dec-08 Time: 11:40:37 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
2008/12/21 Albert Vilella avilella@gmail.com
Hi everybody,
As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux!
Where?
JD
http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/download_programmes/desktop_linux
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:25 AM, Jon Dye jon@pecorous.co.uk wrote:
2008/12/21 Albert Vilella avilella@gmail.com
Hi everybody,
As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux!
Where?
JD
2008/12/22 Albert Vilella avilella@gmail.com
http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.uk/help/download_programmes/desktop_linux
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:25 AM, Jon Dye jon@pecorous.co.uk wrote:
2008/12/21 Albert Vilella avilella@gmail.com
Hi everybody,
As you may all know by now, we finally have a BBC iPlayer for Linux!
Where?
Thanks.
I just tried installing it on my eeepc and the interface is too big to fit on the screen. I've ended up installing get_iplayer instead, it's interface fits on one line :-)
JD
-
Albert Vilella -
Jon Dye -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood