“We knew this day would come, but didn’t quite expect it so soon. The BBC iPlayer is now available as a beta for the iPhone and iPod touch. Streaming only, mind,” Dan Grabham reports for TechRadar.
MacDailyNews Take: Surely Dan’s heard this one before, but, since we’re feeling a bit playful as we wait for Wall Street to figure out the implications of what Apple did yesterday (it’ll probably take ’em awhile) and to beat Ampar to the punch: Were Dan’s ancestors pig rustlers?
Grabham continues, “‘We’re creating 516Kbps streams (400Kbps H.264 video, 116Kbps AAC audio) that show off BBC programmes brilliantly on an iPhone,’ says Anthony Rose, head of Digital Media Technologies at the BBC in a blog post about the launch.”
“So what’s it like to use? Well firstly, you’ll need a Wi-Fi connection. It won’t work over anything else,” Grabham explains. “It has to be said that quality is excellent, both visually and surprisingly in terms of sound… If you exit the programme at any stage to check your mail or make a call, the vid will resume at the same place – very handy. If a call comes in, you can start the video at the same place by clicking play after the call has ended.”
Grabham reports, “One problem with the decidedly beta release of the iPlayer for iPhone is the lack of programming available in the new encoding. That’s something which will obviously change.”
More in the full article here.
Chris Williams reports for The Register, “We’ve had a quick look on our iPod Touch via the office Wi-Fi, and it’s the closest thing to watchable mobile TV we’ve yet seen, so thumbs up from us.”
“It’s worth noting again the BBC’s deal with The Cloud means there’ll be free access across thousands of public locations too,” Williams reports.
Full article here.
The Beeb’s Anthony Rose offers a behind-the-scenes look at BBC iPlayer on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch here.
The BBC iPlayer site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
