Update 6th May 2009: You might want to read this first…

A milestone has been reached today with the addition of Channel 5’s Demand Five service to the list of DRM-free services that get_iplayer can index, search and record. The following are now supported:

• BBC iPlayer TV - up to 3200 kbps HD 720p H.264 / Quicktime / MP4
• ITV player Catch-up / Classic TV - 384 kbps+ WMV / ASF
• Channel4 4oD Catch-up TV - up to 500 kbps H.264 / MP4
• Channel5 Demand Five TV - up to 720 kbps H.264 / MP4
• BBC iPlayer Radio - 128 - 192 kbps MP3 / AAC and Realaudio
• BBC Podcasts - 96 - 192 kbps MP3 / AAC
• BBC iPlayer TV subtitles - SubRip / srt

Supported platforms are: Linux, MacOSX, Windows and pretty much any modern OS that can run perl. See the download and installation pages.

To download and search programmes use:

get_iplayer --type=TYPE <other options>

Where TYPE is either ‘tv’ (BBC TV), ‘itv’, ‘ch4′, ‘five’, ‘radio’ (BBC Radio), or ‘podcast’ (BBC).

For full instructions see the documentation page

Now I’m off for a beer….