Another great feature has been added to get_iplayer. You can now download programmes from the high quality flash version of the BBC iPlayer (640×360 resolution) using the optional rtmpdump tool. This means that you will be able to download ANY programme as soon as it is available on the iPlayer Flash web page.

Andrej Stepanchuk has very kindly written and released rtmpdump. If installed, get_iplayer (v1.04 or above) can use it by adding the --vmode=rtmp option to any TV download. This feature is currently an alpha test.
Pre-requisites are:

• Installation of rtmpdump
• ffmpeg (to convert the flv file into mp4 format)

You can get rtmpdump here (compiled for 32bit Linux x86 on Fedora 9). The Home Page and C++ source is here. I recommend you compile your own - it is very easy - just make sure you have the boost libraries installed.

In get_iplayer you’ll need to specify the location of rtmpdump binary (using --rtmpdump) if it is not already in the path.

Let me know how it goes.

Update (28th December 2008)

Andrej has released rtmpdump-v1.1 this addresses issues with 64-bit Linux and adds download resume support. Use in conjunction with the latest get_iplayer 1.05 or newer.

If you come across problems specifically related to rtmpdump (i.e. not get_iplayer) you can post them at the Sourceforge page for rtmpdump.

Update (2nd January 2009)

For get_iplayer 1.09 and above to use the RTMP features you’ll need rtmpdump-v1.2+ this addresses issues with Normal quality RTMP Flash downloads and adds download resume support for this quality.

So now you’ll notice over 3000 radio programmes from 56 BBC radio stations in the get_iplayer index!

As ever, RealAudio streams will be transparently transcoded to mp3 format unless you choose to disable this behaviour.

Here is a quick guide to setting it up.

I’m assuming you have downloaded and installed get_iplayer as described here

Setting up a PVR Search

Use get_iplayer to search for the programme you wish to have downloaded. You can search based on the programme name (and can also limit to specific channels and categories etc). In my example I want to get the upcoming TV episodes of ‘Doctor Who‘ so I just type this:

get_iplayer ‘Doctor Who’ --type=tv

This results in:

Matches:
184:    Doctor Who Confidential: Series 4 - A Noble Return, ‘BBC Three’, Factual,Arts,Culture & the Media,TV, default
185:    Doctor Who Confidential: Series 4 - The Italian Job, ‘BBC Three’, Factual,Arts,Culture & the Media,TV, default
186:    Doctor Who Confidential - At Christmas, ‘BBC Three’, Factual,Arts,Culture & the Media,TV, default
187:    Doctor Who: Series 4 - Partners in Crime, ‘BBC One’, Drama,SciFi & Fantasy,TV, default
188:    Doctor Who: Series 4 - The Fires of Pompeii, ‘BBC One’, Drama,SciFi & Fantasy,TV, default
189:    Doctor Who - Voyage of the Damned, ‘BBC One’, Drama,SciFi & Fantasy,TV, default

OK, so I don’t want those extra programmes on BBC Three, so I limit my search to ‘BBC One’ only:

get_iplayer ‘Doctor Who’ --type=tv --channel=’BBC One’

Now I just get these matches:

Matches:
187:    Doctor Who: Series 4 - Partners in Crime, ‘BBC One’, Drama,SciFi & Fantasy,TV, default
188:    Doctor Who: Series 4 - The Fires of Pompeii, ‘BBC One’, Drama,SciFi & Fantasy,TV, default
189:    Doctor Who - Voyage of the Damned, ‘BBC One’, Drama,SciFi & Fantasy,TV, default

Now I have the search I want, I can save this to the PVR search list by simply appending the --pvradd option:

get_iplayer ‘Doctor Who’ --type=tv --channel=’BBC One’ --pvradd=’Dr Who’

If you want to list all the searches that you have saved just run:

get_iplayer--pvrlist

If you want to do some more advanced searches you might want to read this guide for examples.

Getting the PVR to run Automatically

There is one more thing you need to do to get the downloads to happen automatically. You only need to set this up once. You must ensure that this command runs on your PC on a regular basis:

/path/to/get_iplayer --pvr

In Unix/Linux systems this can simply be achieved by adding the following lines to your crontab (run ‘crontab -e’). Also, if you have local email delivery capability then you will also receive an email when a programme is downloaded (set MAILTO below accordingly):

MAILTO=”myemail@mydomain.com”
0 * * * * /path/to/get_iplayer --pvr  2>/dev/null

This will ensure that the PVR checks for new matching programmes every hour, on the hour.

It might also be prudent to add these options as defaults on your system so that you don’t get the Sign Language version by mistake and also so that you know where the downloaded files will be saved:

get_iplayer --output=’/home/jbloggs/videos/’ --version-list=default --save

And finally, remember that this will only work when your computer is booted up and connected to the Internet

You can see a slightly older version of it running on this youtube video which gives you an idea of how well it works. The streaming capabilities do seem to be very slick

You can download the plugin from this site

Let us know if you get it working.

get_iplayer will just download the H.264 quicktime version of the programme at your broadband speed so that you can watch it after it has downloaded. Yes, this even works if you have a dial-up modem - should you be so desperate!! (it will even resume downloading when you redial after your connection drops)

The PVR options of get_iplayer will also take the pain out of having to wait while programmes download - it will download your favourite programmes as soon as they become available.

The Bad news: The BBC eventually announced that the iPlayer Mobile download service would in fact not be using 3GP/H.264 but in fact DRMed WMV HTTP downloads (yes that’s a Windows video format!).

The good(ish) news: The resolution is better than I reckoned it was. One test report suggests that the resolution is 320×240 which is a marginal improvement over the 320×176 I reported as available 3GP/H.264 for the Nokia N95/N96.

The other good news is that the 3GP/H.264 feeds still seem to be available even though these do not appear to be official in any way. You can see these URLs from get_iplayer using the ‘--streaminfo’ option listed as ‘Nokia N96 h.264 low quality stream URL’.

To restrict what you can do with the programmes you have funded, the BBC has opted to employ ‘OMA DRM 2 specification’ which, incidentally, Apple does/will not support. So I guess that is why we still have those higher quality iPhone download streams available. The OMA DRM 2 spec only appears to be currently implemented (supported?) on closed source players and platforms (correct me if I’m wrong here).

For a one interesting legal evaluation of DRM (in easy-to-understand terms) see this link

It will use the Adobe Integrated Runtime, or ‘AIR’.

Unfortunately, even though AIR is supposed to be platform-neutral, Adobe, in their wisdom have chosen again (as with flash) to prohibit the use of AIR on

…on any mobile device, set top box (STB), handheld, phone, web pad, tablet or Tablet PC (other than Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and its successors), game console, TV, DVD player, media center (other than Windows XP Media Center Edition and its successors), electronic billboard or other digital signage, internet appliance or other internet-connected device, PDA, medical device, ATM, telematic device, gaming machine, home automation system, kiosk, remote control device, or any other consumer electronics device, operator-based mobile, cable, satellite, or television system or other closed system device.

Erik goes on to say:

Whatever platform you use, you’ll now be able to download TV programmes from the BBC to watch later - on the train, in the garden, or wherever you like.
…
Given our obligations to rights-holders and the BBC Trust, these programmes are protected with DRM, but in a way that shouldn’t affect your enjoyment of our programmes, whatever platform you’ve chosen.

So how can anyone watch any of this BBC digital restrictions management TV output on a Linux set-top box or converted games console? I run Linux/Freevo on an old Xbox at home and I’m sure others use XBMC on their set-top boxes or just run plain Linux on a handheld, or tablet PC. None of these can legally run AIR. So I can say, YES, this will, in a rather large way, affect the enjoyment of the BBC’s programmes.

BBC: Why use AIR when it basically has such a blatant pro-Microsoft bias? Will the BBC not put pressure on Adobe to remove these unhelpful restrictions?

And what about the BBC’s obligations to license payers?

I wonder if Apple will be putting AIR on the iPhone?

I also wonder if Adobe will help the free/open source software community with documentation on their proprietary RTMP protocol (used by the BBC on their flash based iPlayer) so that the flash version can be watched without having to use closed-source proprietary tools such as Adobe’s flash player or AIR?

We shouldn’t really have to simulate an iPhone just to be able to watch lower-quality BBC TV programmes.

get_iplayer --versions=signed

You can also specify that a signed version of a programme be downloaded in preference to a default (i.e. not signed) programme by changing the versions preference list as follows:

get_iplayer --version-list=signed,default --get <search term(s)>

Also, if you prefer not to have any signed programmes downloaded you can specify that only default programme versions are downloaded as follows:

get_iplayer --version-list=default --get <search term(s)>

photo credit: Mashed08

Me doing my super-quick presentation at Mashed ‘08

photo credit: Ben Dodson comments: Full kudos to this guy - He announced that he’d managed to rip out the H.264 stream from the BBC iPlayer in front of the BBC development team and management with the line “it’s not technically allowed but I’ve done it”