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

‘--tree’ option: Displays the lists of programmes or matching programmes in a sort-of tree view
‘--hide’ option: Removes programmes that have already been downloaded from listings and searches.

I will also try now to update freshmeat.net with new releases.

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 allows you to download any number of iPlayer / podcast programmes using any combination of search terms that you would normally run on the get_iplayer command line. This includes searching by channel, category, version(i.e. Signed or Default), date added, programme name, episode name, description etc.

The PVR searches are saved in ~/.get_iplayer/pvr/. You can Add, Delete and List the PVR searches. You’ll need to run a single command from a scheduler such as the Unix cron daemon (or possibly
the Windows scheduler).

Examples of usage are as follow:

Add a new PVR search (using any usual search options):

To automatically download all BBC One comedy programmes:

get_iplayer --pvr-add=bbc1_comedy_tv_progs --category=comedy --type=tv --channel=’BBC One’

or, to automatically download the ‘Click’ TV programme:

get_iplayer --pvr-add=click --type=tv ^click$

or, to download all of Chris Moyles podcasts:

get_iplayer --pvr-add=moyles_podcasts --type=podcast moyles

List the PVR searches already added:

get_iplayer --pvr-list

Remove a PVR search:

get_iplayer --pvr-del=bbc1_comedy_tv_progs

Run the PVR (this really should be added to your scheduler such as cron):

get_iplayer --pvr

See the Readme file for more information on usage.

Other New features in get_iplayer lately are:

• A download history is now maintained which prevents the accidental re-downloading of programmes that you may have deleted
• Ability to see which programmes have become available since the last cache refresh
• The --since option which allows you to see programmes added to the cache since a number of hours ago
• The --list [channel|categories] option which displays a unique list of categories and channels for the specified type of programme

Try using the get_iplayer --help option to see all new options.

Update v0.75:

• get_iplayer will now automatically try to download the MP3 radio stream and then fallback on RealAudio streams.
• In radio mode --amode=realaudio option will prevent mp3 streams being downloaded
• In radio mode --amode=mp3 will ensure that no RealAudio is downloaded - i.e. it disables the default fallback to realaudio
• --force-download will make get_iplayer ignore the download history

Another update: Classical music appears to be encoded at 192kbps and speech at 80kbps.

get_iplayer --streaminfo 123

Then playback using:

vlc [rtsp URL]

Or save the stream using:

vlc --sout file/ts:stream.mpg [rtsp URL]

Update: I’ve had reports that the stream also works on Realplayer on at least the Nokia N95
Another update: get_iplayer can now download the N96 with the --n96 option
Update: I changes the --n96 option to --n95 (cos that is what the BBC seem to be labelling it as)