Oct 01 2008

Ever wanted to automatically download your favourite BBC iPlayer programmes and podcasts? Well now get_iplayer v0.84 can act as a quite sophisticated PVR.

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.

2 Comments

  • On October 1st, 2008, Alex said:

    Sweet! Got to try this.

    [Reply]
    • On October 1st, 2008, Alex said:

      On Windows, the Task manager will only run a program, and I couldn’t get it to run get_iplayer with the “–pvr” needed to run the pvr script. Instead I had to put a batch script in c:\windows\system32 and I called it “iplayerpvr.bat” and then in that batch script put “get_Iplayer –pvr”

      Then add the path to the batch script to the scheduled task in windows.

      Alex.

      [Reply]

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