Nov 02 2008

Is your broadband connection too slow for BBC iPlayer?

Given that I don’t actually suffer from this problem I guess it is not surprising that I didn’t realise until now how useful get_iplayer is for people with slow ‘broadband’ connections. I have recently heard that several people use get_iplayer to download because watching the BBC iPlayer via the flash web page just keeps pausing and rebuffering resulting in a very annoying experience.

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.

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Filed at 8:21pm in General, iplayer, Linux |

6 Comments

  • On November 2nd, 2008, Greg Auger said:

    The handy thing is you can use VLC to watch the unfinished download as well. So when you have downloaded 75% of so you could start watching. (It works at 5% as well but it would still keep buffering.)

    [Reply]
    • On November 2nd, 2008, linuxcentre said:

      Yes, this is true. You can in fact start watching immediately the file gets created as long as your download is going at around 600kbps or above. Any player should be able to do this. In Greg’s case, it would seem that he is getting only 150kbps download speed if he needs to wait for 75% completion before having uninterrupted viewing.

      [Reply]
      • On November 9th, 2008, Jonathan said:

        My internet connection has been rubbish today, so I haven’t been able to use iPlayer. I tried get_ipayer, but unfortunately, the programme I wanted to watch (which I think was only shown on TV in Wales) won’t download as it says “not yet read for download”. As you say in the docs, that could mean there isn’t an H.264 version of the programme. Is there a way to use get_iplayer to download the flv version of the programme instead?

        [Reply]
        • On November 10th, 2008, linuxcentre said:

          @Jonathan,
          Unfortunately no; the flash video versions are served over HTTP using RTMP protocol which isn’t well documented. I’m not yet aware of any open source downloading programs for this protocol that work with BBC iPlayer.

          Have you tried the lower quality –n95 version (you’ll need vlc installed) ?

          [Reply]
          • On November 10th, 2008, Jonathan said:

            Thanks for the reply, Phil. Unfortunately I get the very same message with the –n95 option (since installing vlc – before, it said “Required cvlc does not exist”, so –n95 is definitely doing something!)

            [Reply]
            • On November 10th, 2008, linuxcentre said:

              @Jonathan,
              Try specifying the location of the vlc (or cvlc) binary using the –vlc option.

              [Reply]

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