Typical really.
This morning I blog about Doctor Who not been available for the iPhone and by this evening it is!
So I guess it was a technical problem.
Well let me leave you with the news that the new Doctor Who will be announced tomorrow.
Sorry, this programme is currently unavailable
I am a great fan and user of BBC iPlayer, great for catching up on what you have missed and for watching things again (especially when repeated on BBC Three at an unsociable time).
I will often use an iPod touch to watch programmes, either in bed or more often then not connected to my TV. However now and again I get the following message.
Sorry, this programme is currently unavailable
You can see this in the Christmas edition of Doctor Who.
This means that you have to use a computer to watch the programme. I get the same “error” with the comedy Outnumbered episode seven (but not with the previous six episodes of Outnumbered).
I believe that the error (it’s not really an error, but I think it is) is a rights issue. In other words the rights holders have not allowed the programme to be made available to the iPod touch (or the iPhone).
Why?
Well I suspect that the issue is the way in which BBC iPlayer works on the iPod touch and the iPhone. Basically the BBC serve the iPhone with a DRM free MOV version of the programme. On the iPhone you can’t save this file, so it is not an issue, however a quick Google search provides various ways in which you can get your computer to pretend it’s an iPhone and as a result are able to download the DRM free version of the BBC programme.
Of course I don’t know for sure if this is the issue, or it is a technical problem and the programme just hasn’t (yet) been encoded for the iPhone and the festive break is the cause of the delay.
BBC iPlayer on your PS3
Amid all the news about BBC iPlayer on the Mac and Linux, you may not realise that it is possible to watch BBC iPlayer on a range of devices, including the Playstation 3 (PS3).
You need to be running the latest firmware, I upgraded mine to version 2.53.
BBC iPlayer on the Nokia N810
So can you watch content on your Nokia N810
No it doesn’t work as you would like it to, in the main as I guess the processor on the N810 is not powerful enough.
The Flash player on the N810 is the full version which means unlike the iPhone it can access Flash content easily on the web, like BBC iPlayer, but alas though it can access the content, it can’t play it properly.
You can play video on the Nokia N810, but generally you need to encode it specifically for the N810 otherwise it either won’t play or stutters a lot.
Unlike the iPhone, the iPod touch and Google’s G1, as the N810 uses (a variant) of the Firefox browser, the BBC don’t supply the mobile Mp4 files which work on the iPhone and G1 and therefore the N810 is reliant on the Flash versions which (as they are higher quality) require more processing power.
I am going to see if I can play an iPhone BBC iPlayer file on the N810 which should give me an idea if the processor is powerful enough. Will keep you informed.
BBC iPlayer now available on Mac and Linux
Well I know you are thinking that you could access BBC iPlayer already on your Mac or Linux PC!
Well what we’re talking about here is not the Flash based web BBC iPlayer, but the iPlayer which allows you to download BBC programmes and watch them while offline.
Not tried it yet, but thinking it could be useful for train journeys.
Read more on BBC News.
The BBC has created a version of the iPlayer that works with both Mac and Linux computers.
The two systems, which have been able to stream BBC programmes via the iPlayer for a year, will now be able to handle downloads.
The BBC, working with Adobe, has developed the new version, known as BBC iPlayer Desktop.
BBC iPlayer now working on iPod touch 2.2
Well the BBC have fixed the issue with the device detection, so BBC iPlayer now works on the iPod touch with firmware 2.2.
Yay.
Firmware 2.2 on iPod touch stops BBC iPlayer – Update
Well a couple of interesting bits of information have come my way since I posted yesterday about how firmware 2.2 on the iPod touch stops the BBC iPlayer from working.
Though Apple updated the firmware, and the BBC did not change anything, it is looking like the BBC’s platform/connection detection code is coming to the wrong conclusion.
That code according to FrustratedByiPlayer on the BBC Message Boards, looks like this.
case ‘STATE_CONNECTION_TYPE’:
// hack for demi – in case demi variables mysteriously disappear as they are prone to do.
if(data.response.DEMI_ERROR_FAILOVER === ‘true’ && _failOverCount < 3) {
_failOverCount++;
return device.connectionType();
}
else if(data.response.DEMI_ERROR_FAILOVER === ‘true’) {
_self.setState(“STATE_MEDIA_UNAVAILABLE”);
return;
};
if(data.response.ALLOWED_NETWORK === ‘true’ && data.response.IP_IS_UK_COMBINED === ‘yes’) {
_state = ‘STATE_IS_MEDIA_AVAILABLE’;
_mediaAssetProfile = data.response[_serviceType.toUpperCase() + ‘_MEDIA_ASSET_PROFILE’];
_self.setMediaAssetProfile(_mediaAssetProfile);
return mediaSelector.mtis(_versionPid, _mediaAssetProfile);
}
else if(data.response.ALLOWED_NETWORK === ‘true’) {
_state = ‘STATE_OUTSIDE_UK’;
_self.setState(_state);
return;
}
else {
_state = ‘STATE_NON_WIFI’;
_self.setState(_state);
return;
};
It is the _state = ‘STATE_NON_WIFI’; which is the result of the detection code failing to correctly recognise the iPod touch as a wireless device and thinking it is a 3G iPhone.
Note that the 3G iPhone on wifi works fine!
By adding the correct device to the detection code by the BBC web development team this should solve the issue.
Lakeuk on the BBC boards has been able to recreate the error on Firefox.
User Agent for FW 2.1.1 works:-
Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_1_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5F138 Safari/525.20
User Agent for FW 2.2 gives the error everyone is getting:-
Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2 like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5G77a Safari/525.20
According to the BBC Message boards this message has been passed onto the BBC team.
Firmware 2.2 on iPod touch stops BBC iPlayer
BBC iPlayer on the iPod touch is one of the best things that arrived on my iPod touch. However bad news if you upgrade to firmware 2.2, you won’t be able to access BBC iPlayer on your iPod touch!
When you try you get the following error message.
Sorry, programmes can only be accessed over a wifi connection.
Hello!
The iPod touch only does wifi!
It would appear that the fault lies with both Apple and the BBC.
The BBC use a browser detection script which identifies that the user is using an Apple iPhone or an iPod touch. I would assume before firmware 2.2 that the browser identifier used by the iPhone and the iPod touch were different when on wifi compared to when the iPhone was using 3G or Edge.
With firmware 2.2 it would appear that the BBC script incorrectly identifies the wifi iPod touch as a 3G iPhone. Now this could be because of a change by Apple on the mobile version of Safari.
So alas at the moment we have no way of watching BBC iPlayer on an updated iPod touch!
Ooops I missed Spooks
I knew Spooks was coming back this autumn, however not watching much on the television recently meant I didn’t see any trailers. Nor did I get a newspaper either, so didn’t know that it was on tonight at 9pm.
Years ago it would have been a problem as I would have to wait until repeats.
Now we have a few technologies which make it much easier.
I could wait until it appears on DVD, though generally with BBC programmes it takes a long time to get onto DVD.
With Freeview I can watch repeats on BBC Three later this week…
And of course BBC iPlayer means I can watch it now, less than 30 minutes after it finished on BBC One.
Cool.
BBC iPlayer on your Nokia N95 updated update
Well despite trying a few things, I still can’t get the BBC iPlayer working on my Nokia N95, either to stream or download BBC programmes.
Next thing to try is upgrading the Nokia N95 firmware.
If that doesn’t work then I am going to forget it.