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BBC iPlayer - a reader writes
One of our younger readers was just nine when the BBC first considered putting its programmes online. It has been a long wait but the test version of the new BBC iPlayer ultimately fails to impress Ariel Mole, aged 13¾.
I waited so long for this that when it arrived it was something of an anticlimax. I wanted it so desperately it became almost an obsession. I first heard about it five years ago, which seems like an age. I dreamt of being able to download programmes and play them on the computer without having to watch them with my family.
The years went by. I was promised that it was something I might have when I was older. Then next door got Sky and I felt a bit jealous. They had the full package which meant they could download movies and watch them on their laptop.
I really wanted something like this for Christmas but it never arrived. Apparently you could already do it with the commercial channels, but we had to wait for a proper BBC one. I read on the web that they already had things like this in America, but could never actually get to use them.
Of course you can download most of the best programmes from the web and do it yourself, but it’s a bit of a fiddle and my father says they can send you to prison for it.
Then Auntie Beeb gave me the BBC iPlayer just in time for the start of the summer holidays. I was sent a special password to download it from the web, which was easy enough. We had to put it on the old computer because apparently it wouldn’t work on the one I was given last Christmas.
I opened it up and played with it for a while I was told to be very careful, because it was not quite finished and it had few rough edges.
It was a bit like the others I had seen but seemed a little smaller, perhaps because it was already familiar. It was black and glossy like all those other new web sites, but it was also a bit, well, pink.
It was alright, but after all the anticipation it felt a bit disappointing. I pretended to feel excited. It seemed to have fewer programmes than I expected and you could only choose from nine at a time. Some of them looked a bit worthy, a bit grown up, and you couldn’t really tell what they were about just by looking at them. When you moved over them they showed how much longer they would be available, like 1 day left.
Somehow, it didn’t look as much fun as the other things I’d seen. Although it had television programmes, it did not seem much like television. I was disappointed to find there were no live channels, only pre-recorded programmes. And there was no radio.
I looked for a show I’d missed earlier in the evening, but was surprised to find there was nothing available. I thought it might be possible to look ahead and see programmes coming up but it wasn’t. I looked for something else to download but couldn’t decide what to watch. In the end I picked something just to see how it worked.
Somehow it seemed like a bit more work that other things like this, but perhaps that was just because they were familiar. No doubt I’d soon get to know my way around this one.
It worked well enough. Programmes downloaded quite quickly. I watched a bit of the first but deleted it because I got a bit bored and started to download another one. Then I realised I’d have to wait again and wished that I’d starting downloading this show earlier. I wanted to try and put it on my PSP but was told that you can’t because it’s copy protected. Someone said you’ll be able to do this with Sky.
It should be possible to get around the copying thing. Of course that would probably be illegal or something and they might lock you up for it. It doesn’t really seem to be a problem since they broadcast all this stuff anyway. If you know what you’re doing you can easily record files off air.
Apparently there’s a really easy way to remove the digital rights management, which makes a bit of nonsense of all the fuss that has been made about it in the first place. It means I’ll be able to watch the files I download whenever I want, wherever I want. Great.
Ariel Mole is a big fan of the BBC. He has been writing about them ever since he can remember.
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