The BBC has begun to roll out the latest version of iPlayer, its on-demand and live TV, for select S60 5th Edition Nokia phones. The new version, 3.0, moves away from its stand-alone widget origins to become a simple widget shortcut, which opens the browser and loads the BBC iPlayer mobile website. However the core functionality on offer: live streaming, catch-up streaming and download for TV and radio remain the same.
Read on in the full article.
Rafe wrote:The BBC has begun to roll out the latest version of iPlayer, its on-demand and live TV system, for selected S60 3rd and 5th Edition Nokia phones...So has there been any progress on supporting more handsets such as the X6 or N82? I really don't understand why the BBC can't support the majority of S60v3 & S60v5 handsets instead of a small random selection, especially when you consider that the N95/N95 8Gb is covered but N82 not or 5800 can 'iPlay' but the X6 can't. Very frustrating! 😡 :icon13:
Rafe wrote:... However, the BBC does deserves credit for continuing to maintain an excellent on-demand mobile service...Not from me they don't, I've not been officially able to use the BBC's service since its first release to mobile platforms. I'd rather give credit to services such as TVCatchUp & Yamgo.
Rafe wrote:... With the move to a mobile web version, it would be good to see them extend the range of supported devices (e.g. to the popular E72) - something which should be trivial given the platform similarities...Heh, I agree, it would be good.
What really bugs me is the random nature of the iPlayer's support. With really miniscule effort the BBC could bring the iPlayer experience to many more handsets that would be comaptible.
S.
Unfortunately neither i8910 nor the X6 are recognised as compatible devices, so the .wgz cannot be downloaded.
However i also have an N97 Mini, which IS a compatible device and can download the .wgz (and then bluetooth it over to its cousins...)
The new version works fine on the N97 mini, OK on the i8910 (no download option), and not at all on the X6.
As an N82 user I am bemused at the lack of support, when all the apparent functionality that would be required is in the platform.
5230 "not supported" either, guessing they haven't included phones with no WiFi?
N79 also "not supported". i8910 sits at "Loading 0%" 😞
N8 support and availability in mainland Europe and I'd soon be the happiest iPlayer user!
Marc
Have they fixed the 5 minute cache problem? When ever I use it to watch a programme, it caches 5 minutes then at 05:00, the picture and audio freeze for 10 seconds and then restart at 05:10. This happens constantly after this e.g. stops at 10:10 then restarts are 10:20.
Will update and have a look -.-
Yeeessssss! At least one Goal scored for me!
Fixes whatever had broken on my N97 RM505 V2.1 after I downloaded Steve's Phones Show as a podcast to listen to which somehow had broken the RealPlayer activation from the iPlayer widget (tried uninstalling and re-installing / upgrading from OVI BBC etc every permutation nearly 20 X)
So V happy as had been putting off doing it having guessed that a hard reset would probably fix whichever link/register was corrupted but haven't been able to face the day's investment of time it always seems to take ( or been willing on a phone I've already wasted so much time on already) with the expectation that another firmware (v3.0) was/should be due imminently requiring another rebuild - a state I've been in for 3 months :tongue:
So the fact that this new ver fixes things and gives me back iPlayer after missing it all that time is great - Oh and seems to work OK although as ever catalogue seems a bit behind or reduced to main web service.
Good idea for the Beeb as they've been complaining about platform fragmentation and having to cope with all the different OS's should reduce the load on them in these budget conscious times. A b ig step along the road to HTML5 and lowering app dependency?
I loaded this a few days ago and am finding it way slower than the previous standalone widget. The interface is a big improvement though.
I've been really surprised that the iplayer has become such a poor performer.
(1) It does not support multi-tasking. Although Rafe sort of brushed this off its a big deal ! Its a great big step backwards to have to loose access to your phone (unless it rings) simply because you've chosen to listen to the Radio using the iplayer.
(2) It also seems to be a seriously battery hungry application. My battery is dead after just a few hours listening to iplayer. 'In the old days' .... using the RealMedia streams, you could listen for days before a recharge ...and it was possible to relegate the app to the background without loosing audio too.
So thats 2 big negatives - its not progress.. How come the BBC let the iplayer go off target? Has bundling the TV and radio channels stuff together actually been allowed to crowd out the applications Radio-friendliness?
Workarounds:
Its sort of possible to get radio from the BBC using
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/listen.mp
which appears to feed a MP4A-LATM stream which plays out through my old E71's Real player. This is good and can operate in the background (woot).
But the N97 seems to want to play this same link using another player... which is not multi-task friendly.
So any help to get the N97 to play BBC streamed Radio in the background is appreciated..
I updated it yesterday, assuming it would be an improvement. Now, when I launch it, it asks me if I want to allow it network access and then asks which Wi-Fi AP to use, then it launches the browser and I get the same questions and all it's doing is taking me to a web page I can reach without it!
Seems pointless to me, in fact, annoying as I've got my phone set to ask what AP to use as I don't want it just going off on to 3G!
Interestingly I still had the iplayer.wgz file from the 2.51 version (I think) on my phone so I've reinstalled that one!