Tuesday 15 January 2008

Making the unmissable, unmissable

Last year I blogged about the BBC integrated Media Player, a IPTV application developed so UK residence could catch up on TV programmes they have missed. Well now renamed the BBC iPlayer, this application has been launched and I have been using it for some time now. It's been a bit of a boom for IPTV in the UK with Channel 4, ITV and Sky also launching their own versions of their catch up TV service. All apart from ITVs version use the Kontiki peer-to-peer software and the now famous kservice. ITV simply provide a streamed catch up service from their website instead of a standalone application. As I said I have been using the services for a long time and have continually used them through their beta periods. On the whole I had no problem. The quality is brilliant, downloads where fairly fast even with less popular programming and the range of programme choice is fantastic. A big however follows; after a software update, I think, of the BBC iPlayer the kservice started to use up to 100% of the processor like it was locked in a loop. This obviously reduced the performance of my computer and I had to shut it down. After many reinstalls and even tinkering with the registry I haven't come to a solution. As I said because the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky all use the same technology this means all applications are broken. So until I see a fix I am resulted to the streamed version of the iPlayer which was originally intended as a stop gap for Mac users as the Kontiki software isn't available for the Mac. So on the whole IPTV is shaping up good in the UK . The above described are the computer application versions but we are also seeing standalone set top boxes being launch like BT Vision and also BT Vision for the XBOX 360. There is an interesting time ahead and I look follow to future developments.