BBC Iplayer on Scroll

[Charlie]

hi there,

tried mplayer from the link and seems to work ok - not great picture quality

I also tried connecting a HDMI cable from scroll to TV and iplayer plays on TV

alan

is it a better picture when on the tv?

[Charlie]

I give up - can not get this dam myplayer to work - I can't see any options to download content to watch I can only stream, and that is not watchable as it is blocky -

Just lock me in the cellar and feed me pins -

[Pete_S]

:? I give up - can not get this dam myplayer to work - I can't see any options to download content to watch I can only stream, and that is not watchable as it is blocky -

Just lock me in the cellar and feed me pins -

There isn't a download option any more. MyPlayer used to be able to download and save the h264/aac streams intended specifically for iPhones and Touches, but the Beeb recently went over to an authentication scheme which makes it impossible for a non-Apple device to access these streams.

The streams MyPlayer uses for normal streaming are intended for phones, are low res and low bitrate, and don't look good on a bigger screen. I also think the android media player doesn't like them much, as it glitches sometimes.

If you want HQ BBC iplayer stuff, the only route is to install get_iplayer on your PC. It too used to use the iPhone streams, but the BBC stopped that (as above) and threatened the developer, who gave up the project. But, someone else took it on. You can now specify which flash stream you want, right up to 720p HD, download it and get_iplayer automatically converts it to mp4 which plays perfectly on the scroll.

It's a command line program, but very simple to master. People might already know about it, but if not, I've been using it for 2 years and can explain it quickly if there's any interest

http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer/html/get_iplayer.html

http://www.infradead.org/get_iplayer_win/get_iplayer_setup_latest.exe specific link for downloading the windows installer. Just let it install all the options, you won't regret it.

[Charlie]

@ Pete_S

Thanks for the great info - You are 'the man'

I am very interested - I am going to check out the link - cheers again

[barrelockingnut]

Well done for the link post...been jumpin to Springsteen on the 'ol' IPlayer, blocky but viewable !
cheers

[Pete_S]

get_iplayer - a quickstart guide:

Install all the options. During install, choose a good download location, the default isn't very helpful.

When you run it you'll get a terminal window. The command get_iplayer scans bbc iplayer and lists everything found. The list is very hard to read, but there's a much easier way. The list is a text file called tv.cache, and it's in "Documents and Settings\Admin\.get_iplayer\" ("Admin" might be something different on your machine). On Windows 7 you might have to fiddle with the permissions to gain access to this area of the filesystem.

Doubleclick tv.cache and associate it permanently with Notepad. Create a shortcut to tv.cache and put it on your desktop or wherever. Open it and turn off word wrap in Notepad. You will then have a neat alphabetical list of all iplayer downloads. The index number at the start (xxx) is what you'll use to reference the programmes.

Go back to the get_iplayer terminal window armed with the numbers of the programmes you want and enter:

get_iplayer --get xxx yyy zzz and it will download programmes xxx yyy and zzz. The default streams are ipod quality ones, but you might want higher quality. You can specify which stream you want using the mode command.

get_iplayer --get xxx mode=flashhigh retrieves programme xxx at the highest standard resolution, it's about 800x480 and looks brilliant on the Scroll. Obviously, it's a larger file than the iPod quality.

If you want higher quality, where available, substitute "flashhd" for "flashhigh". These files are huge, you need robust broadband and lots of storage! There are other quality options, but those are the ones I found most useful.

get_iplayer maintains a list of programmes you've downloaded and prevents you downloading them again by accident. However, if you want to download again for any reason, add the "--force" command which overrides the list.

There are other commands, a list is here: https://github.com/jjl/get_iplayer/wiki/Documentation

Try it, this an amazingly powerful program - once you get used to it you won't use iplayer any other way.

[Charlie]

@Pete_S

I am trying this and get the following windows message "rtmpdump.exe has stopped working"

after using this command get_iplayer --get 163 --mode=flashhigh or even if i try get_iplayer --get 163

What i have i done wrong?

EDIT - UPDATE - got this working now - tried it on the desktop and it worked 1st time - must have been an issue with the windows set-up on the laptop - lol

[idlemarvel]

@Charlie you've change your avatar, I'm most disappointed.

[idlemarvel]

I've installed get_iplayer and it works fine as far as downloading mp4 from the bbc, and I can play the files on Windows, but when I copy the mp4 onto my scroll I only get sound no video. I used mode=flashhigh. I have tied the built in video player, mVideo and the one that comes with ES Manager, same on all of them. The file is on /sdcard. Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
Thanks,

[JimmyW]

I suspect it's the encoding codec used not having the equivalent decoding codec on the scroll.
Have you tried re-encoding the file to something else? (.ogv for example)