I have been playing with the BBC iPlayer and I thought I would post my experiences with it and Media Center. First I think the BBC iPlayer is a great idea, being able to catch up with shows is a nice but who wants to watch TV on a PC monitor? So this is where I was hoping for some Media Center integration. The downloaded videos are WMV so I thought they would play in Media Center (which they do) so to get them to show in in Media Center I added the download folder "My Deliveries" to the videos section. Once the downloads had started I noticed it created another folder called "iplayer_live", so you can either add that as a watched folder or navigate to it each time. The next problem is that all the BBC channel logo videos get downloaded in to that folder so you get 16 videos added to the folder you don’t need, then the next issue is the file naming the BBC use, so for e.g. A downloaded Pingu show is named "8000442_67744276_Selection_DOWNLOAD.wmv" which is not very helpful when trying to find the show. Once you start the playback it works fine but as it’s a video and not a recorded TV file there is no Resume function. The quality is reasonable, the files are encoded at 672 x 544. The bit rate seems to depend on the show, which seems to range from 800kbps to 2200kbps and they look good on my TV. I was able to stream the files to other PCs in the house and it works fine on my Xbox 360 Extender. I noticed the Zune software will not play it or convert it to my Zune, that must be a DRM issue and something I will have a look in to.
So I think the service will work for me as I can watch it via an Extender but I would like the BBC to create a proper Media Center UI for the service (I am not holding my breath). I could live with the web UI if there was a Media Center UI for playback that worked like Recorded TV, maybe a clever developer will come up with one.
Anybody else using it with Media Center?
Better late than never, a special show for you this ... 
Garry and Andrew are back and we talk over the ... 
This week Garry and Andrew were busy so Jason Coombes ... 
Jase once again manages to bait me into a discussion ... 
Yea, those file names are a pain. The DRM on the files is a pain too, because if I download the files on one PC in my house, I can’t watch them on another. They are licensed to play only on the machine that downloads them.
What I actually do is I tend to use my desktop to download the files from the BBC (and C4), and then use FairUse4WMV to remove the DRM from them. Then I rename them to make them more obvious what they are (by looking at the file sizes, which you can match against in the iPlayer window), and copy them to my home server. From there I watch them on my media center whenever I like. Illegal? Probably. Against the spirit of the thing – I don’t think so. It’s just that even simple users like me are doing things that DRM gets in the way of.
I had no problems playing it on my kitchen PC using a file share from my Media Center PC, I expected a DRM problem but it played fine
I guess I should try it again. The only difference I can see is that you are directly sharing from the PC which downloaded them.
I thought I was a geek, but a kitchen PC is really the winner!
The PC is a broken laptop with a monitor on it
I find I can play my downloaded programs OK using Windows Media Center on my laptop monitor, but when I try to play them on my Linksys DMA2100 extender, I get a message saying “Cannot play video. The file type is not recognized and cannot be played. either the correct codec (a file that compresses/decompresses audio or video) is not installed or the file is corrupt.”
I found, after sorting out some permission problems caused by a half-complete installation, that I could play the iPlayer media over a network share on a machine that already had the BBC iPlayer installed. I presume that this meant that it had been upgraded to the required level of codecs to support the DRM currently employed.
My initial hurdle had been getting file permissions correct which I described here:
http://vextasy.wordpress.com/2008/03/29/bbc-iplayer-installation-woes-and-success/
I have no problem in playing downloaded files over a network share if I manually change the permssions on the files on Vista. However I find that new files always revert to the original permissions, i.e. username (read) + Administrator (full) and so do not play. The “Inherit permissions” flag is never set on the new downloads.
Anyone know how to change the default permissions that are assigned to new files?
You could have a look at the log files (error.log and error2.log) in C:\ProgramData\Kontiki (at least on Vista that’s where they are) and see if that throws up any additional information.
I think it’s fair to say that I was very heavy handed giving user ‘Everyone’ Full Control over ‘This folder, subfolders and files’ in the folder C:\Users\Public\Videos\My Deliveries\iplayer_live.
Neil2002, your problem is that neither username or Administrator permissions are applicable when attempting to read the files over the network. You need to determine what username is applicable (say by creating a file and looking at the owner), possibly try setting inheritable permissions for user/group Everyone in the containing folder and note that the permissions need to apply to ‘This folder, subfolders and files’.
Une fois qu’on atteint ce nombre 144000 (Apocalypse14: 1) le saint secret de dieu arrivera à terme, cet ancien système du monde dirigé par Satan et ses hommes disparaîtra, le royaume au ciel de Jéhovah dirigera aussi notre terre, le paradis s’installera sur la terre, les justes posséderont la terre et sur elle ils résideront pour toujours (Psaumes37: 29, Matthieu5: 5, Proverbes2: 21, Isaîe11: 9, Ecclésiaste1: 4, Isaîe45: 18 )… Le royaume céleste de Jéhovah dirigé par Jésus Christ est le seul espoir pour la terre entière, face à ce système diabolique planétaire défaillant en toute sorte. Très bientôt, il dirigera notre terre. Il y aura 144000 rois (reines) choisis par dieu parmi les êtres humains règnent avec Jésus C. au ciel après ses morts, ils(elles) dirigeront la terre, Jésus Christ est le roi de ces rois… Comme la fin de ce monde dirigé par Satan€$£ et ses militaires6 ainsi que ses peuples5 tombe bien à notre ère, donc, il faut oser à dire par tout le moyen à tous les humains que: ce qui ne font pas la volonté de dieu Jah et ce qui ne croit pas au sacrifice de Jésus C. pour nous délivrer mourront à HarMaguédon (Apocalypse16: 16)… Pourquoi l’indépendance à Jah n’est pas bonne? Parce que lors de la rébellion d’Adam, Eve et Satan contre Jéhovah notre dieu créateur,ils ont choisi de ne pas dépendre de dieu, alors que: dieu Jah les laisse se diriger entre eux sans intervenir pour prouver s’il est vraiment bon ou mauvais de ne pas dépendre de lui “ou” de ne pas suivre sa parole (ses conseils). Les conséquences de cette désobéissance (indépendance) est donc: la mort, la maladie, la haine, la tuerie6, l’égoïsme de certains dirigeants, l’hypocrisie de la religion… Les conséquences de cette épreuve d’indépendance (qui a eu lieu sur notre terre) est très importante à démontrer à l égard des anges du ciel et des êtres humains aussi voila pourquoi dieu Jah n a pas tué Satan, Adam et Eve sur le champs. Cette fois, la façon dont Jéhovah dirige ses créatures était remise en cause une fois pour toute, dieu Jah est notre créateur donc c’est lui seul connaît ce qui nous fera du bien ou du mal surtout pas Satan, il occupe aussi la bonne place pour nous conseiller (diriger) Voici mes adresses mail pour contact anonyme: carnage6.net@hotmail.fr, jesuschrist-est-notre-sauveur@example.com, sixchaque6.monde@hotmail.com, cyclique-infini6.monde@hotmail.com
je conseille à tout le monde de visiter ces 2 site pour connaître qui est le maître de ce monde d actuel? Top secret…
1-http://art-engage.net/Comme-avant.html
2-http://www.syti.net/SilentWeapons.html
You can delete the idents without it affecting iPlayer; if it can’t find the right ident for the programme it’ll just play a generic BBC one instead.
FairUse4WMV is a total free DRM Converter for WMV.
http://www.free-drm-removal.com/fairuse4wm-drm-converter-for-wmv.html
http://www.free-drm-removal.com
http://www.dvd-creators.net