BBC iPlayer

[ToasterMan]

The BBC recently acquired the streaming rights to Pokémon, starting with Diamond and Pearl and The Rise of Darkrai film, Black and White will be available from Autumn.

Strange to see it on iPlayer after airing on CITV for nearly two decades.

[TIGHazard]

I hate to ask this, but if anyone verified here can tell this to people who work at iplayer, instead of having to go through their support ticket, then I would really appreciate it.

There is a problem with Olympic Breakfast Day 9. It seems to be missing 1 hour of coverage from the start (according to the thread on here it started at 5AM, not 6). The clock in the top right at the start says 06:00.

Support tells me there is 'no BBC Olympic coverage missing' and that 'Eurosport have many rights to individual events'.

Adding up the runtimes of the previous two parts (54 mins and 3 hours 22 mins) brings a total runtime of 4 hours 36 mins. So if you add that to the start of Breakfast at 6AM, it means for 'no BBC Olympic coverage missing', the coverage started at 01:25 in the morning. The BBC's own schedule page states coverage started at 00:10.

So there is either coverage missing from breakfast, the coverage itself started 1 hour 10 mins late, or something else never got put on iplayer/schedule page in the first place.

I'm certain it's the former based on the thread on here.

[Brekkie]

Olympic Breakfast did begin officially at 6am (or just before) - although the shift started earlier that was counted in the overnight coverage, with it scheduled to be 4-6am but having a flexible start point every day.

There are two Day 9 sections:

Day 9: 12.10-4am (running length suggests about that)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...e-04000600

Day 9: 4-6am (actually just 55 minutes - the 5-6am hour)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...e-04000600

And then Olympic Breakfast:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...-225-day-9


So it is the 4am hour that looks to be missing. Looking at the schedules that was the BMX Freestyle finals, and it looks like it is in this video where they've paired up the heats and final footage, with JJ's studio segment about 55 minutes in.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0...-225-day-9

[TIGHazard]

Olympic Breakfast did begin officially at 6am (or just before) - although the shift started earlier that was counted in the overnight coverage, with it scheduled to be 4-6am but having a flexible start point every day.

There are two Day 9 sections:

Day 9: 12.10-4am (running length suggests about that)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...e-04000600

Day 9: 4-6am (actually just 55 minutes - the 5-6am hour)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...e-04000600

And then Olympic Breakfast:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...-225-day-9


So it is the 4am hour that looks to be missing. Looking at the schedules that was the BMX Freestyle finals, and it looks like it is in this video where they've paired up the heats and final footage, with JJ's studio segment about 55 minutes in.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0...-225-day-9

Well I just received another response from someone else stating that

"this was an editorial decision to cut the content down, as the rest was mainly from the studio, showing highlights from the mixed 4x100 medley relay: swimming, Women’s rugby 7’s as well as the Women’s 100m hurdles heats."

Which is the previous day's live coverage between 04:00 and 06:00

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0...e-04000600

So at this point, who knows.

[Brekkie]

And that is exactly why I still favour using a PVR than relying on On Demand.

[Hayden]

This is an interesting R&D article from a couple of weeks ago. Suggests iPlayer might now be serving 1080p50 via web browsers. Does anyone know if any other devices have changed?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2021-06-st...-bandwidth

Still unable to get anything more than 720p50 through any (Firefox/Chrome/Edge) browser. Checking that article, it seems it's been quietly updated to "the parameter change was rolled out" - so, the change to make 720p more stable with a larger buffer, but not rolling out 1080p50 for browsers yet. Disappointing, but presumably the rollout is closer now.

[Emily Moore]

This is an interesting R&D article from a couple of weeks ago. Suggests iPlayer might now be serving 1080p50 via web browsers. Does anyone know if any other devices have changed?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2021-06-st...-bandwidth

Still unable to get anything more than 720p50 through any (Firefox/Chrome/Edge) browser. Checking that article, it seems it's been quietly updated to "the parameter change was rolled out" - so, the change to make 720p more stable with a larger buffer, but not rolling out 1080p50 for browsers yet. Disappointing, but presumably the rollout is closer now.

According to this page from an ISP, the minimum broadband speed requirement for 1080p (they specify on YouTube, but it's all going to be fairly similar) is 4Mbps: https://www.zen.co.uk/blog/posts/zen-blo...eo-in-2019

Are there really that many people left with those speeds? I live in a fairly poorly-served area (edge of the exchange area, half a mile from the cabinet, no Virgin or FTTP etc) and even I get 40Mbps. I can't say I understand most of that very technical BBC blog, but is there no way of providing 1080p to the majority whose internet connections can deal with it, and dropping back to lower resolution for the small number of people with

[VMPhil]

I'm no expert on these things, but I think it's more about how much increased bandwidth the iPlayer servers can handle, after switching to 1080p streams. At the start of the pandemic some services dropped their video quality to cope with the temporary increase in people watching.

[Transmission]

Beta version of connected TV iPlayer has updated on my Samsung, presumably in preparation for the upcoming branding changes.

Most noticeable change is that the top menu has changed to the left hand side, much like Disney+ and Netflix, but also the familiar angular iPlayer background has been replaced by a soft pink/purple gradient.

[AlfieMulcahy]

Beta version of connected TV iPlayer has updated on my Samsung, presumably in preparation for the upcoming branding changes.

Most noticeable change is that the top menu has changed to the left hand side, much like Disney+ and Netflix, but also the familiar angular iPlayer background has been replaced by a soft pink/purple gradient.

Would you be able to share a screengrab?

[Hayden]

Beta version of connected TV iPlayer has updated on my Samsung, presumably in preparation for the upcoming branding changes.

Most noticeable change is that the top menu has changed to the left hand side, much like Disney+ and Netflix, but also the familiar angular iPlayer background has been replaced by a soft pink/purple gradient.

Would you be able to share a screengrab?

Here's a screenshot of the homepage. It's interesting that the logo is hidden in the sidebar, which means when collapsed, there's no BBC branding at all (also, it's not the new logo... yet, but presumably this beta might be one of the first places it could show up, as it did with the News app beta)



There's some more screenshots behind this spoiler.

[adamiow]

Beta version also updated on NOW TV - a pink explosion!

[AlfieMulcahy]

Just switched to the latest beta update on my Chromecast (with GTV) and BBC2's live page is still using the 'bladed two' logo rather than the curve.

[London Lite]

Mike a516 is reporting that iPlayer is preparing to add HD streams of BBC Alba and BBC Parliament.

https://twitter.com/a516digital/status/1...7889245186

[James2001]

Are they going to be broadcast too (on satellite and cable at least, presumably there isn't the capacity on freeview), or are they going to be iPlayer only?