Introducing the new BBC iPlayer • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#11

Post by cabalamat » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:23 AM UTC

pathy wrote: post #5

evgen wrote: post #2

Still requires Flash. BBC continues its long tradition of epic fail.

What would you it rather use? HTML5? Silverlight? What is wrong with using an establish platform like Flash? iPlayer works, and works well. I happy to see BBC continuing to improve. I don't see anything close to resembling epic fail with iPlayer.

> What would you it rather use?

BitTorrent

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#12

Post by davidgerard » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:25 AM UTC

antimagic wrote: post #8

pathy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you it rather use? HTML5? Silverlight? What is wrong with using an establish platform like Flash? iPlayer works, and works well. I happy to see BBC continuing to improve. I don't see anything close to resembling epic fail with iPlayer.

Well, for one, Flash is a vector for viruses - why should I expose my computer to a much greater attack surface just to watch video. Secondly, Flash is often less effcient than the native implementation - on my Mac the fan ramps up frequently when running Flash apps, but rarely when running HTML5 / Javascript apps. Then there's the fact that Flash takes up space on my flash drive, which I would much rather keep for s…

Because they have to pretend DRM works.

(They know it's a lie, they have to pretend it isn't. There's basically an eternal free-floating culture war in the BBC between the sort of people who think DRM works and the sort of people who think it doesn't. The BBC is a ridiculously non-monolithic entity.)

Flash is less-worse than their original plan ... a fat client application written in C#, because of course that works everywhere.

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#13

Post by pathy » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:32 AM UTC

cabalamat wrote: post #11

pathy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you it rather use? HTML5? Silverlight? What is wrong with using an establish platform like Flash? iPlayer works, and works well. I happy to see BBC continuing to improve. I don't see anything close to resembling epic fail with iPlayer.

> What would you it rather use? BitTorrent

I was more looking for a realistic alternative choice for BBC.

BitTorrent isn't.

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#14

Post by peterclary » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:36 AM UTC

To announce a big new release and announce vaguely that subtitle support for iOS and Android downloads is still "coming soon" is a massive kick in the teeth. At this point they should at least be able to give us an ETA.

What is it that makes it harder to support subtitles in downloads rather than streaming? I suppose I can see that with streaming you can serve up subtitled or non-subtitled streams according to user preference, but iOS has native support for subtitles in video.

Is this some kind of crappy contractual/rights-holder thing, where "mobile devices" have to be negotiated separately?

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#15

Post by zeristor » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:39 AM UTC

Am I the only one wants to access the BBC from my Apple TV?

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#16

Post by melling » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:39 AM UTC

pathy wrote: post #10

antimagic wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, for one, Flash is a vector for viruses - why should I expose my computer to a much greater attack surface just to watch video. Secondly, Flash is often less effcient than the native implementation - on my Mac the fan ramps up frequently when running Flash apps, but rarely when running HTML5 / Javascript apps. Then there's the fact that Flash takes up space on my flash drive, which I would much rather keep for s…

Fair points. Flash is moderately inefficient and a vector for viruses. But it runs on practically all computers out there and works on older computers that doesn't have HTMl5 supported browsers. Hopefully this segment is shrinking but it still exists. We don't know how their development cycle looks or their backend. There is probably a reason they chose not to do HTMl5 at this moment. It will probably come in due tim…

Well, there are probably between 1.5-2 billion mobile devices that don't run Flash, and we'll probably see another billion over the next two years. I don't bother to install Flash on my desktop, I just use Chrome when I need it.

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#17

Post by Theodores » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:45 AM UTC

I wish they made more of the programme information with links. Imagine clicking on the presenter's name and getting a list of other programmes they had done. This would be a great way to find things to watch. The same could apply with production companies and so on. This would bring in some IMDB style functionality they could build on to sell downloads of programmes currently not available. They could even start to sell movies.

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#18

Post by superbignerd » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:46 AM UTC

evgen wrote: post #2

Still requires Flash. BBC continues its long tradition of epic fail.

I work on iPlayer. The new responsive design website will use the HTML5 + HLS player on iOS. Currently on Android and desktop we are using Flash + HDS/RTMP, but it's possible this will change in the future. The reason we are using Flash at the moment is partly to do with content protection (which involves negotiations with the content rights holder), and partly to do with the fact that there isn't a standard streaming mechanism across the different platforms we need to support. We would likely move to MPEG-DASH, for example, if it's more widely adopted across the platforms.

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#19

Post by EnderMB » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:48 AM UTC

antimagic wrote: post #8

pathy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you it rather use? HTML5? Silverlight? What is wrong with using an establish platform like Flash? iPlayer works, and works well. I happy to see BBC continuing to improve. I don't see anything close to resembling epic fail with iPlayer.

Well, for one, Flash is a vector for viruses - why should I expose my computer to a much greater attack surface just to watch video. Secondly, Flash is often less effcient than the native implementation - on my Mac the fan ramps up frequently when running Flash apps, but rarely when running HTML5 / Javascript apps. Then there's the fact that Flash takes up space on my flash drive, which I would much rather keep for s…

I've got no experience with this, but isn't HTML5 video quite hard to do well? I hear a number of problems with YouTube's HTML5 player, whereas the Flash player works extremely well. I imagine that DRM is an issue, but performance and stability is another.

Also, isn't the iPlayer video loaded differently to most online video providers? If I remember correctly, they don't load the full video in the same way that the likes of YouTube does. Is that easily done with HTML5?

Re: Introducing the new BBC iPlayer

#20

Post by petepete » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 11:49 AM UTC

bananas wrote: post #3

I'd like to see them put some more effort on content delivery for their TV partners. I have a Bravia EX and half the time the iPlayer streams don't work i.e. you get sound and no video. Then occasionally we get shot down for a couple of weeks at a time with content region warnings suggesting we're not in the UK. Having spoken to Sony and my ISP, they're both suggesting that the administrative side of iPlayer is a mes…

It's not just Sony. We have two LG TVs, one that's ~4 years old and one from last year. Funnily enough, the older one almost always works perfectly, the new one (a far more powerful/responsive TV, with a much newer version of the iPlayer software) barely works at all. We've complained to LG and were informed that 'a new version will be released shortly'.