BBC, commercial bias and buck-passing

The BBC iPlayer download service for recent programmes started its public trials today. First, note that it is intended for home users only. Presumably this is because you download it with an integral peer-to-peer file sharing program supplied by Verisign. And companies are unlikely to swallow that.

By downloading and agreeing to the terms which, incidentally, do nothing to protect you and everything to protect the BBC, you agree to allow your computer to be used as a distribution point for any BBC files that you have downloaded. If your ISP imposes monthly upload limits then you may find yourself getting a surprise as the Beeb serves stuff from your machine rather than one of its own.

Then there's the Digital Rights Management angle. Sure, the Beeb wants to protect its own and others' rights in downloaded material. Perfectly understandable. But it means that it has chosen to restrict its service to users of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows XP. Commercial bias or what?

Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media and Technology, said "Developing a version for Apple Macs and Microsoft Vista is absolutely on our critical path." A sizeable minority would also like to know what its plans are for the Firefox browser. And, for that matter, Linux.

He also said, "Our vision is for BBC iPlayer to become a universal service available not just over the internet, but also on cable and other TV platforms, and eventually on mobiles and smart handheld devices."

So maybe jumping into bed with Microsoft is more of an affair than a marriage. But, no doubt, they'll need to stay good friends.

Registering and downloading is fairly straightforward although you have to have two sign-ins, one for the beta software and the other for downloading programmes. The download is 4.28MB and it expands to 6.28MB inside your machine.

Grabbing a film is easy enough and the download is smooth (I tried at around 7:30am - later in the morning is not, apparently, the best time for doing this.) A 30-minute programme, World Business Report, was 108MB. I didn't time it (went off to do other things) but it seemed to be about a meg every two seconds.

On screen, it shows in a smallish window (about 400 x 200 pixels) but it can be expanded to full screen for distance viewing. As ever with this kind of thing, the quality doesn't improve with size.

Bottom line? The peer-to-peer angle is downplayed, yet it would seem to be a show-stopper for many. The Windows Internet Explorer/XP only, with no time-scale for Mac or other platforms, is troubling. It seems that 'getting a stake in the ground' was more important than worrying about where the stake was being planted. However, the quality of the stake, in the form of the iPlayer software and content access, is very slick and seems to work well.