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December 19th, 2008
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BBC iPlayer for Mac — Installation and First Look

hrmpf on December 19th, 2008

The BBC has finally made a version of their iPlayer that works on the mac… it works well and puts the Mac licence-fee payers on the same level as Windows users. The release is a bit haphazard- i found it almost impossible to find out where to download the program from and you need the labs feature enabled. All the links and details are below. This program only works in the UK.

iPlayer for the Mac

How to get it to work on your computer

To enable the labs features visit:
iPlayer Lab Features

The download link you need is:
iPlayer for Mac download page

Minimum Requirements for iPlayer for the Mac

  • Intel Core Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor
  • Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4 and 10.5.5
  • 512MB of RAM
  • Adobe Flash 9.0.115 or higher and Adobe Air 1.5.

Despite the the minimum requirements being for an Intel Mac (1.83GHz+) the installation went well on both an Intel iMac and a PowerPC iMac (see playback issues below).

The BBC’s iPlayer for Mac installation guide is quite good and covers everything you’ll need to know.

Never mind the Buzzcocks where is the rest of the content?

I initially thought the program hadn’t worked because no magic “Download” button appeared on any of the content I looked at… apparently the BBC hadn’t really got around to making much content for the iPlayer. A more thorough search reveals that some programs are available for download
for example:
Buzzcocks serious 22 episode 11. This is not the latest episode… the latest isn’t available for download- go figure. Hopefully it’s just a matter of time before it’s all there.
You can download some content for the iPlayer for Mac

Playback

Playback worked well on an Intel iMac and was a bit jumpy, but definitely watchable, on a 2GHz PowerPC iMac.

iPlayer for the Mac

Better late and badly launched than never

The BBC has shown a fairly constant disregard for Mac users and the release of the iPlayer for Mac, although welcome, is more of the same: it’s been too long in coming and the launch badly managed. They make it difficult to find out how to install the program and have very little content available. Why announce if you’re not ready?

That said this will aid my Christmas BBC viewing… thanks Santa



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Comment:
1
Written by:
Alex
Posted on:
December 20th, 2008 at 2:56 am

It is a beta.

I don’t think I need to say more…

Comment:
2
Written by:
Andrew
Posted on:
December 21st, 2008 at 11:26 am

Type your comment here.
“This program only works in the UK.”

More accurately: This program works worldwide. However, you can only receive BBC Radio programming and limited TV, including BBC News, outside the UK.

Comment:
3
Written by:
Bruce Sutherland
Posted on:
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:18 am

I found the download fairly easy and using it is straightforward. However, the picture quality on downloaded programmes gets very jumpy after a few minutes. I’m guessing this is eating up the RAM. Anyone know if there’s a way to improve the situation? Windows users with a similar problem seem to be able to use the Windows Media Player to help reduce RAM usage, but there’s no Mac equivalent from what I can see.



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