91Èȱ¬ iPlayer on BT Vision: top line technical details
Post categories: iPlayer
| 12:00 UK time, Friday, 12 November 2010
Yesterday we announced that we will start to roll out 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer across the BT Vision platform next month. By April next year, should be able to access our catch-up video on demand (VOD) service at no extra cost.
In order to support 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer, BT Vision will update the software on their boxes, rolling it out gradually across their customer base. Once a box is upgraded, our app can be launched from BT Vision's main menu, giving access to more than 400 hours of new TV programmes and many more hours of 91Èȱ¬ radio each week.
During BT Vision's rollout from December, the selected 50 hours of 91Èȱ¬ programmes available within BT Vision's TV Replay will still be available. Once rollout is complete in April, the 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer application will replace 91Èȱ¬ programmes in the legacy TV replay service.
Opening 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer on TV to such a large connected audience represents a major advance in our effort to bring the full 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer experience to TVs. Already, nearly a third of all TV programmes enjoyed through 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer are watched using TV-connected devices including games consoles, set-top boxes, disc players and connected TVs. This is all the more enjoyable when the experience is accessed from the same remote as the TV, as is the case with BT Vision.
BT Vision's set-top boxes use the Microsoft Mediaroom IPTV platform to deliver TV on demand alongside TV broadcast over Freeview. Last year Microsoft added a technology to this called (MSPF) to let IPTV network operators add extra services delivered over the Web. We to build the 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer app on BT Vision using this technology. You'll see the experience is pretty slick!
TV programmes are delivered in the WMV format at a total data rate of 1300kbit/sec. BT Vision tell us that all customers should be able to watch this without interruption, whatever their broadband connection speed. Radio is delivered in the WMA format at 128kbit/sec.
Those are the top line technical details. We will let you know how the early users get on, and try to get a more detailed rollout schedule so BT Vision customers can get a better idea of when they'll get 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer on the TV.
Gideon Summerfield is Product Manager, TV iPlayer
Comment number 1.
At 12th Nov 2010, languagelab wrote:This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.
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Comment number 2.
At 12th Nov 2010, davegilest wrote:Good day,
It is not clear wheather only customers whom subscribe will have access to the iPlayer - at present, customers need to subscribe via the 'BT Replay' service
Please clarify
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Comment number 3.
At 12th Nov 2010, jelv wrote:Instead of expanding iPlayer to new platforms wouldn't it be better to first spend some time making it work correctly on the existing platforms?
There are two major bugs at present:
1) Downloaded programs expire prematurely. Problem is due to a feature of flash being used in a way that was never intended
2) You are filling up peoples hard disks with programs that do not delete properly. One day soon someone who is not technically capable of sorting this out is going to end up spending a lot of money unnecessarily - the adverse publicity is going to be very embarrassing.
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Comment number 4.
At 13th Nov 2010, Daniel Warren wrote:Might this pave the way for officially supported iPlayer on Windows Media Center?
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Comment number 5.
At 15th Nov 2010, GideonS wrote:In response to "davegilest" - 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer will work on all BT Vision boxes, a subscription will not be required
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Comment number 6.
At 19th Nov 2010, paulmorriss wrote:It would be nice if you could update the Wii version soon.
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