So I finished working on iPlayer over the summer, but some of the last things I was working on have now been released which I think are really exciting, the first iPlayer Wii version released in October, in which the interface has been redesigned to work 10ft away with a Wiimote. If you don’t have a Wii you can see what it looks like here www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bigscreen
Then today the big news is that the new Adobe Air-based version of the download manager has been released, it’s not based on Windows Media or using Peer-2-Peer which means no uploading costs from your ISP + IT WORKS ON MAC AND LINUX!! This is really great as it was certainly one of the big criticisms in it’s initial launch … I think it’s still got a few teething problems but it will be really exciting to see how this develops.
Another big release (which I had no involvement in) but looks really great is the children’s version of iPlayer – particularly good if you don’t want your kids watching some of the more edgy BBC Three programmes!
So for the next few weeks I’m working at the Audio & Music Interactive department at the BBC in Regents Street, and on wednesday and thursday I was fortunate to get involved in a two electronics workshop which they run every now and again as part of radiolabs - I guess to try and come up with slightly more off the wall ideas.
It was a wicked two days, lots of people doing clever stuff with Processing, Arduino boards and various sensors - the brief was to create a device which measured how much a rock band ‘rocked’! Which ended up involving accelerometers in hats (to measure headbanging!), motion sensors under the floor etc.
Unfortunately my coding/electronics skills have become a bit non-existent since finishing uni so I tried to help out by putting stuff together on the display side of things, however it’s definitely something I’d like to try and pick up again in the new year! Anyway check out the photos on flickr or a video that I’ve put together of the day!
There was an interesting demo today in the foyet of the BBC Media Centre, basically it was a showcase of the new SUPER-high-definition TV (yep high def just wasn’t high enough!). Anyway it’s a joint venture between japanese company NHK and the BBC and it was pretty darn impressive! Though it’s quite difficult to describe without seeing it in person I’ve found the below image off Wikipedia, the yellow and the light turquoise rectangles are the current 720p and 1080p resolutions - the large blue one is SHD.
Anyway apparently it’s being aimed at homes rather than cinemas and is due in about 20 years. However apart from needing a mammoth screen and 22 speakers it’s also gonna need a pretty hefty hard drive in your living room as 20 minutes of footage takes up about 3,600 gigabytes!
last week a new version of the mobile version of iplayer for the iphone and nokia n95 was released. the big update this time is that on-demand radio is now included … anyway it’s looking and working really smoothly now and is a massive improvement on the initial version launched a few months ago. more info on the bbc internet blog
.Net magazine has nominated the new iPlayer site under the ‘Best Redesign of the Year’ category, if you have a spare 30 seconds (there’s no form to fill in) please click here to vote!
So for the last 6 months I’ve been working on the new iPlayer site which went live yesterday evening! It’s currently in beta and will run alongside the current site until all the bugs are ironed out. I’m really pleased with the final result though, the development team have done a fantastic job building this in quite a short period of time to a really high standard. Check it out!: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta
Here’s a sneak peak of the new iPlayer website that will be launching soon - the big difference from the last site is that radio is featured alongside tv making it a one-stop shop to access all of BBC’s on-demand content. There’s a big change in the audio playback which will now mostly be high quality stereo in flash (with the aim of gradually getting rid of all the crappola windows and real playback) and the TV playback size has increased to 640px wide.
Other features have been added such as the ‘Last Played’ function which remembers what you’ve watched or listened to and allows you to resume playing from where you’ve left off. Also a full schedule and list view to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.
I’ll write more on this at the launch, in the meantime you can find out more on the BBC Internet Blog or view the promotional video on the Media Guardian website.
I have to say I’m not actually that big a fan of Coldplay - however they were doing a televised gig outside Television Centre last night, so decided to see how close I could get using my staff pass!
In the end I managed to get a pretty good view as it was such a small venue, the gig was pretty good too + I got quite excited by the fact that JayZ was standing about 10m away in the celebrity enclosure! Anyway if you missed it last night on BBC Two it’s available to watch now on iPlayer.
Big iPlayer news today - the service has had it’s first launch onto a TV platform, starting off with the Virgin Media set top boxes with other services to follow. More info on the BBC internet blog
Found this on Tonteau’s Threadless Blog which I thought was pretty funny, a classic British tabloid headline?
In other news related … news, check out the redesigned bbc news site, which is finally starting to drop those Real/WMV pop-up players and replacing them with the new embedded flash video player I was working on before Christmas.
It’s been quite a busy few weeks getting some designs signed off for the next release of iPlayer. In the meantime there’s been some pretty cool developments - firstly it’s now become one of the few video sites (the only other one I know of is youTube) which will work on the iPhone and iPod touch, this is because it can stream in H.264 as well as flash - more info on the BBC internet blog and in the Guardian.
The other thing which has been quite interesting has been a couple of iPlayer clone websites which essentially use the same content and flash player but reorganised into a different site. My favourite version of this is iPlayerList which has the strapline “Making the unmissable, browsable” a little dig at the fact that on the current site, which is very picture heavy, it can be difficult to browse through content quickly and easily (this is something which we’re remedying for the next release).
Anyway it’s actually a really great site, with RSS feeds of programmes, related blog posts, it also pulls in related video from other video sharing sites. I think the main point seems to be though, that if you can easily find and play content it really doesn’t matter what the site looks like?!
Really like the new music video for the Justice track ‘DVNO‘ which takes a poke at the old retro tv idents. One of them inparticular reminded me very much of the old BBC video ident - so cooool!
Am currently watching Mark Kermode’s Film Reviews live on Radio 5 … the quality of the stream is pretty good and it’s actually quite interesting viewing - another example of the blurring between TV and radio?
An interesting development to come out of BBC Research and Development recently - ‘surround video‘
“Surround Video is a means of visually immersing the viewer into a TV programme.
It is like surround sound, an optional extra that enhances viewing on a normal display. The idea is to use a wide angle (or fisheye) camera fixed rigidly alongside the normal camera shooting the programme, and to project the image onto the walls, ceiling and floor of the viewer’s room.
The image is scaled and positioned to ensure that it aligns up with the existing TV, and warped to compensate for the distortion effects that come from the wide-angle lens and projection system. Although the projected image will be dimmer and of lower resolution than the main image, it nevertheless gives a strong feeling of immersion, particularly with motion cues being visible in the viewer’s peripheral vision”
So it seems BBC Three have gone for a bit of a rebrand, along with a new multiplatform vision which will include becoming the first channel to be broadcast live across the internet as well as on tv (though if you missed your weekly hit of “Can Fat Teens Hunt” on either platforms then don’t worry as you can always catch up with it on iPlayer too!)
I quite like the new logo, though it does seem mighty similar to the Heart FM one?
The BBC are currently running a ‘Festival of Technology’ today and all of tomorrow. It’s completely free, and will showcase latest developments within web, interactive television, digital tv, audio production etc. It’s in Television Centre on Wood Lane and is open to everyone (though if you’re not BBC staff you have to register here). I’m gonna try and pop down tomorrow morning …
Interesting article this morning from Ashley Highfield (head of BBC Future Media & Technology) talking about possibilities of the BBC getting more involved with Apple now that they’ve released a time-based system of DRM in their new movie rentals feature within iTunes:
… Apple’s (long anticipated) move to a rental model means that we can look to getting BBC iPlayer onto this platform too, as we should be able to use the rental functionality to allow our programmes to be downloaded, free, but retained for a time window, and then erased, as our rightsholders currently insist.
Personally I think this would be really good, I think it’s a big problem that alot of video sharing sites also seem to have their own media library - what would be really great is let people download content which can be used in the player of their choice?
Really enjoyed the Liverpool Nativity performance shown on BBC THREE a few days back, really well told, some great music, and thought the ‘asylum seeker’ twist on it was really interesting. If you missed it, it’s available to watch for a couple more days on iPlayer
