BBC iPlayer to launch on iPhone and iPod touch within weeks

[crazzyyfool]

From Digital Spy.

The BBC will launch a version of its iPlayer for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch in coming weeks, it revealed today.

Anthony Rose, head of digital media technology, described the development as a major change for portable television.

Rose and Ashley Highfield, director of future media and technology, made the announcement as they released the latest usage figures for iPlayer, which officially launched at Christmas, and bbc.co.uk.

There were more than 11m streams and downloads from more than 2.2m different users during January. It pushed the average UK visitors to bbc.co.uk every week to 20m, which was up 29% on last year and, Highfield said, could make it one of the top two websites in the country.

"We've seen a good and sustained growth in the number of programmes being watched which last week reached over 500,000 in one day," he added.

bbc.co.uk has traditionally trailed Google and MSN in website visits. "This we believe will maybe take us up to the next slot," said Highfield.

Other iPlayer developments will include:

• New branded highlights channels on Yahoo, Blinx and MSN, linking back to the iPlayer.
  
• Redesigned service front page from today to feature most popular and recent show lists.
  
• On Virgin Media next month.
  
• High definition programmes "in the plan for this year".
  
• Looking at "bookmarking" system where shows could be set to download automatically immediately after they air.
  
• The BBC Trust is considering if and how to link the public service iPlayer with Project Kangaroo, the under-development commercial video on demand service.
  

The iPlayer will be available on the iPhone and Touch in "the next few weeks". Rose said of the development: "It will be the first of a transformation in people streaming long-form content onto a portable device."

It will only work through wifi and is possible because of the devices' good web support. Rose said the BBC would decide whether to extend to other mobiles depending on their platforms and reach.

Highfield said there was potential to extend the iPlayer to pay-TV platforms other than Virgin. However, the BBC will insist all iPlayer shows are taken, not just a selection, and that they are within a BBC-branded environment.

He also said that, despite the huge demand for video caused by the iPlayer, it had caused no problems for bandwidth and infrastructure: "This is something that's really important to us. We had numerous conversations with the ISPs about how to make sure the audience got a good experience.

"They have gone on record saying there is plenty of capacity and our impact is negligible."

From The Guardian.

BBC shows have been streamed or downloaded more than 17m times via its iPlayer broadband TV service since Christmas Day, according to figures from the corporation.The iPlayer, which was improved and relaunched shortly before a major marketing campaign began on Christmas Day, also helped boost traffic to the BBC.co.uk website by 29% year on year in January.

Newly released BBC figures show the most popular shows available via the iPlayer, such as Torchwood, Ashes to Ashes and Doctor Who, are each attracting around 50,000 views a day.

Between Christmas Day and Tuesday last week, BBC TV shows have been streamed or downloaded more than 17m times via the iPlayer, the seven-day broadband TV catch-up service.

The iPlayer is now averaging around 1.3 million unique users a week, with as many as 500,000 streams or downloads per day.

It is also boosting traffic figures for BBC.co.uk, according to the corporation, with the website attracting around 20 million UK unique users per week in January, a 29% year-on-year rise.

As well as revealing new iPlayer traffic figures, the BBC also today announced that the iPlayer service is to be made available on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to access iPlayer content within the next few weeks. This will be the first time the broadband TV service has been available beyond PC and Mac computers.

The Apple deal is one of a number of initiatives designed to boost the popularity of the iPlayer service, including the introduction of new features such as programme recommendations, which emulate the strengths of the online shopping service Amazon.

"We have seen good and consistent growth in the daily consumption of programming and it doesn't look to be in any way plateauing," said Ashley Highfield, the director of future media and technology at the BBC.

"The real question is whether it is substitutional [viewing] or additive. We don't know but there is a reasonable amount of anecdotal evidence that it is additive. [it is] probably helping to maintain falling TV share."

Highfield added that the iPlayer had provided a "halo effect" for BBC audio content, with an uplift of around 20% in the number of downloads, from 13.4m in December to 15.9m in January.

He said the boost means the iPlayer is likely to overtake MSN to become the second most popular website in the UK behind Google.

Anthony Rose, the head of digital media technologies at the BBC, added that the iPlayer had been of particular benefit to programming from niche digital channels such as BBC3 and BBC4.

A programme of enhancements to the iPlayer site will see the introduction of a "personalisation system" that will recommend programmes based on user habits - similar to the way Amazon operates.

Other enhancements will include lists of the most popular shows viewed over the last seven days, the most recently viewed shows ? which will allow the BBC to promote programming from different times of day - and a 'last chance to view' section.

The BBC has also signed deals with Yahoo, MSN and video search engine Blinkx to launch branded entertainment channels featuring "edited highlights" of popular BBC shows.

[quotFrom The Register.b>

The BBC is considering ditching Adobe's Flash system for its iPlayer streams to improve the video quality of the on-demand service, it said on Tuesday.

The news came alongside an announcement that iPlayer will be available on Apple iPhone and iPod Touch in the next few weeks. The move is unrelated to the BBC's commercial arm setting up shop on iTunes this week.

iPlayer availability on the iPhone will be via Wi-Fi only as O2's EDGE data network is too slow. However, the BBC has a deal with hotspot provider The Cloud to offer free access to bbc.co.uk and iPlayer.

The BBC's head of digital media technology, Anthony Rose, said the Apple devices would be the first of a wave of devices that people will be able to use to stream BBC shows on the move. The next platform iPlayer will be available on is Virgin Media set-top boxes at the end of March, however.

The new iPhone and iPod service means the BBC will transcode TV shows into the MPEG-4-based H.264 standard as well as Flash video format, used by the main web streaming site (FLV, commonly based on the older H.263 codec). Because H.264 is highly-compressed it could support the higher quality streams the BBC and users want, using existing broadband infrastructure.

Adobe's latest update to Flash includes support for H.264. The move was widely interpreted as an attempt to head off competition from Microsoft's new Silverlight project, which is focused on high definition streaming of Windows Media Video (WMV 9, based on the VC-1 standard, as used by Blu-ray discs). As well as Flash for the streams, the BBC also already uses WMV for the download application version of iPlayer.

The BBC's research division has also developed its own codec, the open source Dirac. A well-placed sopurce at the BBC told The Reg the project is under consideration for inclusion in iPlayer.

Rose, who is in charge of iPlayer development, said a decision on what format to use for the main iPlayer streaming service would be made this year. "We're looking at all options to provide best quality for the users and the lowest cost to us and the ISPs," he said.

Director of new media and technology Ashley Highfield said the impact of iPlayer on ISP networks has been "negligible", with traffic representing a "few per cent" of overall bandwidth.

The pair were on hand to promote new figures showing the growth of iPlayer since its Christmas day marketing launch, and introduce a series of changes to the web interface to make it easier to find shows.

Since launch, 2.2 million people have watched a total of 17 million programmes using iPlayer, BBC figures say. The busiest days have seen 500,000 viewers use the UK-only service.

On average, each show is seen online by about a tenth of the broadcast audience. The iPlayer top ten since the launch is heavy on male-oriented shows, including three episodes of Torchwood, a Six Nations rugby match, and Top Gear. The number one slot was taken by the Doctor Who Christmas special.

Streams still outnumber downloads by about eight to one, though that dominance is expected by Highfield to be reduced in coming months. About 70 per cent of downloads are watched, Rose said.

The iPlayer team is in very early development of a way to encourage download iPlayer users to use BBC Worldwide's upcoming commercial venture Project Kangaroo once the free 30-day viewing window is finished. Highfield said watchdogs at the BBC Trust are "very interested" in the plans.

Digital Spy | Guardian | The Register

Edited February 20, 2008 by kraized

[williamhook]

High Definition stuff on the iPlayer? Sweet! :D

[Stone Gaijin]

Very excited to hear this.