PS3 owners game iPlayer

'Wii want BBC streaming too'

By Chris Williams • Get more from this author

Posted in Music and Media, 11th April 2008 13:23 GMT

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Less than 24 hours after the BBC gave great fanfare to its new iPlayer streaming service for Nintendo Wii at a media conference in France, jealous Playstation enthusiasts had used it to cobble together a version of their own.

An enterprising coder known as Ixalon has created an unofficial site that spoofs the Wii's user agent and manipulates the iPlayer site's JavaScript and CSS so UK owners of the PS3 can get in on the catch-up action.

It uses the Flash 7 streams specially transcoded by the Beeb for Wii owners. Although the codec used by Flash 7 is inferior to that used by the PC web streaming iPlayer, the bitrate has been upped so that the quality is the same. The project's supremo Anthony Rose has more details here.

Playstation owners can visit their new own brand iPlayer site here. Although it was already possible to view iPlayer via the console's browser, it involved much more effort than visiting a URL.

We couldn't get hold of anyone at the BBC today to comment on the development.

However, it's unlikely to cause as much of a flap as the news that the H.264 streams for iPhone can be easily grabbed for keeps as a DRM-free download. The corporation's contracts with its TV production partners (and BBC Worldwide's desire to exploit inhouse shows via DVD sales) insist iPlayer downloads only last 30 days.

Nintendo, meanwhile, might be a bit miffed its crown as the first living room platform for the iPlayer lasted all of one day, but the BBC's stated aim is to deliver streaming to as many devices as possible.

Ixalon called on them to hurry up with the PS3 implementation. "It only took a day to produce, so come on BBC - how about implementing this properly?" he wrote. Auntie blames Sony. ®

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