BBC bigs up iPlayer for TVs and consoles
PS3 gets first look
The BBC has tweaked its iPlayer for TVs and set-top boxes, launching the "custom-built for the living room" redesign through Sony's PlayStation 3.
The look was designed specifically for big screens and comes with a host of fresh features and personalisation options.
These include an improved search engine, the ability to favourite programmes as well as recommendations based on the content you watch.
Beeb General Manager Daniel Danker had this to say on the update,
"With today's announcement, we're transforming iPlayer in its most natural home: right on the living room TV. By creating a product that's as simple and intuitive as flicking through TV channels, the BBC is bringing on-demand television to mainstream audiences across the UK."
The HTML 5-based player launches on PS3 today. It will hit connected television sets in the coming months. For further information, including a video demonstration, check out the BBC Internet Blog. ®
COMMENTS
It's pointless and horrible to use
Compared to the now replaced web based PS3 player it's awful. Almost to the point of being unusable.
Cmon Microsoft.....
...stop being such a killjoy and let everyone in the UK with a 360 enjoy the iPlayer/4OD goodness.
We've paid for it already so why not?
Ditch the Sky Player too...oh and maybe the expensive Zune movie thing too and let us access LoveFilm....
You know, broaden the appeal a bit.
TV licence
Plus if the PS3 could show live TV you would have to have a TV licence to use it legally.
Re: It's pointless and horrible to use
Spot on, bloody awful compared to the previous version, very slow to respond to input.
HTML 5 dubious, quote
"While it may not look anything like a website, what we are unveiling today - initially on the PS3 games console - is built using the same technology: HTML and Javascript. The increasing use of standards for playing media, such as HTML5 and CE-HTML (both elements of the the Dbook7 standard for hybrid TV devices in the UK) is making it easier for us to roll this out more widely. So, expect to see it come to other devices in the coming months."
They're demonstrating that HTML 5 is something they've heard of. And here "HTML 5" evidently means "placing a video player in a web page".
Also that it's 300 models of TV-compatible device such as set top box OR overambitious TV set, and not 300 TV models or indeed 300 TV owners as in the dear old days at Alexandra Palace, when BBC TV could be received by a moderately large area of central London. All right, I'd be a bit surprised - a bit - if an Internet-connected product had a geographical limitation as strict as -that-.
