[Gllug] Which architecture?

[Peter Corlett]

On 4 May 2009, at 10:02, John Winters wrote:
[...]
> The Beeb seem to have done all they can to make iPlayer as  
> inaccessible
> as possible.  Unfortunately you need Realplayer to access it and  
> AFAIK,
> there isn't yet a version of that for 64-bit browsers.

RealPlayer has never been a requirement for iPlayer. It was required  
for "Listen Again" of the radio service, but that's now been  
integrated into iPlayer. Some of the legacy content sat on unloved BBC  
sites may still be in Real format, but I've not seen any for some while.

The iPlayer backend is quite impressive. It provides transcoding from  
the original master source into a wide variety of formats for  
different devices. The front end likewise varies depending on how the  
user wishes to consume the content. By far the most popular is  
streaming off the iPlayer website.

Visitors to the website with desktop browsers get a FLV stream which  
requires Flash to be installed. It is, by default, for most users.  
Mobile devices that don't support Flash get different formats; the  
iPhone and iPod Touch getting H.264, for example.

There is also an iPlayer *application* which downloads the video for  
later viewing. A specific Linux version has been made available  
alongside the expected Windows and Mac versions. The various other x86  
*nix platforms can probably run the Linux version just fine under ABI  
emulation.

> The workaround is to install the 32 bit compatibility libraries and a
> 32-bit copy of IceWeasel (or genuine Firefox even).  Then you can
> install the RealPlayer plug in for 32-bit Linux - provided you don't
> mind the licence issues.

It works just fine on this brand new 64 bit MacBook Pro without  
installing anything. I've just fired up a Radio 4 comedy to check that  
the radio stuff wasn't still using Real.


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