bbc iplayer

[crisgal]

ihave tried to watch something on the bbc iplayer for the first time. How can i stop it from stopping and starting? Is there something I can do? it's very annoying!

[Ethel]

Start it and press pause straight away. Go and make a drink or do something else for five minutes, then press Play

It is stopping and starting because it is playing faster than it is downloading.

[vehelpfulguy]

You can do as Ethel says.

Also try to get a faster broadband connection.

Or watch it at a time when the internet is quieter (during the day or after most of the UK has gone to bed)

[eltelioni]

You presumably clicked on "Click to play" which plays the video as it is downloading and, as Ethel explained, the download is not keeping up.

You could click on "Download" which will download the entire video before you play it. Using this method you can hold on to videos for up to 1 month and watch them when you feel like it.

[crisgal]

thanks guys. i had left it on pause while I asked my question. By the time I got back, it had sorted itself out. Downloading them sounds like a good idea too. Does it take ages to do that?

[Panic Button]

Yes - yonks

[dundurn]

It does take some time but I've found it well worth while, particularly when there's more than one member of the family playing catch-up. Also very useful with weekly serials, like "Lark Rise to Candleford". Every so often I'd find myself wanting to check back with a previous week's episode to see who had said what and to whom only to remember too late that the one week review period had expired just before the current episode went out. Logical really, but annoying all the same. Downloading put paid to that problem.

In passing - there's the same facility available on ITV (not sure about the download, though) but I find it stops and starts like this much more often than the BBC iplayer does.

[eltelioni]

Downloading from iPlayer can be very fast. When it was first launched I was able to download 30 minute programs in 10 minutes. Unfortunately some ISPs object to iPlayer and deliberately slow it down. The problem is that the ISPs sell you an 8Mb/s connection, but they assume you will only ever use the full 8Mb/s infrequently and for a very short time. That allows them to buy 256Mb/s and sell it to 1000 subscribers. iPlayer can use the full bandwidth for a prolonged period and therefore cause them problems.

[vehelpfulguy]

>Does it take ages to do that?

Remember that when you watch a video you are downloading it anyway, so it takes no longer to download it than it does to watch it.

[4candles]

As eltelioni says, you have 30 days to watch before expiry - but as soon as you watch even a part of it, it will expire in 7 days.

[ChuckFickens]

VHG, for once that's not strictly correct...

It's called bandwidth shaping and QOS... streamed media will often be given a higher priority by a lot of ISP's than P2P downloads are

[crisgal]

Yeah, I had one of them but the wheels fell off!

[vehelpfulguy]

>Yeah, I had one of them but the wheels fell off!

What he was saying is that WATCHING a video (streaming) may probably be quicker than DOWNLOADING it.

Downloading is often done with Peer to Peer programs (P2P) and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) dont like people using P2P so they reduce their prioroity, making them download slower.

If you go back and read his append you can now fully understand it !