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Wii to get BBC iPlayer News
Wii News by Robert Purchese
The BBC has said its iPlayer video service will shortly be available on Wii.
This lets you download and stream BBC programmes that you may have missed, like News 24 with Peter Sissons and his voice.
An early version of the iPlayer will be available today, with more polished iterations to be offered as and when they are ready. You can get it from the Internet Channel on Wii for a small one-off fee, although the BBC has said it is looking at ways to make it free in the future.
"This exciting alliance with the BBC is yet another way in which Nintendo is looking to broaden the market for its products by offering compelling and relevant content to families," added David Yarnton, bossman of Nintendo UK.
"BBC iPlayer on Wii will offer Wii owners another reason to turn their console on everyday and adds to the already established non gaming content on Wii that includes news and weather channels and an Internet browser."
More than 17.2 million of you used the iPlayer to download or stream content, apparently, and more than 42 million programmes have been watched since the iPlayer launched last Christmas.
Last month the BBC also rolled the service out on Apple's iPhone and the iPod Touch.
It may not have hair like Peter Sissons, but GamesIndustry.biz is just as good at news.
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Comments: 1-45 of 45 in total
Poster
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Umm, this isn't a seperate dedicated (Wii software) channel that offers you to connect to the iPlayer service is it? It's just a (probably flash based) website where you can view the videos, using the Opera browser, yes? Why would I pay for that when I've got YouTube and a telly? That's not dedicated Wii software. That's just a webpage that happends to work with the Wii browser. Shame.
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Pac-man ate my wife
09/04/08 @ 14:08
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It's FREE if you got the browser, if you haven't you have to buy the browser.
The BBC isn't charging anything for it. And NickDude - what gives with the Wii is that millions of homes have one. Viewing figures beat HD Download potential every time. |
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MightyMouse
09/04/08 @ 14:10
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@Eraser
It is a bit different as the iPlayer has both a streaming option and a torrented download option, so this does require separate software. Huzzah for the BBC! |
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HiddenAway
09/04/08 @ 14:11
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They are quoting the price of the Internet channel.
"On your Wii, you'll first need to install the Internet Channel, which costs 500 Wii points, or approx. £3.50 (unfortunately there's no alternative to having to buy the Wii Internet Channel for iPlayer web site access at this time - but later we hope to be able to get iPlayer on Wii without this purchase being needed). After you've installed the Internet Channel, browse to http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer, find your favourite programme, and hit Play. The programme should play immediately." BBC Blog As far as I know, if you have the Internet Channel, you have nothing to be worried about.
Edited 3 times,
most recently on 09/04/08 @ 15:21
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Damn straight about ISPs.
Like someone said on the forum of another site last week: ISPs sell their broadband services - with both capped and unlimited (usually meaning just a higher cap) bandwidth - relying on the fact that most consumers won't use anything like what they have paid for. Now, common people have discovered a service worthy of frequent use and the ISPs are panicking as they have oversold their own supply and want a third-party to have to cough up some extra cash because they engaged in poor business practice. I wonder if BT Openworld turned round to the ISPs and said "Oi, you lot! You're causinf an awful lot of traffic on our systems that we didn't anticipate and it would cost a bomb to upgrade our infrastructure. So we're billing you for it" their attitude would be the same? |
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I wonder if BT Openworld turned round to the ISPs and said "Oi, you lot! You're causinf an awful lot of traffic on our systems that we didn't anticipate and it would cost a bomb to upgrade our infrastructure. So we're billing you for it" their attitude would be the same?
But that's exactly what BT are doing. The ISP's don't get an 'unlimited' service from BT. They pay for the bandwidth they use - and the iPlayer has single-handedly made this very expensive. In only its first month of service, iPlayer pushed up ISP costs by 200 per cent
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 09/04/08 @ 15:46
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Here's a quick video of me trying it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjwHmL5HCdg And here's a few photos: http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/1746/... http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3227/... http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/7608/09... http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/1033/... All taken with my rather rubbish Nokia N73 (my proper camera's battery just died) I wouldn't recommend it. There's no fullscreen option, and the video framerate suffers if you try and zoom the page to make the video fill the screen. What's needed is a little WiiWare application to handle it, hopefully that'll come later... |
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I wouldn't recommend it. There's no fullscreen option, and the video framerate suffers if you try and zoom the page to make the video fill the screen. What's needed is a little WiiWare application to handle it, hopefully that'll come later...
Sounds like I'll still be better off streaming it to my 360 then instead - which is a shame. |
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seasidebaz
09/04/08 @ 16:07
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so.... iplayer is now compatible with opera, is what they're saying...
and it working on wii is simply a side-effect.... works for me, anyway ;D oh and btw, i'm sure that you can stream iplayer content to the ps3 as well, just need to put it into your media player library on the pc then connect to media server on the ps3, should find your media player 11 then play it seeing as the ps3 can play wmv files as well... |
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seasidebaz
09/04/08 @ 18:06
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@Heitzu:
i will check soon, just got some progs on download now. hope it works, i know it does with the 360... come on ps3, i know you can do it ;) |
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This gives a bit more information about the Wii BBC iPlayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/latest/ By sounds of it hopefully a PSP BBC iPlayer is in the process too.. |
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Agreed - zooming in does affect frame rate bizarrely, but I was really pleased to see it working as well as it did on the first day of release. It was very watchable and can only get better over the coming months. There's an interesting blog on the BBC website where oone of the designers said that it wasnt available on the PS3 or 360 because both Sony and MS wanted to 'control' the iplayer - not have the branding.
I guess MS couldnt charge for it either... |
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Mentalist(air)
10/04/08 @ 07:28
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I've tried this too and it is indeed rubbish. Stuttering, horribly macroblocked streaming video with no fullscreen option? Try again, BBC.
@Moggsy Sounds like I'll still be better off streaming it to my 360 then instead I couldn't make that work, since the 360 doesn't have the BBC's DRM gubbins on it. Are you using some sort of transcoding? |
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@ mentalist downloaded wmv's from iplayer work without any transcoding on xbox 360 (well at least they did last time i tried) they still have the drm on them though so will not play after a certain amount of time
as for the flash player - both ps3 and wii use a version of flash player 7 but as stated before flash also indentifies the platform it is playing on |
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Mentalist(air)
10/04/08 @ 08:43
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Hmmm... I'll have another go, then.
Are they playing from Media Center Extender, Windows Media Connect (over the network from a home PC in the Media blade of the xbox dashboard) or copied onto a DVD or USB flash drive? |
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gooners2006
10/04/08 @ 09:17
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stupid bloody Iplayer....u can only watch about 6 programmes on your wii!!
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rhubarbandcustard
10/04/08 @ 09:51
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It always depresses me when somebody celebrates an act from the BBC. These bastards will send you to jail if you refuse to buy a TV licence. Do not support the BBC. I hate the company.
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Mentalist(air)
10/04/08 @ 10:03
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What's with the BBC hate? Are the anarchists all het up from the Olympic Torch Relay and need something else to complain about?
Pay your tenner a month and sit back and enjoy Doctor Who and that programme about Tigers filmed by elephants, you unwashed ingrates. |
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@ rhubarbandcustard
and they'll also use that money to create great tv and websites (imo the planet earth series in hd is worth the licence fee alone). tbh I'm not sure that the licence fee should be compulsory but I'm happy to pay it, and for me its better value than a sky contract - but then i watch a lot of bbc programmes, visit the bbc news site daily etc |
Comments: 1-45 of 45 in total
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