Almost 10 years on from its original launch, BBC iPlayer is the most popular online TV service in the UK, not just in of usage (see p.59 of Ofcom’s Communications Market Report) but also in of positive word of mouth (see YouGov’s BrandIndex Buzz Rankings). It’s available on over 10,000 different devices and has been ed 40 million times from mobile app stores. However, there’s always room for improvement and we’ve been working hard to make your experience of BBC iPlayer even better. Dan Taylor-Watt, Head of BBC iPlayer, gives a quick round-up of some of the latest enhancements.
Live Restart on mobile and tablet
Live Restart on the BBC iPlayer mobile app
First launched on computers in time for the London 2012 Olympics, Live Restart has proved to be a hugely popular feature, ensuring viewers need never miss the start of a BBC programme again. Last summer we rolled the feature out to connected TV devices, I am delighted to announce that we’ll shortly be rolling the feature out to our Android and iOS mobile and tablet apps. Our most recent app update introduced the ability to pause and rewind live TV and you’ll soon be able jump back to the start of a programme on your mobile or tablet with a single tap.
Live Restart the current programme in BBC iPlayer via Red Button+
We’ve also recently made it easier to access BBC iPlayer’s Live Restart feature on connected TVs by adding access from the Red Button+ home screen. Red Button+ is available on a wide range of connected TV sets and via YouView and Virgin TiVo.
Live events
Enjoying the Rio Olympics live on BBC iPlayer on a range of devices
The summer is typically a quieter time of year for BBC iPlayer. Not this year. Live coverage of Glastonbury, Wimbledon, The Euros and The Olympics helped BBC iPlayer reach an average of 16 million unique browsers a week in June, July & August – up 37% on the same period last year. And this wasn’t just viewing of our broadcast channels on different devices – in May of this year we began streaming live events not broadcast on TV on iPlayer, enabling us to show live performances from six stages at Glastonbury and up to 24 live simultaneous streams from the Rio Olympics. The below chart, compiled from BARB TV Player Report data, shows the scale of live viewing in iPlayer over the summer months. In the week ending the 14th August, live ed for 46% of total iPlayer viewing time.
HD by default
We want to deliver the best quality viewing experience we can based on the capabilities of the device you’re using to access iPlayer and the speed of your internet connection. Consequently, we’re making HD (720p 50fps) the default for on demand playback on computers and connected TVs which Adaptive Bitrate (ABR), which enables the video quality to be automatically adjusted in response to how much bandwidth you have available at any given moment. s with TV devices which don’t ABR can still opt-in to HD via the button in the player. We’ve also recently made BBC One HD available to watch live on computers and connected TVs (it’s the default on connected TVs which ABR and can be accessed on computers by selecting England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland from the ‘Change location’ menu in the footer of the iPlayer website).
For s whose broadband isn’t up to HD streaming, don’t forget your can programmes in higher quality to watch offline, either on your computer or your mobile or tablet.
Visual seeking
That moment when… Visual seeking through Ripper Street on BBC iPlayer
Whilst BBC iPlayer already takes care of ing how far through a programme you are, automatically picking up where you left off, there are those occasions when you need to search for a particular moment within a programme. We’re just about to make that a whole heap easier with the introduction of visual seeking. Hover over the scrub bar and you’ll see images from the programme appear as thumbnails, enabling you to jump straight to the moment you’re looking for. And if you want to share a link to a specific moment, you can add #t=XXmXXs to the end of the URL (replacing XX with the number of minutes and seconds - e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00v1xk5/elsa-the-lioness#t=20m15s). Available very soon on the iPlayer website, we’re looking to roll visual seeking out to the iPlayer TV and mobile apps in the coming year.
Also in development
There are lots more enhancements to BBC iPlayer in the pipeline including the roll out of subtitles on our live channels (already available on computers as a ground-breaking trial), an archive category, enabling easier, cross-platform discovery of the 400+ archive programmes now available on BBC iPlayer (thanks to BBC Four Collections) and a raft of personalisation features to make it even easier for you to discover and enjoy great BBC TV.
We’re also continuously working with manufacturers to improve the performance of iPlayer on their devices. For example, we’re currently working closely with Google on improving the Google Cast experience in iPlayer, before rolling out the feature to the BBC iPlayer Kids app, which launched in April and has already been ed over half a million times.
That’s all for now. Comments welcome below although individual technical queries are best directed to BBC iPlayer (if you haven’t been able to find an answer to your question on the BBC iPlayer Help site).
