BBC Iplayer Downloader Plugin - Beta + Support

[drdr6]

I have uploaded a new version of the plugin for those who want it. It now supports scheduling of downloads to begin at a predetermined time to avoid BW throttling from ISP's.

I have also fixed the issue with the '\' being included in the file name causing a problem.

Let me know how you get on

Sadly having '/' as part of the file name also causes a problem (v2.58), e.g. the current edition of "Heroes" on BBC2

[smiler]

Sadly having '/' as part of the file name also causes a problem (v2.58), e.g. the current edition of "Heroes" on BBC2

I'll add the exception for the / on the next version, should be ready pretty soon.

[gEd]

I'll add the exception for the / on the next version, should be ready pretty soon.

A filename cannot contain any of the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > |

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/177506

(just in case there are any others lingering!)

[JonRoyle]

The reason you cannot use these direct downloads are because they are protected by a Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection. This means that the media files have been encrypted as they are exclusively for the use of windows media player's inbuilt DRM decoder/engine. When you play the file WMP is actually decrypting it on the fly.

(

Smiler,

I am new to this plugin but was intrigued so tried it and am impressed. I have got it up and working but have several questions.

1) The ability to play a download on the fly either via a PC or to an MVP would be great. Earlier comment suggested this was not possible but I have just manually watched the flv as it download and also transcoded and watched it on an MVP. Would this be a possible out of box feature and avoids waiting for the download and transcode to complete

2) When I set download quality to medium - downloads fail

3) If I 'Enable High Definition Downloads' then the search ONLY returns the HD version of a program can it not return HD and non-HD enabling user to select which they want? Sometimes I don't need HD version and would rather reduce download size.

Thanks,

[smiler]

Smiler,

I am new to this plugin but was intrigued so tried it and am impressed. I have got it up and working but have several questions.

1) The ability to play a download on the fly either via a PC or to an MVP would be great. Earlier comment suggested this was not possible but I have just manually watched the flv as it download and also transcoded and watched it on an MVP. Would this be a possible out of box feature and avoids waiting for the download and transcode to complete

2) When I set download quality to medium - downloads fail

3) If I 'Enable High Definition Downloads' then the search ONLY returns the HD version of a program can it not return HD and non-HD enabling user to select which they want? Sometimes I don't need HD version and would rather reduce download size.

Thanks,

Answers to the above questions:

1) It would be possible for the PC to watch the files while downloading but the MVP would have issues. The other problem is that the downloads have to often be restarted by the download engine, this is carried out by deleting the file that you would be watching.

2) Not all downloads are available in Medium Quality mode it depends on the the site. Low quality should work however.

3)The is no feature currently to support selection of downloads between HD and Normal, I may add it in the future.

[JonRoyle]

Thanks for the update.

I can see the issue if download has to restart.. In terms of MVP having an issue it was fine in the (non exhaustive) testing that I did. To test I manually kicked off an ffmpeg transcode and then pointed MVP to the transcode - the only challenge was guessing how much buffer to allow before starting - tricky.

Just thinking through ideas... If there was an option whether to transcode after download or not - then it would be possible to keep original flv download as main file and then watch via MVP immediately afterwards as GB PVR already has the on the fly decode for MVP watching. Most PCs can watch FLV directly though I heard someone say NMT can't.

Either way great plugin and family are enjoying using it.

[smiler]

Just thinking through ideas... If there was an option whether to transcode after download or not - then it would be possible to keep original flv download as main file and then watch via MVP immediately afterwards as GB PVR already has the on the fly decode for MVP watching.

There is a setting in the configuration under transcode settings to not transcode.

[smiler]

This is a new release available from the Wiki that allows for transcoding of HD downloads specifically to allow for flv to mp4 conversion without resizing down to MPG2 compatible sizes.

This means that you can recontainerise the flv streams in to MP4 streams for playback in GBPVR.

The transcode settings are available in the config.xml file to allow for custom modification if you want to change the transcode settings.

Tell me how you get on.

[philcooling]

I've been playing with this plugin for a while and have an idea for you.

The other day I downloaded several iPlayer programs at once (OK, about 15!). The download bit was fine - they were queued up and downloaded in sequence. Then the first show was transcoded whilst the second was downloaded. When the second show had finished downloading, the transcode process for that one started, but the transcode of the first file was still running! Pretty soon I had about 15 transcode processes all running at once!! :eek: and the PC was rather slow.

Would it be possible for the transcode processes to be queued up so that there is only one running at once? Even better, could they be limited to only start running in the Scheduled Download time window?

Just a thought...

[JonRoyle]

Would it be possible for the transcode processes to be queued up so that there is only one running at once? Even better, could they be limited to only start running in the Scheduled Download time window?

Just a thought...

Or another though - a parameter to drive the number of transcodes which can be run concurrrently.

Jon