The BBC has taken its iPlayer live, introducing streaming for Mac and Linux users to the seven-day catch-up service, and a partial integration of the BBC Radio Player. The move comes around six months after the BBC launched the iPlayer as a Beta. For the time being downloads are restricted to the Windows platform, though Anthony Rose, the BBC’s Head of Digital Media Technology, said the feature could be added in the future. “One of the many updates we hope to implement in 2008 is a download solution for users of other operating systems including Macs which may be possible with the next suite of Adobe Air products.”
Announcing the development at the Future Media conference in London, Eric Huggers also unveiled a revamp of the bbc.co.uk, which will relaunch later this week. The 10-year old website will include more social networking tools and user customisation.
As previously reported in Broadband TV News, the iPlayer will officially go live on Christmas Day, when a marketing campaign will get underway.
The Radio Player will now also take the iPlayer name, although for the time being the BBC’s on-demand Radio and Television services will remain separate. Already the BBC has added now and next schedule information to the radio service and has increased the maximum bit rate of the Live and Listen Again streams on its national stations to 64kbps.
