On the same day as Adobe announced that the final release of AIR 1.5 for Linux is available for download, the BBC have launched iPlayer desktop for Mac, Windows and Linux users, built on Adobe AIR.
BBC iPlayer desktop allows those in the UK to download their favourite BBC programmes and watch them when they are offline. The new desktop edition compliments the existing streaming service, which is available in the browser using Flash Player.
The application was built using the Flex 3 framework, runs on top of AIR 1.5 and makes use of the Flash Media Rights Management Server (FMRMS) to DRM-protect content which is downloaded to the user’s desktop.
The BBC iPlayer really demonstrates the power of the Flash Platform, enabling users to enjoy high quality video content on the web and on the desktop, across all major browsers and operating systems – congratulations to the BBC for launching so quickly after we delivered AIR 1.5 for Mac, Windows and Linux users.
If you’re in the UK you can download BBC iPlayer desktop here (note: you MUST be signed up as an iPlayer Labs user before the download option on iPlayer content will appear on the website).
For those outside the UK, there are some screen shots of the application below… I’m looking forward to playing with this some more tonight 🙂
Andrew Shorten's Blog 
Looks nice, I installed on Mac OS X but am unable to download content? Is this the norm or am I being backward here? I presume when the BBC say they are releasing a cross platform media player that all platforms can retrieve this content to render the AIR app useful in any sense at all? As I said, maybe I am missing something here, regardless it isn’t made very clear whats going on?
Simon – You need to make sure that you’ve signed up to be an iPlayer Labs user at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/labs. Once you do that try downloading ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ from here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00g33d7/Never_Mind_the_Buzzcocks_Series_22_Episode_11/
Ahh right gotcha. I had actually signed up on labs but it seems that not content is yet down loadable for the mac and linux platforms, sods law they happened to be the ones I tried to watch! 😛 This point though wasn’t all to clear so I dont feel to much of a numpty 🙂 Cheers Andrew
It must be me being backwards as well as I can’t find any content to download apart from the buzzcocks link you provided.
Hi
Similar to Simon – I’ve followed the intructions but cn only seem to get Buzzcocks as a download – nothing else shows as avaiable to download! Any ideas?
I am told that more content will be enabled for download tomorrow – right now there doesn’t appear to be much. New content might be the place to start… for example, EastEnders is showing as downloadable.
Pingback: BBC iPlayer Desktop Application « OUseful.Info, the blog…
This is something awesome enough, does it helps other countries as well (or) only for UK people. Anyway BBC always rocks… Excellent News Terminal in the World.
Thanks,
Vivek
[http://www.developersnippets.com]
Pingback: BBC Releases an AIR version of the iPlayer | Psyked
Pingback: Andrew Shorten » Evolution of the BBC iPlayer
Pingback: Life As An Evangelist » Evolution of the BBC iPlayer