New BBC iPlayer: good news for PC and Xbox 360 owners

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

The BBC has once again overhauled the iPlayer, with the new service far outrstripping the derisory first effort that was launched back in September 2007. The big additions are a new desktop download client and HD streaming/downloads – we’ll be bringing you a full review later in the week. However, a new feature that’s slipped under the radar is potentially the most useful for PC owners: direct WMV downloads.

If you go to any show on the iPlayer menu, you’ll now find an option called More Downloads, under which there’s an option called Windows Media Player. This basically bypasses the new Adobe AIR-based desktop client and downloads the programme directly as a .WMV file.

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