iPlayer streaming service "won't appease BBC Trust"

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 17 Dec 2007 at 12:14

The BBC's new iPlayer streaming service isn't enough to satisfy the service's cross-platform requirements, according to the Open Source Consortium (OSC).

The iPlayer streaming service was launched last week, giving Mac and Linux users a first taste of the catch-up service.

However, non-Windows platforms are still denied access to the full download service, which is dependent on Microsoft's DRM solution.

And according to the OSC, the new streaming service isn't enough to appease the BBC Trust, which continues to insist that the full iPlayer download service must be cross-platform as well.

"The current iPlayer doesn't meet the requirements of the [BBC Trust's] Public Values Test," says OSC president, Mark Taylor, who met with the BBC Trust last week. "This is not something the BBC Trust is going to let go of."

Taylor says the BBC must continue to investigate ways of making the iPlayer download service cross-platform, but concedes it probably won't be possible with the existing software. "It's difficult to see how, in its current form, it could operate on Mac OS or Linux," says Taylor. "[But] there are complete systems that do exactly what the iPlayer does that are not single platform."

However, Taylor says the OSC would stop short of demanding the current iPlayer is taken down if the BBC can't launch a cross-platform alternative in the next year or so. "I don't think anyone wants to be killjoys," he adds. "We want to see the iPlayer improved, not handicapped."

The BBC Trust claims the BBC has made progress towards a cross-platform download service, but was reliant on third-parties. "We remain committed to the TV catch-up service being delivered on an agnostic platform within a reasonable timeframe," says a Trust spokesman. When pressed to be more specific on what a "reasonable timeframe" means, the spokesman said that provisional conclusions had suggested a deadline of around two years, but that timeframe had been lifted.