Develop Bugs

Is there any way to get high-resolution playback of BBC iPlayer material?

I know the question of viewing BBC iPlayer on the TP2 has been raised before, but it seems like none of the suggested solutions really works very well, or at least not for me.
I've tried the trick of adding the Samsung Omnia user agent code in Opera 9.5. This works up to the point where the Streaming Media app opens, but then the video never loads - it just stays at 0% buffering for ever.
One can, of course, use Skyfire to access the iPlayer website, but Skyfire looks like pixellated crap and I hate it. Video playback is jerky too.
I did come across a stand-alone iPlayer app a while back, but it proved too unstable to use; constantly crashing.
The best results I've had so far are with using myplayer. Unfortunately I'm too cheap to shell out for Coreplayer so instead I use the Streaming Media player for actual streaming, and for downloaded material (which it says is "higher quality" - is that true?) I use TCPMP, which is not altogether satisfactory as you only get about 80% of frames rendered. I imagine Coreplayer would do a better job of playing the downloaded .MOV files, but even so, the resolution you're getting on those is really pretty poor compared to what you get out of iPlayer on a desktop PC. Downloads from myplayer have a resolution of 480x270, I think - certain 480 horizontal. Downloads to iPlayer desktop are, what, 640x360? And streamed content from iPlayer on my desktop PC (in "large" mode) has a resolution of something like 850x480.
Now, if I were starting with (say) a 720p .mkv file, I could feed it through the Encoder app, and cook it into a .mp4 file with 800x480 resolution and 750kb/s bitrate and it would play back beautifully using HTCAlbum as a player - HTCAlbum (and, indeed, Windows Media Player) do a far better job of video playback than CorePlayer on the TP2, thanks to their making far better use of the GPU. Is there any way of capturing high-resolution output from iPlayer on a desktop PC, and then using Encoder on it in the same way? Can this be done either with the flash videos that one streams to a desktop browser, or with the (encrypted?) .mp4 files that are downloaded to iPlayer desktop?
Are there any possibilities I'm missing?

(bump)
No one has anything to say...?

Works for me
Got iPlayer running OK on my TP2. Entered sgh-i900 in the Custom User agent of Opera config.

apv245l said:
Got iPlayer running OK on my TP2. Entered sgh-i900 in the Custom User agent of Opera config.
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Well, as I've already said, that doesn't work for me. Possibly because O2 blocks access to iPlayer streams, I don't know. What sort of playback resolution do you get? Full desktop res? Does the streaming media player cope without dropping frames?

apv245l said:
Got iPlayer running OK on my TP2. Entered sgh-i900 in the Custom User agent of Opera config.
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Out of curiosity I went back and had another go at this. Connecting to iPlayer over GPRS, EDGE or 3G, I now get a message on the website saying that iPlayer doesn't work over my network, and that I need to connect using WiFi. A note elsewhere on the website says that iPlayer is available over 3G for people on the 3 or Vodafone networks, but not on others. (I'm on O2). Connecting (briefly!!!) over my office's wifi network does work - the video can be played and opens in the Streaming Media Player. (I did try this once over a public wifi connection in my local Pret-a-manger, and it didn't work correctly).
However, even over wifi, the quality when streaming like this is even worse than I get from a myplayer .mov download - the resolution is a risible 320x176! So none of this really address my original question, which is how one can get better resolution out of iPlayer.
EDIT: Just to clarify, if I use myplayer to get streamed output from iPlayer, using Streaming Media Player to play it, this also gives me 320x176 video (but at least it manages to bypass the restriction on the O2 network, so it works over 3G). It also (sometimes) gives the option to download the programme in question, in the form of a 480x270 .mov file. Playing this nicely probably requires CorePlayer - TCPMP drops about 20% of frames.
Of course one could move the .mov file off the phone, re-encode to .mp4, and move it back on, and play it with HTCAlbum, but if you're going to go to that much effort it would be nice to be able to start with a higher-resolution video... which is where we came in.

Did a little more experimenting yesterday. Didn't really get anywhere, but in case anyone else has a bit more imagination than I have....
Some programmes on iPlayer now have two additional links. There's the standard "download" link (which downloads the programme for iPlayer Desktop on the PC). There are also (sometimes) two others which let you download the programme in WMV format - one suitable for desktop PCs, the other for "mobile devices".
Downloading to iPlayer Desktop produces a file with a .mp4 suffix, but no other application besides iPlayer Desktop (either on my PC or on my phone) seems to be able to make head or tail of it.
The "mobile device" .wmv file can be played correctly on the TP2 using Pocket Windows Media Player, but the resolution is the standard mobile 360x180 again, which makes it unwatchable. The intended-for-desktop .wmv file is much higher res - something like 680x544 (I forget the exact numbers, but it's roughly that). When played back on a desktop PC, Windows Media Player realises that it's in anamorphic format and scales it to 967x544 or thereabouts. It looks quite good.
Putting this file onto my TP2, however, doesnt work so well. Pocket Windows Media Player does play it, but playback is quite jerky (not surprisingly, as the bit rate is very high) and, even more annoyingly, it fails to recognise that it's anamorphic and plays it at "native" aspect ratio, which is useless. There doesn't seem to be any way to get it to stretch it.
I tried feeding the desktop WMV file through the Encoder application to convert it to 800x480 .mp4, but the end result is a video where sound and picture are both gibberish - the .wmv is obviously encrypted in a way that the encoder doesn't recognise.
Anyone have any other suggestions?

BBC Iplayer on HTC Desire..>

Can anyone confirm if the playback of BBC Iplayer videos are flawless like on the iphone?
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Thanks for your comments guys. Had the desire for about 3 weeks now, and can say that Beebplayer plays videos at a 'watchable' quality over Wifi. It's not as good as the iphone (Which I will give a 10/10 to, because of its perfect quality and smooth framerates), but you have to take into consideration that videos on Iplayer are also specifically converted for iphones, while BeebPlayer uses a copy of the video converted for standard phones. Eastenders, for example, is a ~30 minute soap which is only 42MB in total to stream...
All in all, its okay. Should be better when Flash 10.1 comes round.
Edit/Delete Message
(11 May 2010)

seems to play fine. only tested one show using beebplayer. worked fine! not great quality unfortunately but more than watchable and seems pretty good!

evildead - did you have to pause the show for it to stream for a little while, or did you click play from the beginning and the video finished without stuttering?
On the slashgear review they said that you had to pause and wait for the whole video to stream first...kinda stupid..

shawon007 said:
evildead - did you have to pause the show for it to stream for a little while, or did you click play from the beginning and the video finished without stuttering?
On the slashgear review they said that you had to pause and wait for the whole video to stream first...kinda stupid..
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im pretty sure it depends on the connection speed so as phones dont have speeds we have in computers then you gotta pause it for a bit to let it load

Worded fine for me via beebplayer - incidentrally, opening up the iPlayer website and selecting a vid to watch gave me the option to use beebplayer which worked a treat.
streamed over 3G/H and played fine from the start, no need to pause.

nope. on a 10mb wifi connection no need to pause. Took approximately 15 seconds to load on it. Tried it on 3G and the same. The quality is halved (as is the file size when on HSDPA.. think thats what it is) so no stuttering at all.

mhewitson said:
Worded fine for me via beebplayer - incidentrally, opening up the iPlayer website and selecting a vid to watch gave me the option to use beebplayer which worked a treat.
streamed over 3G/H and played fine from the start, no need to pause.
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Click to collapse
Beebplayer is great for watching iPlayer (available in the market)

Thanks guys. Reassuring to know it works, as that is what I will be doing 80% of my time.

I've checked streaming via beeb player as well as streaming directly from news.bbc.co.uk - both worked fine on 3G.

Are you guys having a larf? I tried this on my Desire last night and BBC1 played at about 3 frames/sec in VERY crude video.
Right beside it was my iPod Touch playing smooth in high res.
And both were on wifi.
Does this thing really play content properly?

I think we need to wait for the official iplayer app for android, which has already been announced by the BBC.
http://www.neowin.net/news/bbc-announces-news-and-sport-apps-for-iphone-android-and-blackberry

Seeing as the BBC Trust has shelved the News and Sports apps for the time being, perhaps the Beeb will turn their attentions to the Android iPlayer app instead? [SUGGESTION]

To confirm my experience of the beeb player app so far on the desire is flawless on both 3g and wifi connection. obviously quality suffers on 3g but load times were fantastic. I always assumed it was the network speed making it run slow on my G1 but on this phone same network same location runs alot smoother!

Yup. They all work perfectly. Never tried it on my iPhone so can't comment but this works 100%

checked out the beeb player app
yeh, works ok, thought the quality of the vid was relatively poor tho, still...cant complain too much as its free and the only option at the moment.
Not an app i'll be showing of to my former bredren (the iphone users)!

Don't forget that you have to factor in that you're watching it on a screen that is higher res than the iphone - think watching SD content on a standard CRT TV as compared to watching SD on a Hi-Def LCD/Plasma - the SD content will actually look better on the CRT. Same difference between iPhone and HTC Desire. The Desire will come into it's own with higher res material....

fuzzmo said:
Don't forget that you have to factor in that you're watching it on a screen that is higher res than the iphone - think watching SD content on a standard CRT TV as compared to watching SD on a Hi-Def LCD/Plasma - the SD content will actually look better on the CRT. Same difference between iPhone and HTC Desire. The Desire will come into it's own with higher res material....
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For sure,
y'know i miss the ability to just fire up the iplayer mobile site on my iphone or watch tvcatchup but i'm prepared to wait for the goodness to start rolling in on the Desire, it is after all a brand new device

Beebplayer works fine for me here, I tried watching Jonathan Ross which worked ok, but I get a problem whereby the audio and video is slightly out of sync, probably 1/2 a second. Anyone else getting this?

InspectorFrost said:
y'know i miss the ability to just fire up the iplayer mobile site on my iphone or watch tvcatchup
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Can't you watch the TVcatchup on the desire?

Bandare said:
Can't you watch the TVcatchup on the desire?
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not as far as i can tell ! tried it last night and got the adverts to play (prior to the channel) but as soon as it was over i got an error !!
ill post on / browse their site in a while and find out whats up with that.
It'll only be a matter of time i guess
Maybe theres an android app in the works

Why can't we watch youtube videos in the browser?!

If you go to a website with an embedded youtube video, the video won't show up unless you have flash lite turned on, which is awful quality.
Now afaik on other android phones, and indeed the iphone, if you go to a website with embedded youtube videos they show up in h.264 format, without the need for flash. Why has HTC disabled this? (or am I missing something)

Let me try this again in a while (on YouTube) but I have definitely watched flash vids within the browser many times (not on YouTube that I recall though). Poor quality at best, very grainy.
I haven't tried playing YouTube directly within the browser to date simply because I like it opening in the YouTube app better (I get the option to choose this).
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

you're missing something.
most phones get redirected to m.youtube.com
some sites are still using flash 9, which flashlite can play.
if a site is using flash 10, then you're ****ed because flash 10 is only in beta and only on 2.2

It's probably the Flash Lite plugin and the normal Youtube plugin (like on other Android phones) don't work well together and HTC disabled the normal plugin.
You probably have to find a way to remove Flash Lite completely.
Or maybe you wait until there's a Froyo ROM available within a few days/weeks or so and flash this, to get the full Flash 10.1, which should work much better than Flash Lite.

shaundalglish said:
It's probably the Flash Lite plugin and the normal Youtube plugin (like on other Android phones) don't work well together and HTC disabled the normal plugin.
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Click to collapse
I'm assuming the normal plugin is where it redirects YouTube URLs to the YouTube app? Because that's the most frustrating part about this flaw!

Yes normal is the redirection to the Youtube app.

It sounds like even with flash 10.1 you can only get to watch the h.264 version if you load that flash video, then double tap on it to bring up the youtube player.
I would prefer it to load the h.264 video by default, because it's always going to perform better than flash, no matter how hard adobe tries.

YouTube embedded vids are an exception for me in so far as not playing embedded, many other site vids are doing so in decent quality (as relative as that is). Indeed, tricking the browser and YouTube to think it's a Desktop or iPhone accessing it is simple as well as showing the Desktop view, but then, you'll just see a black area where the vid would be with a message by shockwave that "this type of content is not supported". It won't play which is odd for me due to other site vids at higher quality that do play.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

It sounds like even with flash 10.1 you can only get to watch the h.264 version if you load that flash video, then double tap on it to bring up the youtube player.
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Doing such a tap provokes the browser to give me the option of either playing the vid using the YouTube app or using HTC Flash app.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

Just use a different browser (Dolphin for example). The default browser (htc modified) does not allow it.

Suggestion:
Go to www.youtube.com/html5 and signup.
Make sure you're signed in on youtube.com on your mobile.
Try it now.

Just use a different browser (Dolphin for example). The default browser (htc modified) does not allow it.
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I use Xscope and Dolphin... they don't allow such embedded video through browser viewing on YouTube.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

pascanu said:
Just use a different browser (Dolphin for example). The default browser (htc modified) does not allow it.
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Click to collapse
I could, but I don't really want to install another browser just to watch YouTube videos when I happen to come across one.

I think by loading skyfire is the only way you could view most videos in the way in which you say. But also the iphone cannot load videos from within its browser, only from its dedicated you tube player, and that has restrictions like nit being able to download to twitter or facebook etc. Some people are saying though that skyfire doesnt work fire them. Works a treat for me and plays 90 percent of videos that I stumble across.

Dunbad said:
I think by loading skyfire is the only way you could view most videos in the way in which you say. But also the iphone cannot load videos from within its browser, only from its dedicated you tube player, and that has restrictions like nit being able to download to twitter or facebook etc. Some people are saying though that skyfire doesnt work fire them. Works a treat for me and plays 90 percent of videos that I stumble across.
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You can on the iPhone, the videos show u exactly where thy are embedded, nd then you tap them and they play.
Its stupid because so many websites use h.264 video now, which android does support, yet we can't watch them.

Not sure I follow.
I go to YouTube (the proper site) on the HTC browser, I tap on a video, it loads and plays. What am I doing right?

I go to YouTube (the proper site) on the HTC browser, I tap on a video, it loads and plays. What am I doing right?
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It is that simple actually.
The thing is videos are played in a Flash player, instead of the Youtube app. Some people want to have it play in the Youtube app.

I go to YouTube (the proper site) on the HTC browser, I tap on a video, it loads and plays. What am I doing right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is that simple actually.
The thing is videos are played in a Flash player, instead of the Youtube app. Some people want to have it play in the Youtube app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The issue here is samac92 wanting YouTube videos to play embedded in the browser like his iPhone did, without using flash, which they don't. I have no issue with the default actions.
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

Embedded in the browser? The iPhone can't do that.
You can change the Youtube site to see the HTML5 version. You can do that on the Desire, I guess you can also do it on the iPhone. But that's with the Youtube site itself.

Embedded in the browser?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then it's likely that I misunderstood what he is saying.
You can change the Youtube site to see the HTML5 version. You can do that on the Desire, I guess you can also do it on the iPhone. But that's with the Youtube site itself.
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What exactly changes if using HTML5 in the context of the video itself?
The stock vids the Flash app plays on YouTube are in FLV mostly, right? But when you download those vids, it offers the H.264 MP4 files. Does HTML5 allow the better H.264 MP4 vid file to be played in the YouTube app through streaming?
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- Sent via my HTC Desire -

How is Youtube support?

Is there an app? Or do you have to use the touch Youtube site?

from what i've read, the first time you visit a youtube clip, it will ask you to download an extension, and after this it will play it like would any other video. it's not a seperate application persay, but merely just an extension to IE to allow you to play the youtube clips.
I could be wrong on this, but I have seen videos of youtube playing, so it's definitely there.

The Gate Keeper said:
from what i've read, the first time you visit a youtube clip, it will ask you to download an extension, and after this it will play it like would any other video. it's not a seperate application persay, but merely just an extension to IE to allow you to play the youtube clips.
I could be wrong on this, but I have seen videos of youtube playing, so it's definitely there.
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I just read on Wikipedia it will run it in a sort of media player app, but they state that Adobe Flash 10.1 is on the way so this could be improved, or hell, there is the possibility updates will bring Youtube apps and better support.

There is built-in support for viewing the videos, but Google will need to develop a separate Youtube app if you want the off-browser experience.

Iridox said:
There is built-in support for viewing the videos, but Google will need to develop a separate Youtube app if you want the off-browser experience.
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Chances are that Google are already working on an application for YouTube.

App in Marketplace that plays Youtube over 3g is craptastic, horrible quality over 3g. Seriously over 3g the quality is worse than on a Blackberry. WTF MS?

Microsoft doesn't own YouTube, so I dunno why you're asking them.
And the quality is probably poor because it's playing 240 or 360p version of the videos instead of HQ.
That's why Google needs to release a YouTube App.
Microsoft has more important things to worry about, like, the actual operating system.

The youtube experience on WP7 is amazing.. its the first phone i ever used that didn't require a full fledged app. I sort of like it that m.youtube.com works out of the box and there isn't "an app for that" - with that being said, people are free to use the youtube api and make their own apps and google may do just that. However with m.youtube.com the quality for me is amazing. I don't watch it over 3g since AT&T rapes us with 3g bandwidth costs but over wifi the quality is beautiful. M.youtube.com also works with your login id so you can easily play your favorite and surf the website. It isn't a pretty package, but hell, sometimes its better that the web integration works this well rather than waiting for a required app

Apparently the youtube app adjusts the video settings if not on wifi. Which doesn't make sense since my 3g connection can more than handle youtube....
Maybe contact the developer and see if we can get settings adjustments.
edit: nevermind, it lists microsoft as the developer so I guess maybe an update will help?

The first YouTube download tool for windows phone 7

I find a youtube tool for windows phone 7. It is called 'SuperTube'. It can let you browse High Definition (720P, 360P) and download the videos from YouTube
Here is the link to download the trial version.
http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=5bc89d4e-c54e-e011-854c-00237de2db9e

fscode said:
I find a youtube tool for windows phone 7. It is called 'SuperTube'. It can let you browse High Definition (720P, 360P) and download the videos from YouTube
Here is the link to download the trial version.
http://social.zune.net/redirect?type=phoneApp&id=5bc89d4e-c54e-e011-854c-00237de2db9e
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Click to collapse
Thanks! Super app, it even has 720p videos!

Thank you so much for this one! Sweet!

Oh such a pity I can't buy apps.

doministry said:
Oh such a pity I can't buy apps.
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if you do not have a credit card check: ht tp://ww w.mywirecard.co m/pl/index.html

The Trial is full featured, and has ads only in the menu (not in the videos), but you can download and keep only 3 videos per day, so no restrictions on the streaming.
For those wondering, the app uses the 360P and 720P MP4s used by Youtube, downloads them, and plays using the phone codecs directly (although the player has a different UI).
This is similar to, say KeepVid or KeepTube in its extraction of Youtube videos.
The quality was awesome. The UI of the app, not so much.

Double Posted for some reason. :/

kapanak said:
The Trial is full featured, and has ads only in the menu (not in the videos), but you can download and keep only 3 videos per day, so no restrictions on the streaming.
For those wondering, the app uses the 360P and 720P MP4s used by Youtube, downloads them, and plays using the phone codecs directly (although the player has a different UI).
This is similar to, say KeepVid or KeepTube in its extraction of Youtube videos.
The quality was awesome. The UI of the app, not so much.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh lol, so you say the limitation is for 3 videos PER DAY?
I will try it than.

doministry said:
Oh lol, so you say the limitation is for 3 videos PER DAY?
I will try it than.
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Click to collapse
As far as I know, there are NO limitations on viewing videos. But if you want to actually keep it, then there are 3...per day. Need to confirm this though for myself.

nope its not 3 per day, it just state I reached my download limit for trial...

I downloaded this, good find, thanks

It's very good, but would be awesome if it linked into your Zune library (i.e. the videos downloaded appeared in Videos), but I'm not sure if that's possible or not...

The trial is 3 vids total. Figured I'd better buy it in case it gets pulled from the Marketplace