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Having struggled through a regulatory minefield for sometime now, the BBC has announced that its new web based TV on-demand service, BBC iPlayer, will be available to windows XP users on the 27th July.
The new service should more accurately be described as a catch-up TV service with the iPlayer using Windows Media DRM (digital rights management) for content protection. Users will be able to download content up to seven days after it has been broadcast with a 30-day expiration period. This expiration period is reduced to seven days once you start watching it. On average, a 30 minute programme will take around 30 minutes to download on a 2MB connection.
Apart from content bought in from other networks and films, the BBC is planning to make the whole of its schedule for the previous seven days available through iPlayer.
Disappointingly the application will only be available to windows users at launch, although a version for the Mac should be available by the Autumn.
The iPlayer represents an evolving aspect of the BBC’s on-line strategy with a whole host of planned features including live streaming of programmes, the BBC Radio Player and "series stacking", which will enable users to retrospectively download episodes from BBC series.
Other planned innovations include links to the service from YouTube and other websites such as MSN, Bebo and Facebook. Cable viewers should also have access to iPlayer with Virgin Media expected to launch the service later this year.