This is BBC - broadcasting to your iPhone

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 11 March 2008 04:01

Your IT - Entertainment

BBCiPlayer, the broadcaster's systems for delivering is TV and radio programmes over the Internet is now available on iPhone and iPod touch. The BBC has also launched a revamped version of its mobile Internet site, one of the UK's most popular destinations on the mobile web. iPhone and iPod touch are first mobile devices supported by iPlayer, but users must be online via a WiFi connection (GPRS is too slow to support iPlayer). The move was revealed by Anthony Rose, head of digital media technologies at the BBC, on the BBC blog site.

Rose said the BBC had started with iPhone "because it is the device most optimised for high quality video currently available. It displays the BBC iPlayer site and BBC programmes nicely," but added: "We are working on making BBCiPlayer available on many more browser-enabled devices over the coming months.

According to Rose the service is a beta version at present and the full range of programmes is not available. Rose adds: "Ever since we announced that we were working on BBCiPlayer for iPhone, there's been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere as to how it would work. Would we use Apple's new iPhone SDK? Would we use the rumoured Flash for iPhone? What video format and bit rate would we choose? And which devices will we support."

The service does not use the new iPhone SDK: the BBC has created 516kbps streams (400Kbps H.264 video, 116Kbps AAC audio) that, according to Rose "show off BBC programmes brilliantly on an iPhone."

Separately the BBC has launched a much upgraded version of its mobile Internet site. According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, the new site is based on the design of the BBC's existing Internet site, and  "with most mobile phones now fitted with colour screens and relatively fast connections to the web, the new site has more colour and interactive elements."

The paper said the upgrade to the seven-year-old technology would allow the BBC to produce specific content for sporting events the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Beijing Olympics.  "The BBC has more than 2.7 million unique mobile users a month, making it the most popular mobile site outside the phone companies' own portals."