OMFG that's so amazing. How did they manage to come up with this wondrous new technology? A way to allow people to download files! The Future Media Team certainly sounds like a place I'd like to work. They must be buzzing!

Most of us would probably have set up some links on a web page to files accessible via HTTP or FTP, but we're mere mortals :(

Got the essential mix coming through right now in excellent quality, and radio 3 lunchtime concert was great too. I was starting to think about setting up my own media server to achieve the same thing - so this saved me the bother.

iplayer on the iphone / touch is such an impressive feature. Now I all of bbc radio available for easy bedtime listening, not just the podcasts.

Just brilliant.

This might just delay my exile from the UK.

Very nice, but sadly most of the time the best connection I can get is Edge or worse - I wish they'd provide a lower quality stream, after all 128kps is hardly necessary for talk shows.

The iPlayer interface is very nice on the iPhone. Of course it would be nice to have streaming of live programmes, but one little step at a time and all that, and I'm well aware that's more of a legal than a technical issue, especially with television shows.

That's a nice feature, but what about all the other generic MP3 players?

All of the 'new media' developments from Auntie seem to be aimed initially at the jPhone, then if you're lucky they slowly trickle out to other platforms.

I could understand if it was due to DRM, but releasing the shows in MP3 format, surely negates any DRM incumbent with the AAC format?

...don't have the pull and lure of the iPhone, that's what Apple are incredibly good at, people want their things on the iPhone, they don't really care about the generic players... plus as it's streamed through the iPlayer system, you're very limited anyway - and they won't just drop that as it was expensive and gives them more control than just releasing the shows.

Guess you'll have to buy an iPhone or iPod Touch :D

Or do you just have a short memory?

"All of the 'new media' developments from Auntie seem to be aimed initially at the jPhone, then if you're lucky they slowly trickle out to other platforms."

The biggest development of all, the iPlayer, was initially for Microsoft Windows XP only. It only went cross-platform when the streaming version started - the download version is STILL locked to Windoze, although thankfully the BBC Trust is on the case and is breathing down the BBC's neck to get something done about it.

I have been listening to and watching the BBC iPlayer output all year using my Nokia N800. What am I doing wrong?

"I could understand if it was due to DRM, but releasing the shows in MP3 format, surely negates any DRM incumbent with the AAC format?"

It's because it's not a download like the article suggests, but a streaming service. The point is that they're not downloads as the BBC can't provide downloads (save for what it podcasts) under it's rights agreements or indeed under it's service licence by the BBC Trust.

It's not a straight MP3 stream either, there's some jiggery pokery in the same way as the video streams to try and frustrate illegal downloaders.

A *download service* would need to have DRM on to enforce a time limit, but that isn't coming any time soon because Apple won't licence out Fairplay to anyone. And they'll only offer content through iTunes with DRM if it's costing money for Apple to take a cut of.

Such a download service would also require another large chunk of cash to be poured into the black hole that is the BBC Trust's Public Service Tests.

... will be the Nokia N95/N96. They've actually been streaming video at 320x180(ish) - a 16:9 resolution that fits on a QVGA screen - for a little while now. It's encapsulated as .3GP streams and tagged as "n95_streaming" which is complete giveaway, but unless you're willing to go through the hoops you'd never know it was there. (As one of the guys who yanked the carpet out from under the iPhone streams earlier this year, I'm quite used to the iPlayer's hoops.)

The quality isn't great when you try and look at it fullscreen on a 17" monitor, but on the 2.6" N95 screen it's fine. My guessing is that the N96 iPlayer client that the Beeb and Nokia tooted their horns about a month or so ago will be a simple front-end to access these streams and pass the necessary URL into RealPlayer on these devices - much the same as the YouTube application for the N95.

Back to radio though, the MP3 streams are delivered through exactly the same system of user-agents, cookies, handshaking and so forth that the video streams are, meaning that it's really quite simple to save the MP3 if you feel the need to. Given that they include music, they're better than the officially sanctioned podcasts...

Just tried listening to some Radio 4 over 3G - it says "Sorry, television programmes can only be watched over a wifi connection", which is wierd, and also a shame.