BBC iPlayer Hell
Whilst I was considering it a protest until the BBC launches a Mac version of their iPlayer, I’d held on long enough and really wanted to see what the experience was like.
I knew it wasn’t going to start well because I had to fire up my Windows XP laptop – something I hadn’t done for a month or so. So, after the slew of updates sent from Microsoft were finished installing, I started the setting-up of the BBC iPlayer.
After downloading the relatively small iPlayer installer and entering a pretty obscure username and password provided in an invitation e-mail, I was off. The installer ran without problem and then prompted me to log-in to iPlayer. However, after carefully typing in the username and password several times, it wouldn’t accept them. A few attempts later, I realise that there’s an option to create an account (apparently this isn’t the one I was supplied with, and I was supposed to guess this). Account created and I’m in, but not feeling that ping-ponging from browser to software is very friendly. I could browse all the programming that’s available to download and tried to download the latest Nigella Lawson episode (I wasn’t actually going to watch this, it makes me bilious), but was presented with a message and then tons of instructions relating to the fact that there’s a problem with my DRM certificates. Following the instructions on how to fix this (it told me how to show hidden files and protected system files, smooth!) by renaming some non-existent DRM folder and then following a link to an MS page that is supposed to sort things out. Back in Internet Explorer which is now whinging at me that there’s some Active X software that’s trying to do something, and which I agree to, there’s a page where my only option is a disabled button. I guess this means that I don’t get to watch anything.
So my initial thoughts contain the phrases: “cobbled together”, “badly thought out”, “badly executed”, and “are they fucking kidding?” – in no particular order.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Software, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.