By Ahsanul Islam, 27 August 2008 13:16
NEWS
The millions of TV addicts hooked on the BBC's iPlayer will now have even longer to catch up with new shows, thanks to the latest feature from Auntie.
After last week's announcement of higher quality streams using the H.264 standard, the Beeb has now revealed it plans to trial 'series stacking' on the iPlayer.
The new feature will be introduced in mid-September, giving viewers the chance to catch up on every episode of a handful of series after they've been broadcast. Traditionally, programmes disappear from the iPlayer service after the seven days: series stacking will see them stay on the service for the duration of the programme's run.
Simon Nelson, controller of multiplatform and portfolio at BBC Vision, said in a statement: "Series stacking will really make the unmissable, unmissable. Now, you'll be able to join a series half way through following a friend's recommendation and catch up on all the previous episodes - or watch them all in one go over a weekend."
Viewers can look forward to stacking shows from new series such as Merlin, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Survivors and BBC Three's Clone. Others include returning series Bruce Parry's Amazon and BBC Four's The Story of Maths.
The success of this feature will also determine whether it becomes available for BBC's download service and also onto other platforms including the Nintendo Wii and Virgin Media.
However, telly addicts won't be able to get all their favourite shows through series stacking. The body that oversees and regulates the BBC - the BBC Trust - has limited the amount of BBC's on-demand TV content that can be made available for series stacking at 15 per cent. The figure will be reviewed after 24 months.
Comments
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1. anonymous
About time too.
Initially there was never to be any series stacking, now 15% to be reviewed after 24 months.
Just stop the messing and place *ALL* BBC content on iPlayer with a full archive available.
2. Karen Challinor
there are two major flaws with the iPlayer
the first of which is DRM, which prevents you from copying the program onto a media server or burning it onto a re recordable DVD and watching the program on your TV set in the comfort of the living room, and is totally wasted on those people with DVD based PVR's
Once the program has been broadcast then DRM is pointless
the second is that it is BBC specific, it's like having to obtain a separate tv set for each channel you wish to watch and as each channel brings on their own version of the iPlayer your PC will slowly become stuffed with clones of the iPlayer software
what is needed is a central body funded by each of the broadcast channels which provides a single player and distribution format and gets the programs directly from the source
preferably without DRM though I'm not going to hold my breath
3. Ruth
Really good suggestion Karen about having a central viewing method rather than iPlayer for BBC, something else for Ch. 4 etc. Hopefully a method that doesn't require you to download Windows Media 11, and Windows Genuine Advantage with it. My Windows XP is actually genuine but I refuse to have Microsoft checking out my PC so I've missed out on a lot of Bird, Bremner & Fortune.
4. Roy Corneloues
Karen/Ruth,
This is already under way and was reported here back in April...