Monday, January 19, 2009

iPlayer Torrent

The post was made as I saw a comparison of the BBC iPlayer as a "Torrent"

It is (partially) and it is not.

The BBC iPlayer has two distinct modes of operation. One is simple streaming and the other is similar to a "Torrent" - the Download Manager.

The Download Manager - does just that, download programs from iPlayer to your PC - it does this using a similar manner to a Torrent website. It is similar due to the fact that the program material once downloaded to your PC is available to others connected to the iPlayer Download Manager (Kontiki) it is then available to other iPlayer Download Manager users to download from your computer. In other words the Download Manager is a "pear-to-pear" system similar to a "Torrent" in that it uploads material from your computer to the Internet so that others can download it.
UNLIKE a "Torrent" there is no upload/download requirements for iPlayer. If you choose not to install the Download Manager to your PC, then there is NO similarity to a "Torrent"

If you elect not to download the Download Manager and install it you can still use the BBC iPlayer software (on the BBC iPlayer website - without having to download ANY software) to stream video TV programming from the BBC.

However, iPlayer programming is ONLY available within the UK - unless you take other measures.

Links to other posts on this blog related to iPlayer:

2 comments:

Berlin said...

"iplayer desktop" + tor + download

Perth said...

bbc iplayer torrent

There are plenty of torrents of BBC programs available. You can even stream the content using a VPN and save a DRM (not time limited) version to your computer using PoRu's ipdl.exe (iPlayer Download program)