BbcMediaPlayer
Latest
BBC promises iPlayer and Media Player for Android will get better... soon
The BBC's Android efforts have, for several reasons, trailed its iOS offerings. Most notably iPlayer and Media Player have been stuck with low-quality, non-adaptive streams and a stripped down feature set. The national broadcaster is promising to fix that in the near future, however. The changes wont be happening all at once, but iPlayer head David Price promises that big improvements are coming to its Android offerings. One major upgrade will be to the playback experience by offering not just higher-resolution streams, but various levels of video clarity based on device capabilities, screen size and data speeds. The new video backend should be launching before Christmas, while an update launched today that adds support for Jelly Bean 4.2, provides a UI facelift improves video over WiFi and brings BBC Alba. The more ambitious goal of reaching feature parity with iOS will have to wait till some time next year. Price says he has beefed up his staff to make offline playback a reality on Android devices as soon as possible, but no timeline is being given. Lastly, the apps will finally be getting properly tweaked tablet versions -- hopefully sooner rather than later. For more check out the source link.
BBC Media Player to give Android users their iPlayer fix in a mostly Flashless world
Remember how the BBC was asking Adobe to keep Flash for Android on life support for a short while? The broadcaster just removed any doubts as to why with the launch of BBC Media Player, its solution for that day when the mobile plugin is well and truly buried. Starting with iPlayer on the mobile web and moving on to both radio as well as an updated version of the Android app due next week, the BBC will be using close Flash cousin Adobe AIR for streaming playback on Android phones and tablets. It can't quit Flash technology cold turkey given the sheer number of devices still running Gingerbread or earlier, which rules out HTTP Live Streaming for now. Media Player isn't necessarily the most elegant solution -- we're seeing reports of sub-par video and other hiccups -- but it will keep those episodes of Doctor Who rolling on most Android hardware and let the BBC push out updates that address as many of the Google-inclined as possible.
