BBC iPlayer – Don’t Hold Your Breath

On 27th July, the BBC iPlayer was finally launched, after a series of rumours, blunders and false starts dating back to 2003, when the project was first announced. Except, actually, it hasn’t launched. Again.

The iPlayer is currently in another beta stage, meaning that the previous 1000-user beta which launched on 15th November last year simply wasn’t good enough and nor was the beta before that of 5000 users from October 2005. So, cue a mad rush of those ‘in-the-know’ to start toying with the new technology, as soon as the floodgates opened last Friday. However, those who got to the site were welcomed by a friendly piece of text, stating that memberships are to be handed out on an application basis. You apply, wait to be accepted and then the fun allegedly starts.

With disappointment comes a sense of reasoning, initially, where the frustration subsides and one realises that, maybe the BBC do need to tinker around with it one last time to get things right before a full public launch. However, after taking a look at the beta myself, there is a lot left for them to develop.

When you’re approved to enter the program, you’re given a username and password which consists of randomly generated letters and numbers respectively (therefore difficult to remember). But then, to use the iPlayer, you have to enter in a second, and separate, username and password which is the normal one you use to log into the BBC’s forums. So far, so bad, with two different logins required. After deciding I wanted to take a look at the last Doctor Who episode which I unfortunately missed, I was asked to install the iPlayer onto my computer, which I did right away… after being asked to sign in again. Upon installation, I refreshed the page as instructed but clicking ‘download’ just brought up the same request to install the iPlayer, despite having it open and in front of me.

As it demanded, I was in Windows, I had the recent Media Player and I opened the site in Internet Explorer. Do you think Mark Thompson and Bill Gates are having an affair behind our backs? iPlayer won’t work on Macs or Linux and it won’t work on Firefox or, in fact, any other browser, operating system or media player. This, the BBC says, is set to be in development by the autumn but knowing their regard for deadlines, who actually knows?

In fact, there already exists a very simple program which downloads popular programmes legally and with just a couple of clicks. 4 on Demand (or 4oD as it’s fashionably known) has been delivering programmes quite successfully, with a minimum amount of problems since last November. The worst bit is, they use the same technology as the iPlayer but the BBC still can’t pull it off, despite the gargantuan development time. Sure, 4oD is not perfect – it only runs in Windows and they don’t have further plans to extend it and some programmes cost money to view – but it actually works. As does ITV’s offering and Five’s odd CSI-only service – in fact the BBC run a report on their news site which seems to trounce the iPlayer in all ways. It seems the new application is losing popularity already.

Audience apathy isn’t the only problem, however. This beta (or gamma or even delta) test is extremely buggy, with users experiencing system crashes, delivery errors, failed logins, program conflicts, security problems… a cabbage could probably download BBC programming better than iPlayer. It desperately begs the question:

What the hell have the BBC been doing for the past four years?!

Let’s hope that by the full launch in the autumn, it actually works for everyone. For a look at the iPlayer from someone who did get it to work, have a look at the Guardian’s review. At the moment though, as far as I’m concerned, those re-runs of Chucklevision will have to wait.

-Daniel

Does the iPlayer work well for you? Is it a disastrous overinvestment of time and money or is it a godsend to audiences in the UK? What should we see from on demand television services in the future, in order to make them more accessible to audiences? Drop me a comment and tell me what you think.

Are They L’Oreal Thing?

After a hiatus induced by lots of moving around, I’m now back to blog once again.

The ASA has slapped the pert-and-pretty face of L’Oreal for faking the results of their mascara in a recent advert featuring the pert-and-pretty Penelope Cruz. Whilst the claim of making eyelashes appear up to 60% longer, as claimed by their advert, is ‘proven’ in their own consumer tests… Cruz was wearing false eyelashes whilst appearing in her latest adverts (print and television) for the make-up firm.

According to the Advertising Standards Authority’s investigation into the advert, “We noted from the lengthening study that 75% of subjects had a 60% increase or more in the visible length of their lashes when measured using digital imagery,” and that the Authority: “…noted L’Oreal’s belief that up to 60% longer lashes could be achieved irrespective of whether lashes were real or artificial.”

The national freesheet Metro quotes L’Oreal as responding with the time-honoured ‘no really, they do work, but just not when you want to film an advert’. They said: “It is common industry practice to make use of some artificial lashes in order to ensure a consistent lash line under filming or shooting conditions – the ASA had previously accepted on more than one occasion that this industry practice was not misleading.” L’Oreal confusingly sees it fit to accuse the ASA of being inconsistant.

Being the manly man that I am, I’m not make-up expert but I don’t see the point in buying fake lashes, just to make them look longer with mascara? Surely you’d just buy long lashes in the first place. Even with real eye lashes, the fact that the guinea pigs needed ‘digital imagery’ to notice the increase in visible length is quite worrying. How about we magnify your face a thousand times and put it on the side of a building – doesn’t it look much larger? The same applies in this case, I believe, unless those men you expect to be attracting with that mascara carry pocket ‘digital imaging’ devices around with them.

This does raise some more important questions, however. The very idea of make-up adverts featuring very beautiful women stating they sourced their looks from L’Oreal and other brands is quite misleading in itself. Who would hire an 18-year-old to advertise anti-ageing cream? But yet, hire any actor with naturally young looks whatever their age, and suddenly you find them attributing their beauty to a product which has only been released moments before the advert was output. It’s vulgar but true: you can’t polish a turd – but make-up adverts in their very essence set out to convince consumers that, whoever you are, you can magically look as beautiful as Penelope Cruz just with a dash of their product.

Or you could just fake it yourself, as this advert seems to prove.

-Daniel

P.S. Many apologies for the probably overused headline. It was just too tempting!

Madeleine McCann – Welcome to the Media Circus

The search for Madeleine McCann goes on and, unfortunately, so does the media coverage. Whilst I’m sure we can all agree that the media can be used effectively in order to find a missing person, there is a sense of going overboard in this case.

Take a few cute photos, a shocking ‘snatched from her bed’ plot-line and two humble, loving parents in grief and you have the recipe for a media orgy, all falling over each other to catch on to what little information can be garnered from this event. Despite the fact of thousands of British children missing, politicians walk round with a yellow ribbon adorning their sweaty jackets ‘for Madeleine’ along with The Sun, dressing their website’s masthead for all to see and generally slapping every half-baked story about her on the front page.

Naturally, it’s not a point on its own to simply say “there are thousands of people missing, why is she so special?” because it’s obvious why. It makes a great story and I agree, it should certainly be in the news as it does have a high news value. However, there comes a point where the newsers turn to users.

As BBC’s Newswatch reports (yes, I am aware it’s the Daily Mail of news criticism), there have been as many as 5 live reports from Portugal within an hour of BBC News 24 and all with different reporters. ITN has been even worse with their wall-to-wall coverage and, in my mind, ITV news is about as tabloid as TV news gets, making them as bad as The Sun in my opinion. Lots and lots of reporting… yet no developments. The nature news media dictates that celebrities must also get involved in order to raise their profile and so consequently there’s been an auction for the person who can donate the most to the reward for finding her, with media attention sold to the highest bidder. Incidentally, the reward fund now stands at £2.6 million and I’m sure the National Missing Persons Helpline can only dream of raising such a large amount of money so quickly.

After the news coverage, the celebrities and the donations come the moral public reaction. Not only have there been websites, blogs and other general online ‘help’ as well as the much-reported offline support too. Cycling along Sunderland’s high street today I even saw a poster asking us to report any sightings of her, stuck to a phone box.

Put simply, there is nothing more special about this little 4-year-old girl than there is with any other British child. The family are certainly lucky to get this media attention and would be fools not to use it – and the media are right to report it. However, now that her face is out there and everyone knows what she looks like and what happened to her, the reporting should slow down to a trickle until there is actually something new to report.

It must be considered though, that this is news and newspapers thrive on it, obviously. So wouldn’t they be stupid not to capitalise on this? Your comments are much appreciated.

-Daniel