iPlayer without Flash

[johnb]

For those who don't already know, I thought it worth mentioning that the BBC provides a method of listening to the high quality BBC Radio Player streams on PCs without using Adobe Flash (which we all know is notoriously vulnerable).

This method uses DASH as a delivery format. It is still classed as "beta" (i.e. it is still in the development stage) but it has been running for quite some time. One advantage with DASH is that you can rewind live broadcasts. You can opt in (or opt out) of using DASH here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/html5

Notes (which you can ignore): The BBC currently has four delivery methods for high quality AAC internet radio streams:
- HDS which is Adobe's proprietory format. It is used by the normal Radio Player on PCs and requires an Adobe Flash browser plugin
- HLS which is Apple's equivalent format
- DASH, a non-proprietory format which the BBC wants to move towards. It is has been running for quite some time but is still classed as being in the beta development stage. It does not need the Adobe Flash plugin.
- a "temporary" legacy 320kbps rtmp stream for live Radio 3 only. This can be used by streaming devices/software that can't handle the newer HLS streams. This stream, instituted early last year, was only intended as a temporary, transitional measure and could be switched off at any time in the future.

[Bryn]

Many thanks for that John. Dashed it i'd kept up to date with the matter. Just downloaded, installed and used release 2.96.1 of associated software. Glad to find it works. Goodbye to Flash from the iPlayer.

Great to hear The News Quiz and Marta Sebestyen in HD Sound (320kbps AAC-LC).

[Dave2002]

Maybe it's version incompatibilities, but I can't see the banner which is supposed to indicate the DASH/HTML5 operation instead of Flash. I'm running on Macs almost exclusively now, having just taken a couple of PCs down to the dump. I looked at the various compatibility issues, and I think the iPlayer should work on this machine which is running Mountain Lion and using Firefox 48.

Perhaps I have to disable Flash as well as opting in?

Have any other Mac users tried this?

I'll look at other versions too.

[johnb]

Maybe it's version incompatibilities, but I can't see the banner which is supposed to indicate the DASH/HTML5 operation instead of Flash. I'm running on Macs almost exclusively now, having just taken a couple of PCs down to the dump. I looked at the various compatibility issues, and I think the iPlayer should work on this machine which is running Mountain Lion and using Firefox 48.

Perhaps I have to disable Flash as well as opting in?

Have any other Mac users tried this?

I'll look at other versions too.

Dave,

MACs are a totally mystery to me but there are various incompatibilities listed on that website. It does recommend Firefox 49 or later.

There is no need to disable Flash.

There is also nothing to download if you use the Radio iPlayer with way I do (selecting from the schedule on the R3 webpages for On Demand or the R3 homepage for Live).

One notable benefit of using HTML5-DASH is that you can rewind the live "broadcast" by up to 2hr 30mins.

What I see on the webpage shown below. Of course, it would show "Opt in to the HTML5 Player" for someone currently using the Flash player.

PS I don't know how the BBC and Apple handle the radio iPlayer on a MAC. The obvious method would be to use the (Apple) HLS streams but whereas HLS live streams are available at 320kbps, as far as I can see the HLS On Demand streams are only available at 128kbps (presumably targeted at mobile devices). So, if I am right, On Demand on a MAC would have to use the (Adobe) HDS streams + Flash Player or DASH for 320 kbps.

[Anastasius]

Dave2002, you'll find that the BBC opt-in will check if your browser is compatible and tell you. Safari 9 is not. Firefox 42 is. Both on a Mac.