Entertainment For Lively Minds
iPlayer Grabber FAIL!
Posted by James Blast on 23 December 2009 - 5:48pm.
My iPlayer Grabber can no longer 'grab' anything from the Beeb, the BBC iPlayer Desktop Player decided to load and function for the first time yesterday - all fine and dandy you may say but the playback is unwatchable unless you like watching stills with dialogue way out of sequence.
gear:
Mac G4, 2G RAM, Leopard 10.5.8
help is needed as I have to watch last Friday's Beautiful People and last night's Clement Freud In His Own Words
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Are they still available to watch online ?
What happens if you try to watch them in real time on the iplayer website ?
iPlayer on a Mac.
The Mac version of iPlayer appears to be seriously broken at the moment for some users, with performance issues even on faster Macs. It appears to have occurred sometime after the last software update. On this Macbook Pro I get stuttering if I attempt to watch in full-screen mode. Oddly streaming playback works fine.
The BBC support bods are looking into it, but at the moment they've got no fix.
Personally I believe it's an issue with the Flash player that iPlayer uses, as the Mac version of that usually gives terrible performance.
fanx
JQW, I thought it was just me, and @ Rank Badjin, did ye noe read aw ma post ya FUD!
realtime viewing is stills with dialogue waaaaaaaaaaaaay outta sync
yer maw!
I thought you meant you had downloaded it and it didn't work.
*reaches for downarrow*
*calls in airstrike on Blast Towers*
JQW
Yo da mahn! thanks for your easy to follow 'eejit proof' instructions, I'll try a new Flash update. Aren't Adobe becoming more and more MacUnfriendly?
@ Rank - yew n' wha's army/airforce!? LOL
go on, allow me one LOL, it is Christmas
I'm also uploading a Clement Freud radio 4 programme I recorded years ago, I'm sure it was called That Reminds Me 25+ mins of Clement talking to a live audience. I'll post the link once it's done.
Flash on a Mac.
Flash is just grotty at the moment - YouTube can often stutter. You could try upgrading to the latest version of the Flash player from Adobe themselves, as it may improve performance. Flash gets occasionally upgraded with some Mac OS X updates, but as your version is someone old that won't have happened for some time.
The iPlayer Desktop application is just a shell that invokes Adobe AIR to actually run, which itself uses an enhanced version of Flash. AIR on a Mac is also known to be sluggish, and has been for as long as it's been around, which is over 2 years.
I may upgrade to the AIR 2.0 public beta later, and see if that resolves anything. If so I'll report back. It won't repair any Flash issues, though.
Can You Fix it?
Just tried a couple of radio shows that work fine in Chrome/Vista but they won't download with the downloader. It's happened before so hopefully Mr downloader will fix it.
Look at the website
Had the same problem over the last couple of days. The iplayer grabber website says it has been broken and is now repaired. On a Mac - "trash" the version you are using and redownload and all will be well.
I tried that
I've found that certain things now work with the grabber, but other things don't. The things that don't are generally the ones I want to download.
ma heid hurts
here's something soothing, Clement speaking
https://download.yousendit.com/Z01OQndPUzdENlNGa1E9PQ
thanks!
hilarious stuff - "I'm already accommodating a pineapple at six guineas"
Example Dr Yang?
Could you give me and example? Just tried the Clement Freud mentioned above and all is OK.
Using : iMac
OS X 10.5.8
iPlayer Grabber 0.95.5
Ahha
I'm using a different application, that'll be the problem. Or at least the inconsistency.
I'll try iPlayer Grabber.
I'd been trying to get HIGNFY and Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe Review of the Year using iPlayer Downloader 3.6. Weirdly Spooks worked fine.
IPlayer Grabber vs iPlayer Downloader
There was an update on the BBC side that screwed up both recently and was fixed with the same core script that both use. The problem with some programs is that there is a age restriction thing - i.e if you use iPlayer direct it will ask you if you accept. The latest script gets around this and has been updated in iPlayer Grabber but not yet on iPlayer Downloader.
0.95.3
here, I'll visit Version Tracker...
Grabber
I think 0.95.3 is what I upgraded from in order to get the latest Swedish Wallander episode. If you get 0.95.5 can I recommend Wallander whole-heartedly? I have never watched a whole TV series with sub-titles before but have really enjoyed it. Hope BBC4 broadcast the new series which is currently showing in Sweden.
House!
or Bingo! if you prefer, that worked.
thanks must go out to Foxy for the offer, it was appreciated
As we're on a iplayer-grabbing theme...
...can anyone recommend a good freeware PC utility for the job?
(No smart-arse 'buy a mac'-type comments, please...)
PS: Cheers for the CF link, JB.
Yes
Head over here:
http://po-ru.com/
Get the Windows GUI download.
he seems to be on the ball and it couldn't be easier to use - I've just downloaded the latest version and it seems to have fixed the problems.
Thanks.
I've tried it before but couldn't get it to work - let's hope this version does.
Seems
a bit better now.
I'd just like to say
thanks to JQW and Tony G for the tech help, Foxy for the very splendid offer of a shiney disc with Beautiful People (surely the final episode?) and the very wonderful Clement Freud programme.
Despite naesayings elsewhere on the blog, I'd like to say a big thankee! and that is really does work round here. I'm not leaving BTW
Merry Christmas to all including that baisturt! Rank Badgin ;D