Latest Flash Player (10.2.152.26) and BBC iPlayer HD

[Fred950]

A few months back, I had a problem with watching HD videos on the BBC iPlayer. This was eventually solved by the BBC changing a 'flag' or file format in some way, after which my PC could play HD iPlayer videos.

Today, I updated Flash player to the latest version (date 11th Feb 2011, version 10.2.152.26 (I think)) both the plugin and the ActiveX version. However, it appears my BBC problem is now back.

Whilat I can play 'local' HD videos OK on the PC, and even YouTube videos, the BBC HD stuff is failing again.

Now, I dont know for sure the Flash upgrade caused it, as I hadn't actually used BBC HD for a few weeks or months, only using standard resolution which still plays fine. The fault is exactly the same as before, the BBC 'cat/lion' trailer plays OK then the HD program is a slide show.

I've tried three browsers, Opera, Firefox and IE8, all three have the same issue.

The PC is a netbook with an HD decoder (Broadcom) and as I say it was working fine until I tested it today after the upgrade, and it still plays YouTube HD ok.

Any ideas? Anyone else seeing a similar fault?

Any ideas what to try?

I have posted on the BBC iPlayer forum as well.

The PC is a Samsung Netbbok with 2G ram, Atom N450 CPU and a broadcom HD decoder.

[pwillener]

Fred950 wrote:

A few months back, I had a problem with watching HD videos on the BBC iPlayer.

You don't specify what kind of problem you actually have.  Also, can you give us a link to such a HD video?

Did you try to enable or disable Hardware Acceleration (Flash Player Settings)?

[Fred950]

"You don't specify what kind of problem you actually have" - opps good point.

The problem is that HD iPlayer videos are playing like a slideshow. Standard def videos play OK.

Its any of the BBC HD videos on the iPlayer site. The 'cat/Lion' trailer plays OK but the actual program is just a slideshow.

This is an example - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sf9d5/hd/The_Edible_Garden_The_Winter_Larder/ just picked an HD program at random.

However, since I posted here, someone has replied to my post on the BBC site and seems to suggest its a fault at the BBC end which started a month or so back (I'd not used iPlayer recently for HD). But I can't get hold of any Tech's at the BBC to confirm this. It appears there was a fault early last year where BBC iPlayer HD programs were not using hardware acceleration, this was apparently fixed by the BBC, but somehow for some reason, the problem appears to have re-surfaced.

I think the update of Flash was a coincidence in my case (not certain, but I think so).

"Did you try to enable or disable Hardware Acceleration (Flash Player Settings)?" - Yes I did try, it didn't help.

Thanks

[pwillener]

I wanted to test if I see the same as you, but all videos at BBC just give me a 'Not available in your area' message.

So all we can do is hope that you can contact a BBC tech person after the weekend.

[Fred950]

Thanks.

I have posted on the BBC forum and emailed them via their 'contact us' form.

No reply yet, but its early days.

If they reply, I'll post back.