BBC iPlayer on Nintendo Wii
Last month we made BBC iPlayer available on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices, the first of many mobile platforms that we hope to support.
The theme for this month's iPlayer release is "iPlayer in the living room"- i.e. watching BBC on-demand programmes on your big-screen television set.
Today, most people watch iPlayer programmes on their computer. That's great - you can watch your favourite BBC programmes curled up in bed with your notebook PC, or on your study desk while you check your email, or (if you downloaded our programmes) on the plane or away abroad on holiday.
But have you tried hooking up your computer to your TV set?
iPlayer programmes, particularly downloaded programmes, look great on a TV. The video quality is usually even better when iPlayer programmes are played back on a TV than on your computer screen. Most newish computers, particularly notebook computers, have an S-video output, which, with a suitable S-video to SCART cable, can connect to most modern TV sets. If you have an LCD or plasma TV, chances are that it will have a VGA input which will give even better picture quality when connected to the VGA output of your notebook PC.
If you have a Nintendo Wii, it's already connected to your TV, and now you can play BBC iPlayer programmes directly on your Wii.
On your Wii, you'll first need to install the Internet Channel, which costs 500 Wii points, or approx. £3.50 (unfortunately there's no alternative to having to buy the Wii Internet Channel for iPlayer web site access at this time - but later we hope to be able to get iPlayer on Wii without this purchase being needed). After you've installed the Internet Channel, browse to
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer, find your favourite programme, and hit Play. The programme should play immediately.
For a smooth playback experience on Wii you'll need an internet connection that can give you 1Mbps or better. If you're experiencing buffering issues, try turning off any P2P or other downloads that are running on other computers around your home.
iPlayer on Wii is still in beta, and over the coming weeks we'll tweak the video encoding rates and playback window size to get the best possible video quality.
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