Minor but interesting change to the iPlayer on AppleTV.
Now once a programme is selected from the iPlayer App the vision pauses, on the first frame, for around 1-2 seconds but when it starts playing it's already fully trained to line speed, so that the viewer gets consistent quality from the start. I presume some handshake is occuring to ascertain this during the brief pause and start filling the small buffer then starting playback. Clever.
A further update is that they have introduced an account pairing system similar to YouTube's for the iPlayer app on Fire TV and presumably on others by providing a code on-screen which you enter into the website to link it to your account.
What is notable is that it directs you to a bbc.com address rather than bbc.co.uk
The redirects to bbc.com seem to be relatively random and you can quite often go to bbc.co.uk once, stay there, say on the news section, then come back twenty minutes later and get redirected to bbc.com without any break in either the browser session or the internet connection.
Mind you not quite sure which domain they want to use isn't new, since they had the old bbcnc.org.uk addresses, later replaced by bbc.co.uk and then for some reason they acquired bbc.com. Whether it was used for anything I couldn't be sure but it seems to be a duplicate of the .co.uk.
The initial intent was that all iPlayer sign ins would be on .com, however the existing population with sign in BBC accounts was based on .co.uk and this caused issues. .com is used in the UK now as a commercial site funded via BBC Worldwide too.
Even 18 years ago bbc.com redirected to bbc.co.uk. Just checked the Wayback Machine.
If I recall correctly, initially anything bbc.com just diverted to the main BBC homepage, all the content was on bbc.co.uk addresses, there were no redirects.
The same was true if you didn't use www.bbc.co.uk, without the www it went to the homepage
Mind you not quite sure which domain they want to use isn't new, since they had the old bbcnc.org.uk addresses, later replaced by bbc.co.uk and then for some reason they acquired bbc.com. Whether it was used for anything I couldn't be sure but it seems to be a duplicate of the .co.uk.
The reason they bought the .com domain was because outside the UK, especially in America .co.uk addresses aren't well known. I think it was first really noticable on 11/9/2001 when lots of people tried to find the BBC website for news and went to the website of Boston Business Consulting.
This was around the time of the .com boom but even now people just expect a big organisation to be something.com
The standard disclaimer on news features on bbc.com sites accessed within the UK is as follows
This website is produced by BBC Global News Ltd, a commercial company owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website. The money we make from it is re-invested to help fund the BBC’s international journalism.
Reports (Broadcast££) that the BBC's next phase of enhancing the iPlayer by adding more box set archive material are meeting resistance from the Indie production sector,
I presume they are concerned that the resale value and market will be adversely affected by such an offering.