The dirty, robbing bastards!

...said the characters Janice and Ray, on the Catherine Tate Show. Having whinged about Channel Five in the past, I will now whinge about the BBC.

I watched episode 1 of "The Day of the Triffids" on BBC iPlayer and very good it was, too. So far, so good. I then tried to watch episode 2. It was available in High Definition format only. I bought my lap-top in May 2003 and it isn't up to displaying High Definition programmes on Flash Player 10. I could listen to the programme for a while, but Firefox has a memory leak, which accelerates when trying to play High Definition programmes on Flash Player.

Once all of the memory has been used up, Firefox displays a dialog box, locks-up or just terminates. I disabled Virtual Memory on my lap-top as Hard Disk is ~500,000 times slower than RAM. I have 1GB of memory and that's it. My lap-top won't take more than 1GB of RAM.

So, Aunty Beeb. Why can't I watch programmes in either Low Definition or High Definition formats?

P.S. The BBC message-boards recently changed to the BBC iD system. I tried to migrate Nigeepoo (I've been using that username there since March 2003) to the BBC iD system to be informed "Your username appears to contain a profanity". You couldn't make this stuff up! They will be sorting it out at some point...

I'm temporarily posting there with the username Nigeep00.

P.P.S. I was so busy whingeing, that I completely forgot to wish all my readers a Happy New Year. So......

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I do NOT believe they wanted to be doing that!

As Harry Enfield's "It's only meee!" character used to say. I'm talking about Demand Five, Channel 5 TV's on-line "watch television on demand" service.

Up until last Friday, I was watching Neighbours using Firefox 3. Yes, I know that's really sad! On Monday, I went to watch Neighbours and was greeted by a new Media Player window displaying:
"Your flash plug-in is out of date
Please download the latest version here"
No problemo, thought I. I updated my flash plug-in and went back to watch Neighbours, to be greeted by the new Media Player window displaying:
"Your flash plug-in is out of date
Please download the latest version here"
Uh-oh! I contacted the Demand Five Support Team informing them of my problem. I got the following reply:

"Greetings,
Thank you for contacting the Demand Five Support Team.
Please try to access with Internet Explorer..."

I stopped reading at that point as I don't use Internet Explorer. I e-mailed the Support Team informing them of that fact. I got the following reply:

"Greetings,
We apologize for the inconvenience, since our contents are related with DRM therefore our service is only compatible with Internet Explorer. All other browsers (e.g., Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc...) are not compatible at this time..."

They left out Google Chrome! So basically, Demand Five just alienated a large number of their users by making their site incompatible with every browser except Internet Explorer. Thanks a bunch! (That's an ironic thank you, for the benefit of foreign readers).
As I really wanted to watch Neighbours, I ran Internet Explorer, updated my flash plug-in and off I went. Monday's episode played O.K. but Tuesday's episode stopped after the 15 second Weight-Watcher's intro'. I e-mailed the Support Team informing them of that fact. I got the following reply:

"Greetings,
Please upgrade your DRM security at the following site:
http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink?LinkID=34506

The Demand Five Support Team
downloadsupport@five.tv
AM"

I clicked the link and pressed the Upgrade button. It didn't work. I e-mailed the Support Team informing them of that fact. I got the following reply:

"Greetings,
Thank you for contacting the Demand Five Support Team.
Please follow the instructions given below:

Please open Windows Media Player (WMP)
In the menu area at the top of the WMP window, click "Tools"
If "Tools" is not visible, Right-click on the upper bar area on WMP and a Menu-list will appear
In the list that appears, choose "Options"
In the window that opens, the "Player" tab will be the first tab displayed
Please ensure that both "Download codecs automatically" and "Connect to the Internet" are selected
Please select the "File Types" tab
Click "Select All", located below and to the right of the list
Click "Apply", located at the bottom of the "Options" window
Please select the "Network" tab
In the "Protocols for MMS URLs" section, un-check "RTSP/UDP" and "RTSP/TCP"
Now, re-check "RTSP/UDP" and "RTSP/TCP"
All three protocols should now be selected
Click "OK" at the bottom of the "Options" Window
Please close Windows Media Player."

It worked. I e-mailed the Support Team informing them of that fact and also asked them why Demand Five couldn't be as easy to use as BBC iPlayer. I didn't get a reply. I have posted the above information so that you too can watch Neighbours....everybody needs good Neighbours....

UPDATE: The Demand Five media player now works with Firefox 3 and Safari. This may mean that it now also works with Opera & Chrome.
According to the support page, it's still not compatible with Firefox 3, so don't tell Demand Five in case they mess it up again!