Shasarak
3rd November 2009, 12:45 PM
I own a TP2. There are four different ways (that I'm aware of) to get iPlayer material playing on this phone:
1) Change the User Agent string in Opera 9.5 to impersonate a Samsung Omnia. You can then visit the mobile version of the iPlayer website and stream material. It plays in the Streaming Media player. Resolution is roughly 320x176. Doesn't work over 3G unless you're with 3 or Vodafone.
2) For programmes that have a "download for mobile device" option on the main iPlayer site (browsed from a desktop PC) you can grab the resulting .wmv file, copy it across to the phone, and play it on the TP2's "Pocket" Media Player. Resolution is 320x176 (ish).
3) There is a stand-alone iPlayer app, which imitates an iPhone; however, it doesn't work on my TP2 (just crashes before you can access anything).
4) The "myplayer" app. This offers two options: stream at 320x176, or (sometimes) download in .mov format. The latter has a slightly higher resolution - something like 480x270. The .mov files can be played back fairly well using Coreplayer, I believe, but I'm too cheap to pay for Coreplayer. :o Using TCPMP it's a bit jerky, and playing full-screen even more so. Does work over 3G although your carrier will hate you if you try it. :)
Now, using HTCAlbum as a player, the TP2 can very comfortably handle an .mp4 file with a res of 800x480, and a bit-rate of 750kb/s. So what I'm wondering is if there's any other way of getting iPlayer material to play which offers a higher resolution and better video quality?
The "iPlayer Desktop" downloads appear to be in .mp4 format, but no player other than iPlayer Desktop seems to be able to make head or tail of them.
IPlayer does offer higher-res .wmv downloads of some programmes - these have a res of something like 720x540, but are recorded anamorphically (so they play back at 960x540 or so, with horizontal upscaling). Trying to play one of these on a TP2 (using Windows Media Player) is fairly painful - the bit-rate is too high for it handle, and it doesn't recognise that it's anamorphic, so the aspect ratio is wrong. Feeding one of these WMV's through the Encoder programme that I normally use for converting video to HTCAlbum-compliant .mp4 files produces sparkly gibberish - the WMV is obviously encrypted in a way the Encoder application can't detect or handle.
Are there any other options I'm missing?
1) Change the User Agent string in Opera 9.5 to impersonate a Samsung Omnia. You can then visit the mobile version of the iPlayer website and stream material. It plays in the Streaming Media player. Resolution is roughly 320x176. Doesn't work over 3G unless you're with 3 or Vodafone.
2) For programmes that have a "download for mobile device" option on the main iPlayer site (browsed from a desktop PC) you can grab the resulting .wmv file, copy it across to the phone, and play it on the TP2's "Pocket" Media Player. Resolution is 320x176 (ish).
3) There is a stand-alone iPlayer app, which imitates an iPhone; however, it doesn't work on my TP2 (just crashes before you can access anything).
4) The "myplayer" app. This offers two options: stream at 320x176, or (sometimes) download in .mov format. The latter has a slightly higher resolution - something like 480x270. The .mov files can be played back fairly well using Coreplayer, I believe, but I'm too cheap to pay for Coreplayer. :o Using TCPMP it's a bit jerky, and playing full-screen even more so. Does work over 3G although your carrier will hate you if you try it. :)
Now, using HTCAlbum as a player, the TP2 can very comfortably handle an .mp4 file with a res of 800x480, and a bit-rate of 750kb/s. So what I'm wondering is if there's any other way of getting iPlayer material to play which offers a higher resolution and better video quality?
The "iPlayer Desktop" downloads appear to be in .mp4 format, but no player other than iPlayer Desktop seems to be able to make head or tail of them.
IPlayer does offer higher-res .wmv downloads of some programmes - these have a res of something like 720x540, but are recorded anamorphically (so they play back at 960x540 or so, with horizontal upscaling). Trying to play one of these on a TP2 (using Windows Media Player) is fairly painful - the bit-rate is too high for it handle, and it doesn't recognise that it's anamorphic, so the aspect ratio is wrong. Feeding one of these WMV's through the Encoder programme that I normally use for converting video to HTCAlbum-compliant .mp4 files produces sparkly gibberish - the WMV is obviously encrypted in a way the Encoder application can't detect or handle.
Are there any other options I'm missing?