Two interesting announcements have come my way today – one concerning BBC iPlayer, and the other concerning Youtube. What’s interesting about them is the way in which they treat the video that they offer, and what that means for watching TV on your iPhone.
(1) iPlayer
Recently, the Beeb announced that they were releasing an iPlayer application for the Nokia N96 that would allow over-the-air downloading – not just streaming, but downloading the whole file to your phone for offline viewing. For the UK-based users who can access this service, this is excellent. But the BBC lead the mobile extension of iPlayer with the iPhone, so where’s the the app for this device?
The BBC could easily whip up an iPhone app that allowed downloading of TV programmes for later viewing. Because of the sandboxed nature of iPhone apps that I’ve discussed before, you can’t access the files from other parts of the iPhone. This would prevent people from transferring the downloaded files elsewhere, which could also expire after a certain time.
The problem lies in DRM. Anthony Rose makes clear in this BBC Internet Blog post that:
certain aspects of our content delivery are presently non-negotiable (for example, rights protection such as DRM is required)
So, the BBC must provide file-level DRM on TV and Radio programmes – merely sandboxing it within the app would not be enough. Only Apple can provide the license to their Fairplay DRM to enable this, which the company has decided against doing so far. I don’t think we’ll be seeing an iPlayer downloading app for the iPhone anytime soon (unless someone ports the Beeb Downloader to the device). As I’ve said before, the best bet for downloading BBC TV onto your iPhone or iPod Touch is if Auntie strikes a deal with Apple to distribute it through iTunes.
(2) Youtube
Moving from publicly-funded quality programming, to skateboarding dogs etc. – the other announcement comes from Google: Youtube now offers full-length television programmes.
After reading the above article, I opened up the cable TV network Showtime’s Youtube page (at http://www.youtube.com/user/SHOWTIME) in Safari on the iPhone. This took me to their page on the mobile version of Youtube, which in turn enabled me to launch the shows in the iPhone Youtube application. The app had no problem streaming the content.
What’s especially great about this? The show I launched on my iPhone was an episode from Season 3 of Dexter. The TV channel ITV, which holds the broadcast rights in the UK, has so far only broadcast Season 1.
Aside from providing me with another avenue for full-length TV programmes on my iPhone, Youtube now gives me access to shows far in advance of the screening date over here. The number of shows is currently limited, but I am sure it will expand.
Different approaches
The BBC cannot currently facilitate downloading shows onto the iPhone, owing to DRM requirements, and viewing is restricted to UK users.
Youtube does not even consider allowing downloading, but you can watch from anywhere in the world.
The wider question here is whether Google is going to start swallowing whole TV channels as opposed to nibbling away at the edges? And what is the intended reach, seeing as it appears that they are cutting across rights holders outside the USA? Plus what does it mean that this TV programming is accessible on mobile, computer and traditional TV (using a specialised set-top box)? Traditional broadcasters are already reacting though, for example, with location-independent streaming and download services such as Project Kangaroo.
The iPhone’s TV capabilities is but a peripheral note in the wider TV shake-up that’s on the way.
UPDATE (13/10): I found out from The Register that Youtube has today implemented checks based on location. So if you try to access the full-length programmes from the UK, you only get the message “This video is not available in your country.” Shame