get_iplayer For Linux

get_iplayer is a Perl script that allows users to search, index, download or stream the following services:

BC iPlayer TV - H.264 / Quicktime / mov and Flash / AVI BBC iPlayer Radio (Local and National) - 128+ kbps MP3 / AAC and Realaudio BBC Podcasts - 128 kb/s MP3 / AAC BBC iPlayer TV subtitles - SubRip / srt ITV player Catch-up or classic TV - WMV / ASF Hulu.com* TV - MP4 Hulu.com* Closed-captions / subtitles - SubRip / srt

get_iplayer has PVR-like capabilities (like Sky+ / TiVo / Series-Link); You can save lists of programme searches which are automatically downloaded when they become available.

The H.264 feeds from the BBC are higher quality than in the Flash iPlayer (normal quality) or the Wii. See the beebhack wiki for a comparison. They are intended for the Apple iPhone and are consequently made difficult to download for any other OS. The same goes for the iPhone MP3 radio streams. Although there is now a new feature which allows downloading fo the flash based content using rtmpdump.

Myself and a few others worked out how to work around these problems and now have tools which essentially simulate an iPhone as far as the BBC web servers are concerned.

get_iplayer, does the downloading, indexing and searching of the iPlayer TV/Radio/ITVplayer programmes and podcasts available. It can even stream the iPlayer TV programmes while downloading them to mplayer or xine, etc. It does not circumvent any digital rights management security (see the BBC’s website on how to do that with the Windows-only DRM content they provide). The BBC iPlayer only works in the UK and Hulu.com* in the USA.

The script is intended for use for playing back iPlayer/ITVplayer/Hulu* content on devices that cannot support adobe Flash/Air/Silverlight, systems which run entirely on open-source software (i.e. no Adobe flash/air or Silverlight), downloading content for mobile devices that have no access to broadband/wi-fi or running on devices that have such limited memory that running a browser with a flash player or AIR is not possible (or not permitted). For me this would be an Xbox running Xebian Linux with Freevo or XBMC. The Xbox only has 64Mb of memory and struggles enormously with Adobe flash (Adobe doesn’t permit you run flash player or AIR on a games console either). Of course, to respect the BBC’s and ITV content providers’ wishes and fair-use legislation, you should keep the downloaded content for no longer than it would be available on the BBC iPlayer / ITV web site, not attempt to obtain it from outside of the UK and not redistribute it. If you want to get higher quality TV programmes then this is not the tool for you. You would be better off getting a DVB-T tuner card or a DTV PVR. get_iplayer is not intended for use in making illegal copies of copyrighted content. Please respect the rights of the content owners when recording.