iPlayer

One of the good things about getting back to commuting by train is that it’s given me the time to catch up on some of the programmes I’d downloaded on the BBC iPlayer. Despite a number of pain-in-the-arse bits in the program, I’m still far more impressed with it than I was with Channel4’s 4OD offering. Maybe I just watch more stuff from the BBC, I don’t know.

This week, though, I’ve caught up on a lot of the third series of Doctor Who – or at least the ones that I can get at the moment. There’s still a couple more I need to get (and that I’ll watch while travelling next week) but I’ve been pretty impressed with the series. Funny really, because when the series was on TV, I wasn’t at all interested in it, and even stopped recording it on Sky+. Maybe I just stopped recording it when it was about to get better – certainly the episodes I’ve seen on iPlayer have been a massive improvement on the first few. Of course, it’s still a load of old rubbish – but at least it’s watchable rubbish.

As for the iPlayer itself, it’s a decent bit of kit. I’d rather it weren’t (currently) Windows-only, and I’d definitely be far happier if it weren’t also Internet Explorer-only, but for now that’s the way it is, and it’s a case of either use it with the limitations, or don’t use it at at all. Maybe I shouldn’t – after all, why would any company invest in developing a better solution, if people are using the ropy locked-in version? – but I’m going to stick with using it for the moment.