PS3 now second-most-popular iPlayer platform

i guess this is the one good thing about xbox...it supports other countries..unlike ps3 UK gets everything good for ps3..wii japan gets that..micrsoft kinda distributes everything equally

iplayer

I'll probably still use it more on my laptop but it's a nice feature. In my opinion, it is the only good thing about 3.0, the rest i hate, completely hate.

the iplayer loads realy fast on the ps3. i use it mainly to watch mock the week

I was glad when they finall rolled out the iplayer to the PS3, it was great having it on the wii but the resolution was nasty. My PS3 is pretty much just a media centre so adding features like this and vidzone have added to its value in the living room. It will be interesting to see what will happen when the 360 gets the sky add on though...

I have to say it's nice to have something decent in the UK for once that other countries don't have. Bravo.

@02sfraser Agreed.

Gotta have the Microsoft in the story, don't you? Even if the story isn't about Microsoft. You're not a whore if you give it away, I guess.

The iPlayer is my favorite part of 3.0.

Now all we have to do it wait a few months for the video delivery service and we're sorted with regards to TV (and film) content on the PS3!

i think iplayer on your PS3 was a great idea. now Sony get some 4OD and you will be the top multimedia

Course we don't have BBC.. but we can get PlayOn and access to HULU, CBS, The Food Network, Spike TV, HGTV, Netflix, Adult Swim and more. The Fuzz www.thefuzznetwork.com

yeah i love usein bbc iplyer any films or tv programes that i miss i can just watch them the following day

@ daveg1 Taking a wild guess here, but I think it may be the computer! *GASP!*

Good thing about this is that I actually get use out of it :)

so whats the most popular way of viewing iplayer ???

I'm loving this little add-on. Only noticed by accident, then watched all the office and Mock the Week eps I'd missed. Now I can't stop using it, even if it's just for the radio streams.

wtf is netfix sounds crap iplayer is brill to use

works a treat for me. i thought it would run through its own software though and not just through the web browser.

obviously US don't get it. You dont pay for our licence

I still find iPlayer runs smoother on iPod Touch than on the PS3. It still stutters a little with panning shots on PS3 which are smooth as silk on iPod. Also at 1500Kbit it SHOULD BE broadcast quality. Some DVB-T/S channels aren't much higher bitrate than that but those use MPEG2, a vastly older/inferior codec. H264 should be able to equal those channels with about 1/3 the bitrate, if the BBC can't manage that then they are simply not dedicating enough horsepower to the encoding, they are trying to do it too quickly. Another problem is Sony should have included video filters in the web browser so that full screen does not look so pixelated. VidZone does it and considering the pathetic resolution/bitrate they are using its quite impressive. iPlayer on the other hand is vastly superior quality but upscaled badly and poorer playback (obvious dropped frames particularly noticeable when panning). I find it odd that the web browser playback of H264 is so inferior to the XMB playback. If played back as good as stuff saved on the HDD or from USB Stick/External HDD it should be SUPERIOR to broadcast quality.

I don't think you can get this in the US since... "According to the BBC, iPlayer will only appear on the dashboard of consoles with serial numbers in the format of CECH-XXX3, which is the code for units sold in the UK."

Is this available in the US? I hadn't heard about it until today...

While games consoles have traditionally been used for playing games, Microsoft and Sony have both been touting the home entertainment value of their consoles. Microsoft has offered Netflix movie downloads and Twitter support, while Sony has its Blu-ray drive and media streaming functionality. Another ace up the sleeve for Sony is the BBC iPlayer, which it can access through the integrated Web browser.

However, iPlayer has really become a core feature with the recent 3.0 firmware update, which adds an icon to the XMB and updates the software used to run the player. According to the BBC, this has now pushed iPlayer usage on the console to the point where it now accounts for around 10 percent of all iPlayer viewing, overtaking the Mac at 8.5 percent to become the second-most-popular platform.

Thanks to additional H.264 Flash support, coupled with hardware acceleration and decoding, the new iPlayer videos are streamed to the PS3 at 1500Kbps, which Anthony Rose, Controller Online Media Group and Vision at the BBC, is calling "almost as good as broadcast television!"

BBC's iPlayer service launched in 2007, with the service rolling out to the PS3 and Wii towards the tail end of 2008. GameSpot UK sister site CNET UK recently interviewed Rose, who revealed that the platform uses an astonishing amount of bandwidth, equating to about 60Gbps, or around 7.5GB downloaded every second during peak hours.

Despite the success of the PS3 iPlayer, some users have reported issues with the player icon not appearing in the XMB. According to the BBC, iPlayer will appear only on the dashboard of consoles with serial numbers in the format of CECH-XXX3, which is the code for units sold in the UK.