BBC iPlayer Radio 10

After a good few weeks I have the BBC iPlayer Radio application working again! You should find that the previous version 9 force-updates to the new version 10 when you start it. If not you can use this link for the installer: BBC iPlayer Radio MSI Installer

As usual, it was broken by changes to the BBC system. I’ve had help from some kind BBC staff and I’ve got it working again: it now downloads without needed to convert as well, so it’s a little faster in operation. I’ve also improved the metadata in the files saved to disk for those that use them directly. “Version 10” indicates that I’m following the modern convention of updating the version number by a whole point when you do a release – like Google Chrome – not that there is anything very special and new. Sorry! Smile.

BBC iPlayer Radio 9.3.5

A new version of the BBC iPlayer Radio program. This should, I hope, solve any problems you have been experiencing with “skipping” during programmes.

A quick explanation: the BBC provides their radio programmes as AAC files. These play on Windows 8 and later, in theory. But I was having lots of reports of programmes skipping. I thought this might have been the code that downloads the AAC files, but I discovered that the AAC files skipped in Windows Media Player as well as in my program (which uses Windows Media Player internally), and my program successfully downloaded exactly the same file each time. Finally, converting the AAC file to another file type fixed the program just fine.

BBC iPlayer Radio therefore has a “conversion” step after downloading a programme where it is converted into a format that will play without skipping.