Get_iplayer Download Free For Windows 10
Henrey Manzer
NOTE: Unless you opt to change the default value, the installer sets the location for recorded programmes to iPlayer Recordings on the Windows desktop of the administrator user who ran the installer. If you have multiple users running get_iplayer on one Windows PC, the other users will need to configure their own output folders with the CLI:
With version 2.95, the Windows installer no longer lets you specify an output folder.
The default is still %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\iPlayer Recordings, but the installer has been changed to properly handle multi-user systems, so the active user's desktop is always used.
In order to change the output directory permanently, you still use get_iplayer --prefs-add --output "" as in seagull's original answer.
TVJohn is incorrect - the --prefs-add option works just fine on all platforms, including Windows.
Also, the options file in C:\ProgramData\get_iplayer has been removed and should not be re-created.
Updated information for get_iplayer on Windows can be found here.
Another strange thing, ...well, something I have not been aware of is that each time "get_iplayert" commences a download session, it creates a file in Windows>Users>Me, called "cmd.exe" containing zero bytes which MBAM jumps on at the next daily scan and quarantine's it as a Trojan!
We have established that each time get_iplayer runs, not when the command window appears, but as soon as a download begins, it creates two files in my "Users" folder, "cmd.exe" and ffmpeg, both zero content!
Thanks for the info, I do indeed use MBAM. Disabling it whilst using get_iplayer fixed it for me too. I guess I have to wait for the update for both to work together, as the update does not yet work for me. Thanks for the solution though !
Hi @six-H Thanks for your reply mate and I'm delighted to say it's now working! I installed the new version of FFmpeg, but it made no difference. Then I deleted the cmd.exe and ffmpeg files in Users, but I also had another empty file called get_iplayer which I also deleted. It's working fine now. Thanks very much for your help.
One other thing to bear in mind is that although the BBC turns a blind eye to get_iplayer usage, it is not in any way supported and is always susceptible to unexpected changes in the way the BBC streams its content. In other words, reliability is in no way guaranteed or even expected!
most of the shows I search for show as not found in the logs, despite existing in Iplayer and working via the windows version. PID is supported by get-iplayer so I thought Id try that. Is it not supported in teh Webui?
It's never nice to hear about the demise of a piece of simply brilliant software. when I discovered that get_iplayer was being pulled by its developer I was, to use a cliche, gutted. The potential loss of a piece of software that did just what it said on the tin is bad enough but it was impeccably free and open. What's more, it was an example to the BBC about how things should be done. It was the work of one lone, unpaid developer, not the product of professional developers subsidised by the BBC licence. What happened exemplifies everything that is wrong with proprietary software.
The first breakthrough, at least for me, came with the discovery of Paul Battley's Ruby script. I installed it and it worked fine. I liked it so much that I interviewed Paul for Freesoftware Magazine. The preamble to the interview will explain the background. Checking back on his webpage to update the software (as he was playing a cat and mouse game with the BBC who kept changing their specifications). I chanced upon a reference to another iPlayer downloader. Like Paul's Ruby script it was free and open source and allowed the user to download BBC audio and video content without DRM or time restrictions. It worked beautifully, it was not a memory or CPU hog and it all played back beautifully in VLC without stutter. It came with a shed load of features and a manpage longer than War and Peace. It did stuff that left the BBC eating its dust. It was called get_iplayer. It was the Crab Nebula of software. It had (has) one of everything.
Unlike the BBC's iPlayer it facilitated a huge number of features including streaming, PVR (scheduling va Cron), downloading and formats. It was impressive. Really impressive. I've written everything in the past tense but although the developer (Paul, I don't know his second name) has pulled both the download link and the documentation for the software it is still functional. As I write this article, get_iplayer is purring away in the background downloading an episode of Shaun the Sheep (just for test purposes, honestly). Of course, the software is no longer available so if the BBC tweak the iPlayer and lock out get_iplayer, intentionally or otherwise, then a superlative piece of software will have been lost. If the experience of Paul Battley's Ruby script is anything to go by, its a constant game of lockout and update, except that updates are off the menu. That's the story so far. This article is now concerned with two things: why get_iplayer was pulled and the behaviour of the BBC.
The wording used struck me as a little strange. He refers to get_iplayer being "dropped in response to the BBC's lack of support for open source". This sounded odd to me. It seems to imply that there was a time when the BBC actively supported open source access to the iPlayer. As far as I know, they haven't. If the BBC had been enthusiastic supporters of open source access to the iPlayer they would have enabled from day one of the launch. Clearly, neither he or Paul Battley waited around for any kind of imprimatur from the BBC. They had an itch to scratch and they wrote software without a permission slip from Broadcasting House, by exploiting the BBC's desire to make the iPlayer available on the iPhone platform.
The comments above are taken from the main page but if you click on this link there is more explanation and some interesting links. I hope and think I am summing up his position fairly and accurately when I say that his view is that the BBC iPlayer has benefited from open source, that the BBC has failed to abide by the spirit of FOSS and since they believe software like get_iplayer is "detrimental to their service" he felt constrained to cease development as he had no desire to act against the BBC's wishes. The nearest he gets to a detailed account of events is this:
I was the sole get_iplayer developer until I dropped it last week and, as you say, the BBC didn't send in lawyers -- but then there would be no point in 'sending in the lawyers' for something entirely legal albeit 'unauthorised' as Ian Hunter puts it above (no open source client is authorised AFAIK). The only publicly reported 'Cease and desist' letter sent from the BBC for an unauthorised iplayer client was, AFAIK, for an upcoming app that was going to commercially exploit the BBCs content (even though those developers initially tried to contact the BBC to no avail by all accounts).
No, the BBC didn't ask anything of me - they never even attempted to communicate - they just pulled a trick like this one without simply contacting me, the developer, to discuss even though my contact details had always been on the get_iplayer web site...
However, I believe, without doubt, that the BBC did try to "deliberately disable it" knowing full well that get_iplayer has steered very clearly away from breaking the law and that SWF verification would potentially cause an issue for get_iplayer. The quote from Ian Hunter sums it up quite well IMHO:
As the sole developer of get_iplayer Paul has the absolute right to cease development and take the download links off site but as he will also of course appreciate that, in the nature of FOSS and the GPL, anyone can modify and redistribute the software by hosting it on another website. It's just a matter of programming skills, time and the necessary finances to host it all on another website--and I'm sure he wouldn't object to that. But that's a separate issue. The thing that intrigues me is what exactly the BBC said and or did to cause Paul to feel constrained to close up shop. There are no direct clues on the get_iplayer site--except one link.
Even though the open source get_iplayer with flvstreamer is slightly inconvenienced by this move (it resumes the stream every minute automatically), if you use it with rtmpdump instead of flvstreamer it works perfectly. (you have to add the rtmpdump swf verify option to the command using --rtmptvopts in get_iplayer). rtmpdump is the open-source tool that had the Adobe DMCA takedown notice last year but has since restarted development outside of the US.
This whole episode flags up the importance of open web standards like HTML5. If that is universally adopted what future would there be for Adobe's Flash and if the BBC used that video tag in their HTML canvas why would they want to use a processor and memory hog like Flash? (to say nothing of the fact that for internet users in areas of the UK where broadband is either slow or not available at all the iPlayer is not avialable option, but get_iplayer was). The irony is twofold: the BBC decided to make the iPlayer available to the iPhone and in doing so gave hackers their opening--but the iPhone doesn't use Flash and the BBC is playing a constant game of cat and mouse with developers to block third party open source software from accessing the iPlayer by circumventing Adobe Flash's SWF authentification (by using flvstreamer or rtmdump--and development of rtmdump continues outside the USA, even after their DCMA take down notice. The DCMA doesn't apply in the UK but the European Copyright Directive (ECD) does).
The fact that the BBC Trust has refused to investigate this surreptitious switcheroo speaks volumes. SWF is Adobe and the BBC use its Flash player for streaming iPlayer content. If you are looking for an explanation for the BBC's behaviour it probably lies in the direction of its overseas sales. This is a real revenue raiser and it would be more difficult to shift product if the BBC was unable to demonstrate tight "copyright" protection to national and international buyers. All that the BBC's fait accompli has done is, as one BBC employee has described it, to "push developers towards the dark net". "Legal" users will gain nothing from the changes but BitTorrent, Rapidshare and Usenet will see an an upsurge in traffic--and given the nature of these sites piracy will flourish. In contrast, the average user of get_iplayer and its ilk would only be downloading overwhelmingly for purely personal use.
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