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How to save DRM-free BBC iPlayer movies

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Although the BBC allows UK iPhone users to watch iPlayer content on their iPhones, the ability to download content isn't possible. Unless you know how...

The BBC's iPlayer service allows people in the UK to watch selected BBC content on their computers. When it first launched, it was initially based around some Windows-only software that introduced Digital Rights Management (DRM) into the movies to prevent them being shared, or played on other devices.

However, it wasn't until the BBC introduced its streaming Flash version of the iPlayer content that things really took off. iPlayer downloads now make up a considerable proportion of all bandwidth used in the UK, something which is placing the ISPs under heavy load.

In March 2008, the BBC introduced a new version of the site which served videos in a format suitable for viewing on the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch over a wifi connection.

It's recently further updated this to add an interface that's better optimised for the devices. Basically, you can visit the site, click the programme of your choice and then have it streamed directly to you.

The snag is, you can't save the programmes to watch later on a Mac, Linux box, phone or MP4 player. Unless, that is, you know how...

The solution
Within days of the launch of the iPlayer service for the iPhone and iPod Touch, a number of developers had produced simple scripts allowing users to download DRM-free iPhone optimised movies to either keep on the computers or watch on their iPhone or iPod Touch while on the move.

Perhaps the most active of these projects has been the Ruby-powered iPlayer-dl project, which was started by Paul Battley.

Paul (and his blog's readers) have played cat and mouse with the BBC's developers by managing to alter iPlayer-dl and release updated versions every time the BBC try to tackle the issue of people downloading their content. 

Update: There's now a better solution to downloading content, including HD content, which is explained in detail here. 

 

Getting started

Since the iPlayer-dl scripts are based on Ruby, you'll need to install this first. Paul's site contains details on how to do this for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. If you're using a recent version of OS X you should find that Ruby is already installed.

If you don't have Ruby, you may be able to obtain it via your operating system's package management system (if you're using Linux, BSD or Solaris), or alternatively you can download it from www.ruby-lang.org.

How to install iPlayer-dl

You can grab the latest version of iPlayer-dl from here. Since the BBC has an IP filter running to prevent those outside the UK from using the service which British TV owners pay for through the TV licence, this won't work if you live anywhere else. 

 

Once you've download the compressed tar.gz file, extract it and open the Terminal application. Use the cd command to navigate into the iplayer-dl directory. 

To get things started you will first need to run the command ruby setup.rb config, which copies files to the correct directories on your machine. 

Once you've done that, you'll then need to run the installer using your superuser privileges. You can do this using the command ruby setup.rb install. You'll be prompted for your password after issuing this command. 

The iplayer-dl application, which runs entirely from the command line, should now be installed and ready to use. 

How to download DRM-free movies from iPlayer

The iPlayer-dl application needs to be provided with the URL of the page on iPlayer than contains the programme you want to download. Go to the BBC iPlayer site and find the programme you want to download. We went for the comedy panel show 'Would I lie to you?'.

Take note of the URL in the address bar of the browser and copy it into memory using Apple + C.

Open a Terminal window and cd into the bin directory containing the iplayer-dl script. 

 

To start the iplayer-dl ruby script, all you need to do is enter ./iplayer-dl URL (where URL is the full address of the page you got from the address bar of the iPlayer movie page). 

The movie should now start to download and should be with you in a few minutes, depending on your connection speed, of course. 

Click the movie and you should find that the .mov file opens up without any problems in Quicktime. If you're on another OS, VLC will play the movies without problems.

How to get iPlayer movies on your iPhone or iPod Touch

Getting the movies onto your iPhone or iPod Touch is very easy, as they're already in the correct format. Simply plug in your iPhone or iPod Touch and click the Movies button in the sidebar of iTunes. 

Then, open up the directory with the iPlayer movies in (this will normally be the place from where you ran the iplayer-dl script, so bin in our case), and then simply drag the files across onto iTunes. They'll automatically be copied to your device. 

You should now be able to watch iPlayer content anywhere you go.The quality of the movies is pretty good as they're optimised specifically for the screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch, so they're very watchable in this format. They don't look quite as great on a computer, but then you may as well use the streaming Flash version for that.

Published: TechPad.co.uk Wednesday 16 July 2008, 8:43 am
Views: 30,911 times
Filed under: BBC iPlayer iPhone Ruby iPlayer-dl

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