A new rage against the BBC and Flash

The BBC has closed its iPlayer site that allowed us to comment, question and complain about iPlayer,

But I have not forgotten one of the major complaints. The widespread use of Flash to distribute both sound and video. This is deeply embedded in the BBCs technology, and is deeply annoying for customers who have, rightly, turned they back on Flash and moved to the new open HTML 5 standard, 99% of users of which use H264 for video and AAC for audio. H264 by the way is a standard for video that is compatible across all platforms, it is used in mobile phones, tablets, digital TV, HD TV whereas Flash is closed an propriety and licensable if you want to use it...

Why not HTML5/H264 for all versions of the iPlayer?

I cannot for the life of me why the BBC clings to the old Flash implementations of iPlayer. On the iPad it is streaming H264, but try to access it on your PC and you get Flash, which if like me you do not have Flash installed, means that I cannot view iPlayer on my MacBook..

This is absurd. Maybe, just maybe, as they won't admit that this has been forced upon them by media companies scared of people copying programs, and re-distributing them on the Internet. But this is a silly argument, all programs are publicly broadcast, they can be recorded on DVRs and could then easily be transposed to H264 and put on the web. Moreover at least two companies (CatchupTV and FilmOn) are retransmitting live TV using iPad compatible video formats.

Another grouse. The BBC iPlayer app on the iPad does not allow video to be streamed to my TV via the small Apple TV box (which receives media by WiFi and outputs HDMI). Other companies regard this as a major advantage, to be able to offer their content on the Home TV (see TED and many others). In fact the stupidity is even worse, as my Sony TV has internet connectivity and a version of the BBC iPlayer on it, so I can get full screen viewing through this route, but why not from the iPad? The only problem is that my TV needs a wired Ethernet connection!! Not just WiFi. I object, no more wires!

The BBCs attitude just beggars belief, they have spent million on technology, but are way outside the trend. Time to catchup BBC.