iPlayer Downloader for Mac4.2

iPlayer Downloader phones home to Google Analytics. The only reason to do so to my knowledge is to allow Google surveillance of my computer behavior. If your app is going to surveil my computer use, then ASK MY PERMISSION FIRST, DAMMIT. I have used my reverse firewall Little Snitch to deny iPlayer Downloader access to Google Analytics forever. I suggest other folks with reverse firewalls consider doing the same.

When it worked... This and iPlayer Grabber both worked very well though I liked iPlayer Downloader a bit better. Grabber is now abandoned (though open source) and I get the same errors everyone else is reporting. :-( However, the "Get iPlayer Automator" someone else mentioned worked perfectly! If iPlayer Grabber gets updated and can again work with the BBC, I'll switch back as I like the interface better.

Mirror for iPlayer Downloader 4.2 http://ifile.it/k9mt4vg .

I have been able to download Doctor Who episodes from season 6 using iPlayer, though it has not been without frustration. Downloads will occasionally completely fail, however, if I wait a couple days, the download will be successful. The quality of the downloads has varied from near HQ to very poor with many visual artifacts. I have simply tried again and been successful occasionally on downloading the second time. Though there are frustrations, I am in the USA, not the UK, so I will not complain much at all. I love being able to watch my favorite science fiction show, Doctor Who, without waiting for months to a year for them to become available here in the States. Thank you, iPlayer.

Unfortunately it doesn't work anymore! Really liked it!

Only just downloaded this, but my initial impression is very positive. Downloaded an hour-long programme at the maximum speed our rural exchange can reach - much faster than iPlayer Desktop - and it the resulting mp4 file plays with no hiccup.

Just doesn't work any more. I'm guessing that the BBC have updated their security to stop this software from working. It used to work and I loved it, was a great bit of software. Meant I didn't have to rush to watch programs before they expire.

Guys - I would really, really like to continue downloading Radio 4 programmes .... (don't judge me) - but this software just wont do it any more, or is it my operator error? Please advise - I have loved this app and want it to keep delivering, thanks

Really happy with this, but i just have one problem. I only use it to listen to radio shows. I have downloaded the .aac file, but i can not add the file to itunes. I changed the file to a .m4a and i still am unable to add the file to itunes. PLease help, am i doing something wrong?

This product is Great, with a few minor phobias. I have been using it for well over six month and it has gone from strength to strength. Some have found it now download FLV fils-yes but once downloaded they are coverted to MP4. It even now downloads higher quality files so it is almost HD download. Takes a while. The minor One majoe) hickup. It occasionally stops downloading for no obvious reason. You are left with the FLV files. I found that if you down load again it continues on from where it stopped and completes with the Mp4 file when complete. Two problems 1. I started a down load and it stopped and will not download again-DESERTS. 2. If yiou start too many conseq downloads it nearly always fails on some which require re-downloading...

In short this no longer works and will not work for anybody unless the underlying technology is changed or updated. The long version. This software is a wrapper around Paul Battley's iplayer-dl script. That stopped working this week (12/12/10) because the BBC now requires a valid encryption key from approved devices only (i.e. iPhones and iPads). Since Paul has not as yet updated his software (and it may not even be possible to circumvent the protection) his script will no longer work for the foreseeable future. Other downloaders that don't employ Paul's script *may* still work if they scrape the stream straight from the Flash player but not this one. It seems odd that I was only notified of this app update today (16/12/10) when the developer should have realised his app could no longer possibly work since 12/12. I hope no-one has paid any money over before checking that this actually works. I'm being forced to give star ratings now so I'm giving 2.5 across the board because it's not the developer's fault, or Paul Battley's fault that this no longer works. It's the fault of the BBC. Although I think it was disingenuous of the developer to release an update to a program that can not possibly function.

Two questions: 1. Will it work in Europe/Germany? 2. Can you watch Top Gear episodes with it?

I just had to switch the download folder, but when I go into prefs I am unable to select a new location for downloads. Has anyone else experienced this?

Hint: Search the author's website....... ;-)

Trouble, the app started to work again for me for a while, but now when I click on a program to download it, the progress bar appears and then nothing else. Can anyone help? Snow Leopard- MacBook Pro - Intel Duo

I recommended this great little app to a friend but unfortunately the download link doesn't work anymore.

Working fine for me. The best iPlayer downloader for he Mac. Any chance of making it work for 4OD too?

Does anyone know why this app won't work with a T-Mobile broadband dongle? Whenever I try to download audio or video I just get the error blip/beep and nothing happens.

Unfortunately it looks like the spoil sports at Beeb have scuppered it again. I'm getting errors that it's unable to download content. Tried iPlayer Grabber and another app just to see if it was the same there, and so it was. FWIW - I was trying to download this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00r8z1n/Iron_Maiden_Live_in_Concert/ Love this app - Beautifully put together and just so simple, yet effective; hoping a workaround evolves soon as I rely on it while I am out of the country to watch stuff where I don't want a time limit on it or have DRM. M

Don't know what I'm doing wrong, but for me, every file it downloads, I can't open in anything. Quicktime X, 7, VLC, nothing will open the resulting .MOV files. Anyone able to help?

Yet again, truly terrific. One bows in homage to your excellent app.

Ever since the iPlayer was updated, I haven't been able to play iPlayer on my PowerPC. This application solved the problem! Thank you for providing it for us!

Unfortunately Auntie appears to have foiled the most recent rework! We're back to we were. Downloads of 0 kb as of this afternoon.

Simply awesome, really easy to use literally navigate to the show you want and download away :). I really don't think this could have been made any easier!

v3.5 works fine for me for downloading - but the download progress bar/alert is broken in this version, so it appears as though nothing is happening unless you have other means to see that download activity is taking place.

It seems to be broken again. It happened a while back where it just downloads a 0kb file to the desktop :(

This is a great app. Not having an Intel processor I rely on this to access BBC iPlayer TV. Unfortunately, on this occasion the rework doesn't (work). It simply doesn't download.

For some reason this doesn't appear to be working for me. I can download the application, but every time I try to open it, it quits before it's even started. I'm in the UK so that's not a problem, How can I fix this?

For whatever reason, I cannot download anything from here. I set my firewall to allow any transmission from the app, but still won't do anything. Weird. Has some cool potential, unfortunately just doesn't work.

As always, an utterly brilliant and essential access to the iPlayer for those of us who haven't an Intel processor (iBook G4). Terrific stuff, guys.

Application itself downloads OK, but the BBC programs cannot on OSX 10.6, Intel dual core.

I have been using this great app for some time now. I have certain programs that would not download sometimes, but overall very happy with it. I have recently, since upgrading to Snow Leopard not been able to download anything at all. I just get an empty file on my desktop. Any help would be great, as I miss being able to use this wonderful app Thanks

Used to work fine, but I've been trying to download some content for the past 24 hours. Although it puts the icon of the downloaded file on my desktop, the download wont start. I get a Growl notification saying "The requested programme could not be downloaded". After a couple of attempts, the application freezes and has to be force-quitted. This has happened before. Hopefully the developer can get it fixed again. I believe it is something the BBC keep changing and iPlayer Downloader is then unable to find or download the requested files.

Some Radio 3 downloads result in an immediate zero byte mp3 file. Any idea why most work but some don't. E.g. In Tune 25.08.09?

simple, easy to use and allows for multiple downloads. I use this mainly for BBC Radio and it's been a godsend. However about a week ago, the app started to crash when I was browsing the various sites (click on Radio7 logo for instance, or TV channels tab). The screen would partially fill, and then it would crash and i'd get the 'ignore, restart or reset' window that apple apps get. Kind of like crash reporter. No matter what I did, I'd get the front page ok but after that any page i tried to browse to would crash the app. I tried to delete the cache this thing stores and the plist entries made no difference. In the end I just restored a back up from Time machine of the app itself (overwrote the original) and it all worked swimmingly for a couple of days, then the problem starts again. It's as if it is struggling to load the pictures and that causes the crash of the app. I can't pinpoint any reason for this, no updates have been installed (Im on all the latest and greatest on 10.5.8), so its a bit frustrating. I guess next stop when it happens again is to look at the crash reporter and see if I can figure it out. Anyone else getting this behaviour? PS Otherwise a really, really, really good app. Thanks.

Works Very Well Thank You! I'm having a blast watching BBC shows at my convenience. While I find little worth watching on U.S. television, it seems like there is far too much good programming on the BBC for the time that I have available. Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword is a riot! There ARE some issues with some programs that can't be downloaded, like the Best of Chewing the Fat. They start... then end leaving a zero byte file and a message that it couldn't be downloaded. I second the request for an ITV Player version as well, though it'll probably be more difficult as it appears that they use Microsoft's Silverlight. For those who don't seem to understand otherwise, the U.K. Resident thing isn't a limitation of this program, just has the Hulu Desktop Viewer limitation to U.S. Resident's isn't a limitation of the desktop viewer. It is a restriction put in place at the servers themselves. The BBC (and ITV as well) have restricted the use of their services to U.K. Residents. Hulu.com has done the same with their service but reserving it for U.S. Residents. As the author alludes, there ARE easy ways around it. All you need is a U.K. IP address. How you get it is your business and you're probably breaking the terms of service of the BBC web services. That said, version 3.3 is working just fine for me here in the U.S. One thing to remember as well... that free UK Proxy service you found... is it legitimate? Or is it run by a couple of teen hackers in their basement while they snag your personal data?

Naughty "Auntie" appears to have blocked your latest version! No doubt you find a way around this... as you have done so in the past. Power to your elbow, dear sir!

The brilliant developers failed to mention that you must be in the UK for this app to work.

An excellent application that allows downloads of most programmes from the BBC iPlayer site. Updated regularly it means you can choose when to watch and not have to worry if radio of TV programmes are going to be available in the future.

this bit of kit is exactly what i needed, tried using wm capture for windows at work with absolutely zero success. this baby made it look easy, none of your real-time messing about just download what i want quickly. outstanding!

Terrific stuff. Keep kicking Auntie. She deserves it! Donation in support on its way.

Hi, I'm running OSX 10.5.6 on an intel mac mini. I live abroad but I use a UK proxy server that requires a sign in and password (I pay for it so I dont have to keep finding new open ones, it doesn't cost much) to access iPlayer. Programs stream fine as I can enter the password & username in the prefs in my browser, but I want to download stuff to use on my iPhone. I have entered my proxy settings in prefs, but it doesn't work. The proxy service I use is the 'evaded network'I can't find any open UK proxys to try it out without using my paid for proxy (as I think that this is probably the problem?) any ideas of a workaround? Cheers.

I too need to use a proxy however I cannot get the downloads working. What format do the proxy details need to be placed? I did 00.000.000.00:00000 Is this correct. If so it doesn't seem to work for me. I get the following feedback "The requested program could not be downloaded" which is exactly what I get when trying to use the iPlayer website using a proxy. Any ideas would be gratefully received.

If you had problems with the previous version please try the new one - it solves a lot of problems, notably to do with the installation, that people were having.

Never got this to work, system.log is full of these. 20/12/2008 00:23:39 [0x0-0x295295].com.skyboxstudios.iPlayer_Downloader[31228] iPlayer Downloader(31228,0xb0103000) malloc: free_garbage: garbage ptr = 0x103e3c0, has non-zero refcount = 1 20/12/2008 00:24:09 iPlayer Downloader[31228] *** -[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:]: index (1) beyond bounds (1) looks like you have a pointer reference to an object that is trying to be garbage collected...

I was having some problems earlier as well - I think the BBC have messed something up again. Give it a day or so and try again, it'll work again shortly, it's happened before ^_^

Great app! I wish I was in the UK and didn't have to bother with the proxy-settings. But I found one and am downloading a movie right now. So it seems to work...

Does exactly what it says it does. Excellent. Now where's a kitten to kick?

Update : I deleted the prefs file (which I hadn't done when I installed V3 originally) and the V3 app, reinstalled the V£ app and went to download one of the 'failed' recordings again. The progress bar started at 94% (?) and continued to 100% and now the download plays correctly. I'll try installing Growl and see if that gives me any more information.

It did show the progress bar and it took a while to download File is about 200MB for an hour long show. I've since tried another iPlayer downloader and got exactly the same results with that and given the message posted later than mine it seems likely the beeb have changed something again. I don't usually install Growl so I ticked the box to say don't remind me to do so. Is there any way I can reverse that? Jon

Just tried 3.0 and get the growl message "The requested programme could not be downloaded". Tried all kinds of old shows and new ones. Just letting you know...

Doesn't seem to work at all for me. Seems to download the file correctly, but quicktime player says "The movie could not be opened. The file is not a movie file". Tried a few things, always the same. I have quicktime pro 7.5.5 installed. Jon

Fixed a lot of issues in our new version, please try it before passing judgement :-) Last but not least: It's free, don't get mad if it breaks.

Superb! But be aware that it only works with the mobile iPlayer listings & these are different to the listings as they appear in your browser. Use Firefox with User Agent Switcher set to an iPhone profile to view items available to download.

tell a lie, it does work. it is a bit temperamental, you just have to keep trying the link now and again. one day it works the next it does not.

it still works but only on certain iplayer programs.

Downloads all now end 'failed' or just unplayable. ( VLC Player or Quicktime ) It started off OK. Last week I was able to download fine. But today every attempt fails. Maybe the BBC are not happy with Mac users being able to download their content ? Pity as this was great to be able to download and watch later, kind of a 'one-off' tool. If anyone else knows a way to cache BBC iPlayer material I would be grateful for a heads up on it.

At first I could not get the iPlayer Downloader to do anything, but after some discussion with the developer, it now performs like a charm. I was impressed that he would take so much effort to get it working for me. Thanks for a useful tool.

Great program! Works very reliably for me. Two requests: 1) It would be great if you could queue up more than one download. 2) It would be great if the program added the new files directly into the iTunes library (or at least make this an option). That way I could wake up, go to iplayer - select the progs I want, go have a shower, brekkie, come back and sync the files directly into my iphone.

Hi Lawrence, Thanks for the quick response. Solid as a rock on my MacBook Pro running 10.55. There's beer for you!

Very nice. Just testing the radio show feature now. Had a minor issue where I had to run the installer twice to get it to show in Applications. Thanks.

I wish this app could let me download from aboard, as I travel a lot. I get stuck in hotel with French TV!!!!!! I wish this was possible?

Great stuff! Allows me to watch BBC programmes whenever I want. Would be perfect if it could download high quality versions of the programmes and an ability for multiple downloads.

Same here. Downloads and installs version 2.0.

Installer yields v2.0!

Great App well done for creating it but I just wondered that because the normal quality of programs streamed on iPlayer isn't very good, is it possibly you could add an option in to download the high quality version as this is a feature BBC have added to each programme page, it just requires a faster connection and is much better quality?

Nope, sorry, it doesn't and probably will not work on Tiger. First off, tiger has a different ruby structure that means the underlying script doesn't always work so great on Ruby. Secondly, and more importantly, it was written for 10.5 with Garbage Collection turned on. it would take a complete code-rewrite to work under Tiger, with memory allocation being done manually, something I'm not altogether good at; I am sorry about this, but I'm afraid whilst Tiger and Leopard look very similar from a user point of view, Apple did a HUGE amount of changes under the hood, making it a lot easier to write apps for 10.5, and I'm afraid you're gonna find a lot of developers will not support Tiger now. I'll have a look into doing a Tiger version, but I honestly doubt it'll happen.

So I got confused right here... did you say it worked on Tiger or not? Cause it sure doesn't where I'm at. Keep us updated here on MU! That app looks pretty nifty from the distance. Thank you very much.

An amazingly useful application. Brilliant to use. A triumph

What an excellent little application, well done! One of the few reasons I needed to install windows on my Macbook was for the use of the BBC's iplayer service which is excellent to catch up with events over the past 7 days. A must have for travellers or people who frequently work away from home. I am running leopard on my 2.2Ghz MacBook with 1 Gigabyte of RAM. I downloaded the application and double clicked on the file to install then found the app in my applications folder. You are advised to have the bbc iplayer page open on the program you want to download. I searched for Jonathon Ross and had the BBC iplayer focused on the first episode of the new series (picture of Kelly Brook), displaying the message click to play. I then clicked ok on the BBC iPlayer Downloader application and it worked away in the background until a message appeared a good while later telling me the file had been saved to my desktop. I opened iTunes and clicked add to libary and located the file. It works! picture quality is not HD but that is the same quality as the BBC's own iplayer. legally you will have to delete the files after 30 days to keep in line with the BBC's own policy. The BBC's iplayer automatically deletes files over 30 days, however this will have to be done by yourself. The app does not at present have a way to indicate what stage your download progress is at you just have to be patient. However this is an excellent effort...

Sorry about that - the URL hasn't changed and I didn't want to spam. I'll remember to update here when I've updated my files in future. I have submitted an update now. Cheers!

I've just updated the file up on my website - it'll install on Tiger now. I have no idea if it'll run though but it might do. Can you let me know please so I can update the requirements? Cheers!

Any chance of a version for Tiger please?