The content on Virgin Media's own iPlayer service is nowhere near as comprehensive as the BBC's own service. We usually end up using the Wii to watch iPlayer through the telly, as the Virgin Media service seems to

a) only carry the shows that VM used to carry on its on-demand service before iPlayer

b) be its own-recorded shows, rather than pulling content from the BBC iPlayer network

c) have about 10% of what BBC iPlayer has

d) only carry every episode of Bargain Hunt, etc

so basically you're looking at a Virgin Media service that's just been labelled as the BBC iPlayer, probably to discourage people from using their Virgin Media pipes to access the content instead.

I am no longer a Sky customer, maybe things have changed. But when I tried Sky Player, you could only use it on one PC, and once you had registered that one PC, it required phone calls to Sky to de-register it and install it on a different PC. What a f@#king crock.

That's just Sky for you, I'm not even too sure why I'm with them any more, it used to be for Sky 1 but bar The Simpsons there's nothing on it any more, time for a Freesat HD box methinks.

iv not had much success with tthe iPlayer in general.

Having installed the internet channel on my Wii for the sole purpose of having access to iPlayer on my TV , i'v not been able to use it to watch any of the (available on PC) programs that i have wanted to watch, constantly being told that " this content is not currently available, please try again later".

And again recently trying to catch up on missed episodes, using the online player (on winXP), i found i was being interupted every couple of mins while the video appeared to be buffering. Overall not happy, but i guess you get what you pay for

Got a computer? Check

Got internet? Check

Use sky? Check

Got sky one, movies etc? check

Can I view what I already pay for? ermm nope, I have to pay another £10 a month for to watch what I already watch. Needless to say I am one of the 99.99999999% who signed up, found out it's an "alledged" scam and never bothered again.

"A version of iPlayer for the millions of Sky set-top boxes in UK homes would be a much more interesting development."

Indeed it would. After all, Sky are unable to offer a genuine on-demand system on their set-top boxes as they lack of suitable delivery mechanism.

(Remember that Sky's set-top "on demand" service uses the Sky+ hard drive and records stuff overnight, delivering a heavily restricted selection of content. The full BBC iPlayer output would be several times more than that puny hard-drive could handle.

So it would be an extremely interesting development if Sky were to develop some magical system that either:

A) allowed your box to contact the Sky satellite and compressed and multiplexed the content enough that one satellite could deal with thousands of concurrent single-user "broadcasts";

or

B) compressed the content enough to fit on the Sky+ box while still being of viewable quality.

Sky are a dinosaur -- broadcast technology is yesterday's world. Freeview and Freesat provide value for money because they're free, and we can get supplementary services elsewhere (eg pay-per-view video downloads). Sky can't provide supplementary services, but Virgin can -- say what you like about their basic services, but you can't deny that the size and flexibility of their on-demand catalogue beats anything on the market.

They should be stealing Sky's audience, but they're not. Instead, Sky's customers just turn to PirateBay.

All because of poor marketing (good stars, shame no-one remembers what they were talking about) and poor procurement (having more programmes less than 4 years old on-demand would help).

Shame.

I always wondered why (now that Sky is its own braodban provider) Sky don't just have an ethernet port on the back and provide on demand stuff that way.

...could get links into Sky and BBC. Oh, no, wait, they're depth-charging Kanga, and the BBC don't give a stuff.

Still, with their share price, not long before ITV get new owners who have (a) balls, (b) more aggressive lawyers and (c) actually know a thing or two about making entertainment. I for one will welcome the new mouse-eared overlords of the UK media industry.

Come to think of it - "Who's the leader of the gang that's great for you and me... M-I-C, K-E-Y, G-R-A-D-E..."

Mine's the one with "Not A Desperate High School Musical Ripoff, Honest" branding on it, available from all good stores...

24" monitor, wireless presentation keyboard / mouse combo, and I can watch any BBC program I wish. Plenty of decent British comedy, some good series (Series 3 of Heroes?! Amagad!) and a player I don't have to sign up to use or houses DRM.

That last point is the only reason I don't use 4oD; I disagree fundamentally with DRM. Told them as much, they said "Hey, don't care. Thanks." Oh well. Less adverts for me.

I use it and I like it for the movies, Especially since the true VOD was introduced. If only the entertainment section was free. Overall a thumbs up from me.

It used to be a pig to install, Especially on an XP Media Center pc. You had to install things like "service rollup 2", "media player 11" and countless other large updates before any success. Fortunately I think the actual package you download from SKY has improved over what it was last year. I think some updates are included.

Having to de/re-register after a reload is a pain but I guess they have little choice in the days of DRM.

Why is my licence fee being used to help that scum bag Murdoch and his manure satellite system.

we had a cross-platform system for all on-demands

The "parasitic media companies" are the boys and girls who actually commission and distribute the media for you to enjoy.

Or not enjoy.

It's up to you.

Nobody is forced to engage with any of it, but if you do then the creators and participants in that piece of media, whether it's music, TV, film, whatever, deserve a return on their investment.

Or you would have everyone work for nothing? Great idea...

Also love this "internet will make things free" bollocks, no explanation of how that mechanism might work, leaving the inference that theft and pirate distribution will do it (yeah, I do know about advertising).

There really is no such thing as a free lunch - someone eventually has to pay the bill, so the arguments about freeing content and against DRM are simply naive.

You want free "TV" content, see Youtube and their ilk.

Something with narrative, production values beyond camcorder, skilled direction, production, acting etc then you need to have those who expect to be paid for their work.

Glad I've sorted that one out, no need to thank me.