BBC Iplayer comes to Android phones

THE BBC has tweaked its Iplayer video streaming software to work on smartphones running Android 2.2.

With the latest version of Google's Linux based Android operating system supporting Adobe's Flash player, the scene was set for web based video streaming services such as Iplayer to appear on smartphones. However, as we noted in our review of Android 2.2, our previous experience with Iplayer playback was painful, with audio and visual artefacts galore.

Thankfully the technical team at the BBC has managed to work things out and now playback is nearly perfect. We tested the service using a Nexus One and both audio and video were very acceptable with full screen playback not even suffering from letterboxing.

Playing back the last night of Glastonbury, we were impressed with the audio quality and even the frame rate when watching close-ups of guitar solos. Clearly the 1GHz Snapdragon processor has little problem handling the extra load put on it by the Flash player, as we were able to switch seamlessly between browser windows playing videos on either.

The BBC has put up a list of devices that can access Iplayer, though it does not include newer Android devices such as the Nexus One. However The INQUIRER can confirm that those wanting to watch the BBC's Iplayer through their Nexus One can do so, if Android 2.2 and Flash player are installed.

There's no doubt that Adobe's Flash software does use phone resources such as processor time and battery life, however it is equally as evident that the Snapdragon chip is more than up to the task of playing back video. µ