[LINK] iView outpaces iTunes

[Karl Auer]

On Mon, 2012-02-20 at 09:47 +1100, Jan Whitaker wrote:
> The survey of more than 1000 Australians found that 32 per cent of 
> those who watched streamed or downloaded content did so via iView, 
> the ABC's catch-up video service, which is available on computer, on 
> TV via gaming consoles and on mobile devices.

Living as we do without free-to-air or pay TV (by choice) we do however
use IView extensively. It's amazing how being able to choose what you
watch and when *reduces* how much you watch; and you end up, of course,
only watching what you actually enjoy.

It had irritated me for a while that IView actively tries to prevent the
capture of their video streams. It wasn't enough to spur me to action
though, until a few weeks ago, when I finally got and installed
python-iview, which lets me display everything IView has to offer, and
selectively download it for later viewing.

No more dealing with IView's idiosyncratic categorisations - why should
I know or care whether a program is on ABC1, ABC2 or ABC3? And of course
I can watch a program again and again, even after it has timed out of
IView. And I don't have to download the multitude pf presentation
elements like thumbnails, that IView otherwise insists I get.

The other irritation with IView is that they use flash cookies to
remember what you have seen so they can show you what's new. Ordinary,
easily controllable HTTP cookies would have done the job just fine, but
no, they went for the invasive, hard-to-stop variety. Have to wonder if
they even thought about it before they did it. I've stopped that by
changing the permissions on the flash storage directories, but I
shouldn't have had to. With python-iview, it's not an issue.

I'm sure there are Windows and Mac equivalents.

Regards, K.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer

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