The BBC has confirmed changes that will affect all iPlayer users, improving the speed between live broadcasts and the iPlayer.
- You’ll be able to watch programmes sooner on-demand after they’ve been shown on live TV.
- The delay between live broadcasts on platforms including Freeview and Sky and the iPlayer has been cut.
Henry Webster, the BBC’s Head of Product, Media Services, confirmed the team has been working on ‘under the hood’ changes to the BBC iPlayer this summer that will speed up the availability of programmes on the service. Both live and on-demand users will benefit.
A new solution has been devised to cut the time between a programme ending on live TV and becoming available on the iPlayer. Previously, there was a significant delay, with the longest programmes like Strictly Come Dancing facing the biggest delays.
Explaining the change, Webster said the BBC would reuse live segments of video from the live stream to created a temporary on-demand video instead. This will be published as soon as the programme has ended, allowing viewers who have just missed the programme to watch on-demand more quickly.
But the increased speed of availability on the BBC iPlayer will come at a price. The temporary copy of the programme from the live stream won’t share the same high quality as other on-demand programmes. However, once the high quality on-demand copy is processed, it will automatically replace the temporary file on the iPlayer.
Reducing latency
Webster explained that until now, “viewers watching live streams may have found they were lagging about 80 – 120 seconds behind the TV broadcast. This lag is built in to all live-streamed video on all streamers, to ensure viewers aren’t interrupted when they’re watching a live stream.”
This meant for example, that Freeview viewers watching live football on the BBC might see a goal up to two minutes before someone watching through the iPlayer.
Webster confirmed that “thanks to some upgrades we’ve made, we’ve been able to reduce this lag by 20 seconds, meaning viewers will now typically only be around 60 seconds behind the TV broadcast.”
He confirmed the BBC, working with colleagues in the R&D department are continue to work on further improvements. This will include developments to reduce the 60 second lag even further.
Marc Thornham