ITV.com Streaming catchup service

[moeFinley]

I wanted to use the ITV streaming service but it seems if you're not using IE it wants you to use Silverlight instead of Flash?!!? The weirdest choice by ITV. Setup a Flash video service but only let IE users use it!??!?

Anyway I installed a user agent switcher for Firefox which seemed to get me the Flash pages but nothing starts playing. Has anyone else had more luck, maybe with a different browser to Firefox?

[ibutho]

I've tried the cath up service with Firefox 3.x, Konqueror and Opera. I couldn't get it to work at all.

[moeFinley]

Did you switch your user agent with each of those?

[notoriousdbp]

Doesn't the catchup service use DRM making it difficult for us Linux users to use it?

[SuperSon!c]

are you guys able to see the F1 races on ITV otherwise?

[mstephens]

ITV.com streaming is basically no go area unless you are using MS Windows. As already observed, non IE users need Silverlight but Moonlight doesn't seem to work.

I tried installing IE under Wine and eventually managed to get WMP9 working - but the moment you try to access anything on ITV.com, it wants the extra DRM stuff and everything falls over.

[miggols99]

Well I complained to them and this is what they said:


Dear Viewer,

Thank you for your email.

We are striving hard to give you choices when it comes to watching video on itv.com. At present we have no plans to introduce Linux, however it is something we are thinking about implementing in the future. Your request has been noted and passed onto the department.

Kind regards,

Broadband Help

So we'll have to wait a while for it to work for us..bah stupid MS Silverlight...

[mstephens]

I should have mentioned that last year, BBC ITV and C4 agreed to work together to produce a common player which I hope would be based on the BBC Flash version. No idea about timescales though so it may be quite a wait.

[ibutho]

Well I complained to them and this is what they said:



So we'll have to wait a while for it to work for us..bah stupid MS Silverlight...
We should probably have a petition similar to that of the iplayer. ;)

[swisstone]

Yes it does not work, sends you t a crappy micro$oft shi**y site for candlights or something.. I too have posted a very negative complaint to ITV and suggest everyone does! It is stupid that a large company turns a blind eye on many thousand loyal customers just to support some sort of microsoft plug in that forces the end user to stay with a bug ridden glitchy unstable blue-screen-of-death OS!

The more people that complain the sooner they will consider change....

oh well... thats my rant over...

ttfn:lolflag:

[Raistlin82]

I too have just emailed ITV and encourage everyone else to do so!


"EDIT" the generic reply from ITV:

Dear ITV.com Viewer,

Thank you for your feedback.
We are recording all feedback and taking action based on users’ comments.
However, due to high volumes, we cannot reply to every piece of feedback.
Should we need more specific information to address your comment, we will contact you within 72 hours.
Best wishes,

ITV Broadband Support

[wanderjahre]

I got the same message, basically 'we can't be bothered to do more than install some Microsoft stuff.' Not sure about the DRM issue but the Beeb seem to have managed to get their stuff onto Firefox without too much fuss and bother. I am surprised that ITV are willing to dump the advertising potential. Not impressed at all! :(

[albertramsbottom]

I have just left this meesage in another post

I have just found a iplayer help site and after having a closer look it seesm to be about all the catch up services

http://www.beebiplayer.co.uk

Hope that helps

[fluteflute]

Remember the new join player (Kangaroo) will not be free.

Moonlight does not currently support video content.

[orrc]

I got annoyed with having to install Silverlight (and it not working) and with the general uselessness of the ITV Catch Up service.

So I wrote a Firefox add-on! :)

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/8202/

Hopefully it's of some use to a few people out there...

[Raistlin82]

I got annoyed with having to install Silverlight (and it not working) and with the general uselessness of the ITV Catch Up service.

So I wrote a Firefox add-on! :)

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/8202/

Hopefully it's of some use to a few people out there...

Hi there, I want to try this out, unfortunately every time I try to register it tells me Invalid captcha, please try again! I know I am entering them correctly... any suggestions?

Edit- I got it installed from http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/ but i cant seem to play stuff from itv, i get the first 3 seconds (according to the bar at the bottom) but in reality i get a still shot, and then if anything happens its the screen going blue :-( Am running hardy if that makes any difference

3rd Edit LOL turns out it was a problem at itv's end, i can now watch the cath up stuff! Thanks!! Now all we need is ITV to sort it out so we can watch almost live stuff!

[ice60]

this is off topic, but channel 5 has a catchup online thing too, has anyone tried it?

[oimon]

orrc

why did ITV make you remove the plugin? looks like i saw the page too late :(
i was trying to watch a programme the other night but found i needed a microsoft OS. how ridiculous! don't they realise there's a whole army of UMPC laptop owners out there running Linux ?

fortunately i rarely watch programmes on itv, but it would be nice to have the plugin to hand.

[Clockmender]

I wanted to use the ITV streaming service but it seems if you're not using IE it wants you to use Silverlight instead of Flash?!!? The weirdest choice by ITV. Setup a Flash video service but only let IE users use it!??!?

Anyway I installed a user agent switcher for Firefox which seemed to get me the Flash pages but nothing starts playing. Has anyone else had more luck, maybe with a different browser to Firefox?

I too have tried in vain to stream/download ITV programmes and have given up. The BBC seem to have things sorted - have you tried their iPlayer Desktop? - marvellous! and you can download programmess to watch later - I took a 1 hour programme in just 7 mins. ITV should take note. I am also sorry to hear the joint venture Kangaroo has been blocked by the competition commission after bleating from Sky and Virgin - shame on you. I have decided to buy a HDD Freeview recorder instead for the odd occasion when there is something good on ITV or to download programmes from the web via bitTorrent. I should like to know if anyone has worked out how to skip the endless adverts on commercial TV - email me if you know how or know of a very good Freeview HDD box, I am thinking of Humax PVR9300T.

Thanks from a new user who finally flipped with Vista on his Sony Vaio and loaded a proper working OS - namely Ubuntu.

Clock :mrgreen:

[Naiki Muliaina]

this is off topic, but channel 5 has a catchup online thing too, has anyone tried it?

It appears to use flash. But doesnt want to play with me. Choosing to watch the free programs. It plays 2 commercials, which it spends more than necessary amounts of time buffering then stops at the end of the second commercial and says 'there has been a problem playing this video' and stops.

Bugger... ^^

[directhex]

ITV Catchup is a funny one.

Possibly the most frustrating part - I cornered a Moonlight developer & convinced them to make fixing the site a priority... but ITV had switched from the "works fine in Linux" SL1.0 to the "doesn't work yet" SL2.0 in the time between me opening a bug and it being acted upon

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=434461

Generally speaking... If software doesn't do what you expect (e.g. Moonlight doesn't work on a SL site), have you considered... filing a bug?

[The Judderman]

Edit- I got it installed from http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/
3rd Edit LOL turns out it was a problem at itv's end, i can now watch the cath up stuff! Thanks!! Now all we need is ITV to sort it out so we can watch almost live stuff!

that plugin works great with me on 8.10. Thanks for that!

The Judderman

[beercz]

that plugin works great with me on 8.10. Thanks for that!

The Judderman
Not for me :-(

[t0p]

I got annoyed with having to install Silverlight (and it not working) and with the general uselessness of the ITV Catch Up service.

So I wrote a Firefox add-on! :)

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/8202/

Hopefully it's of some use to a few people out there...

orrc, thanks!! ITV online at last!

[beercz]

I got annoyed with having to install Silverlight (and it not working) and with the general uselessness of the ITV Catch Up service.

So I wrote a Firefox add-on! :)

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/8202/

Hopefully it's of some use to a few people out there...
I get add-on not found.

[egglestn]

I think it is available here (http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/) http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/

[JohnJackson]

I think it is available here (http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/) http://chris.orr.me.uk/caughtup/

This works great for me!

[DanielRigal]

For those who still can't get it working, or who prefer a different browser, it might be worth knowing that STV.com's player still uses Flash and works fine on Linux. I think it requires Flash 10. STV has most of the networked programmes from ITV1 but it is no use if you want ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, or something that was not shown in Scotland.

The addon is really cool, and it works fine, but I think that, when you have the choice, it is best to use STV so that they get the advertising revenue not ITV. It appeals to my sense of justice.

[Blood//Stain//Child]

This worked for me about a week ago, but I had to use the 'User Switcher Agent' with an agent that gave the site the impression that I was using Firefox 3.0.11 under Windows XP.
Otherwise it just crashed the browser.

[Jamesib4172]

For those who still can't get it working, or who prefer a different browser, it might be worth knowing that STV.com's player still uses Flash and works fine on Linux. I think it requires Flash 10. STV has most of the networked programmes from ITV1 but it is no use if you want ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, or something that was not shown in Scotland.

The addon is really cool, and it works fine, but I think that, when you have the choice, it is best to use STV so that they get the advertising revenue not ITV. It appeals to my sense of justice.

I installed flash player and it worked fine

[Jamesib4172]

I wanted to use the ITV streaming service but it seems if you're not using IE it wants you to use Silverlight instead of Flash?!!? The weirdest choice by ITV. Setup a Flash video service but only let IE users use it!??!?

Anyway I installed a user agent switcher for Firefox which seemed to get me the Flash pages but nothing starts playing. Has anyone else had more luck, maybe with a different browser to Firefox?

just install flash player and you should be good to go.

[ice60]

I installed flash player and it worked fine

this is an old thread, things have probably changed since then haven't they? i remember at least a couple of streaming sites made their sites easier to use.

it has been rebranded too to ITV Player
http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/

[Xbehave]

this is an old thread, things have probably changed since then haven't they? i remember at least a couple of streaming sites made their sites easier to use.

it has been rebranded too to ITV Player
http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/
Yeah it switched to flash in late 2009, ofc now the only problem is finding something worth watching on ITV

[ice60]

Yeah it switched to flash in late 2009, ofc now the only problem is finding something worth watching on ITV
lol i was thinking that too. i've never even used that site. the channel 4 OD site is a bit better and iplayer is ok too. also, some things are on youtube now too -
http://www.youtube.com/shows
http://www.youtube.com/demandfive
http://www.youtube.com/4OD

http://www.youtube.com/show/baywatch :P