Nick Jackson

I’m sure you’ve all heard of podcasts - the ability to download audio or video snippets which a site publishes in an RSS feed. However, a lot of them are nothing more than a self-centred fool with a computer and a microphone yabbering on about stuff of little interest to the rest of the world (Much like this blog, but at least I have readers).

I have been known to subscribe to the BBC Radio 4 Comedy podcast for my weekly fix of current affairs comedy, but have never subscribed to someone just rambling on. Until today.

Stephen Fry’s podcast is a thoroughly pointless ramble, and an entertaining listen.

RSS links below for both podcasts, or whack the “iTunes” link to plug it straight into the wonderfully ubiquitous music player.

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 (iTunes)
Stephen Fry’s Podgram (iTunes)

It is with joy I report that the BBC have started transcoding iPlayer content for the iPhone/iPod Touch. What this means is that whenever I am hooked up through a WiFi hotspot, I can get hold of any of the BBC’s programmes which are stored on the iPlayer.

There are also some other interesting points raised. Firstly, the ’security’ mechanism behind this is that the BBC does some user-agent checking. Basically, anything which can pretend it is an iPhone (Or Touch) can get the iPhone video stream. It was possible to rip the Flash video stream the BBC was using before, but it was fairly low quality. However, the H.264 stream given to the iPhone is higher quality, hence higher quality rips which are ready to go on an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV.

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