The BBC has been doing a sterling job with its iPlayer making it available in all sorts of places. I had an opportunity to try out the Nintendo wii implementation over the weekend and I was pretty impressed.
To date all my iPlayer watching has been done on a computer of some description or another (or very occasionally on my iPhone). What was great about the wii was that I was able to hook it up to the TV and get access to programmes on the device they were originally intended for.
While the picture wasn’t broadcast quality it was certainly more than watchable and it was much, much better to be able to watch in the comfort of my front room rather than sat at my desk in front of the PC.
We have been intending to update our entertainment system in the lounge for a while now and I have been eyeing up media centre PCs that can hook up to a TV. Now a high priority on my list of requirements will be ensuring that anything we get can make use of the BBCs brilliant iPlayer.
Reading that back I realise that I sound like one of the people writing into Points of View in this Not the Nine o’clock News sketch – “I would willingly sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC”. I’m not sure I would go quite that far but they are great!