Ah Jay! - It is working here . . . maybe they DO slap on a country/region copyright?

Hold on . . .That IS the openning still for clicking on. Can't you click on it, or download their iPlayer Manager?

Dang! I really wanted YOU to see it!!!!

Grazie

"Can't you click on it, or download their iPlayer Manager?"

Tried clicking--nada!

How do I download their iPlayer Manager?

The overlay says:
"Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only, but all BBC iPlayer Radio programmes are available to you. Why?

If you are in the UK and see this message please read this advice.

Go to Radio channels home page"

Still Grazie, great service. We should all have aunts like that.

Okay, I clicked on:

"Horizon: 2009-2010: Who's Afraid of a Big Black Hole" beneath the control bar. This is what I got:

"Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only, but all BBC iPlayer Radio programmes are available to you. Why?

"If you are in the UK and see this message please read this advice.

Go to Radio channels home page."

Guess we Yanks lose!

Now, about my refund...?

Ah well, there you have it then:

"If you are in the UK and see this message please read this advice. "

Thanks Torsie . . ..

The Grazing Man

Your refund? I suppose Jay, it really MUST have gone into that BIG Black hole . .

Grazie

That's the story of my life!

No luck in Canada either.
Do you I think I should track down Prince Charles who's on tour in our country somewhere and ask him what's going on?
:-)

Mike

PC? Wouldn't hurt?

Grazie can pull a few strings at the BBC. He used to feature in a interlude they used to show.

Let me see know...

I think it was called "The Potters Wheel" ;~)

Alan

Edit: http://www.whirligig-tv.co.uk/tv/history/interludes.htmThe Potters Wheel[/link]

Having watched Horizon since the 70's, they used to be brilliant and very informative in a technical easy to understand.

They then went arty and all visuals with no substance.

This weeks was a bit a bit better, still with those random shots were they have no idea what to show when a person is talking, but still lacking that, we better not to to deep and scare people off.

The science series earlier this year on Time was very good, that stuff seems to be on BBC4

Fortunately in Oz we get just about every quality BBC production shown on our free to air Auntie - the ABC ... in time, so I'll look forward to this one.

Meantime, an Australian/Canadian 3 part production - Darwin's Brave New World - starts tomorrow - looks wonderful.

I just finished watching it. Very good but I was waiting for them to introduce string theory.

It's um, pretty easy to get even if you're outside the UK :)
I've seen local broadcaster advertise programs as going to air faster than you can download them from the USA. Hard to imagine the Beeb doesn't realise this. On the other hand getting it the way I did saves the BBC's bandwidth. Interesting situation.

Bob.

I'm glad you were able to see it Bob.

It was the "appropriate" use of the very odd off-centre dark areas to counter-illuminate the speakers that, not only was it gorgeous to see but (and this is the nod to the "other" thread here about shallow DoF) this added to that whole Black Hole theme/narrative AND at the same time made the journey/process of the maths mysterious and needing much reflection.

Arty - yes it was. Insightful? Yes I found it both "illuminating" ( the clash of Quantum and General relativity) and the reactions of the boffins quite disarming too. I really got the feeling of the wondrousness of the subject acting on the mathematicians physicists, with an almost child-like appreciation of their subject. For me this WAS an episode of "Horizon" that underlined the reason just WHY these programs are held in such high esteem. Sometimes it is just necessary to ponder and wonder.

I still wish Jay to see it!

Grazie

Talking of what a weird and wonderful place we're in when looked at closely:

Would like to see this!

But don't get too happy with Quantum Physicists, they recently received a serious blow to the "big model" of particles on the universe model. Using deep space and high orbit satellites, a star that was 12.5 billion light years away has been observed dieing in a black hole way. a wide range of high energy waves was observing starting and ending, over a 10 second period as the star exploded. The waves arrived, regardless of energy, at the same time............ which Quantum theory argues that should not occur over vast distance because....etc... But Einstein's prediction the light speed is absolute regardless of energy and distance wins again similar to his gravity and space theory. string theory takes a step forward a year or two, then loses it big in the big picture, Einstein just won't roll over on the big picture; which now hints that quantum needs a new sub atomic model that can expand upward correctly. They have to "clean" they eyepieces that they use to view their model----------- humor-quantum humor.. ;-)

> maybe they DO slap on a country/region copyright

It's not a copyright thing particularly, but availability is restricted on a national basis.

"Due to the unique way the BBC is funded", as they used to say, the Beeb's output is deemed to have already been paid for by anyone in the UK, via the TV License Fee. Because of this anyone in the UK can see the stuff on the BBC iPlayer for free. And because there is no mechanism for charging anyone outside the UK, they are required by HMG to prevent anyone outside the UK from viewing it.

They don't adopt any very precise measures to achieve this, they just do it by IP address - if your IP address is in a block assigned by an ISP (or whatever) which is based in the UK you get access; if your IP address is in a block that is managed by an overseas entity then you don't. This is a simple approach which satisfies HMG, but it has the benefit that anyone from overseas who knows how it works can get round it pretty easily - they just have to view the BBC iPlayer via a proxy in the UK. There are usually a few free proxies operating, though they tend to only last a few months before you need to find another one. Google "BBC iPlayer proxy overseas" or something similar and you should find instructions on how to choose and use a proxy in the UK so you can use the BBC iPlayer even if you'r not really supposed to. (I won't tell Mr Brown.)

Mark (in the UK, but unfortunately not with enough bandwidth to act as a proxy)

It is very common practice for media companies to do Geo-Blocking, i.e. prevent certain IP address blocks from viewing certain content. As noted, this is by address block and because most of the original Class A and B address ranges were given to the telecommunications companies (pre-privatization incumbent telecom of each country), this is fairly accurate. ISPs, e.g. AOL that span the globe can fool the system somewhat by using one country's IP address range in another.

Geo-blocking is very rudimentary but does offer a form of DRM which doesn't require user acknowledgment.

I'm somewhat reluctant to admit to doing this for obvious reasons.

I simply Googled the name of the program, second hit was a link to one of those torrent sites. I clicked and downloaded the tracker, double clicked that and had FDM ask me if I wanted to enable torrents, said yes and around 1 hour later there it as on my local server ready to watch.

I've never done this before, I was pretty amazed at how easily it was achieved. What a remarkably simple and cheap way to deliver content. Now I'd like to send the Beeb a couple of dollars, even though I've avoided any bandwidth costs to them they still deserve something to cover the costs of their production.

Bob.