Wii caught up with Dr. Who....... hopefully without upsetting our ISP !!

I had a slight dilemma at the weekend when at the same point in space and time as meeting the Doctor again I was expected to go Scottish Reeling.... Enter iPlayer.

Yes I know I could have used the video recorder, but it has become a better chewer than the dog of late. Also I do not have a digital recording device as yet. No problem, lets use iPlayer now that my broadband connection has mysteriously sorted itself. Now iPlayer, Broadband and ISPs are very topical at the moment with ISPs calling foul since iPlayer is taking so much ISP network capacity - 5% is being quoted without financial contribution from the BBC, see Article on ISPs and iPlayer. What is interesting is that they complain chiefly about users opting to stream in the programmes as opposed to those that download first and then replay from their PC. I have always downloaded to get the better replay quality and the download speed is quick due to clever use of peering technology. However Dr. Who is not available to download, only to stream so I cannot be kind to my ISP.... I digress... Looking further on the iPlayer page I notice that iPlayer can be used over the Nintendo Wii gaming device. It is in beta... Now our household has just acquired such a device due to birthday/Christmas presents.. After much debate over the PS3 and XBox the Wii was chosen due to its motion technology which is rather fun... Even our 70 year old neighbours were hooked on it albeit from the sofa due to dodgy knees and unequal length legs... I digress again. So I thought what fun to try the beta... So I connected my tele/ Wii combo to the internet via Wifi and then downloaded the Wii Opera browser ("Internet Channel") and then navigate to the iPlayer page, and there is all it glory "Wii caught up with the Doctor".

In conclusion an interesting technical crossover, but the quality is not quite there yet... Also we had a few stop starts at the end which was a little frustrating... My vote still goes with downloading and being kinder to the ISPs. Yes I know there are those download boxes that one can buy for one tele, but we do not have one... Also I was amused that the BBC had opted to go with the Wii since Sony and Microsoft wanted to control too much of the experience. However I read that the PS3/iPlayer may be on its way due to the BBC's offer of employment to the hacker who made iPlayer work on the PS3 !!!

I think I will stick to beating the neighbours at tennis on the Wii ...