BBC iPlayer comes to Android

David Madden of the BBC said that over the last few months he had been working with Adobe to bring its new Flash 10.1 streaming on mobile to Android 2.2 devices.

He said, “We've adapted the Flash based embedded media player (EMP) that you see right across the BBC website to work on the small screen and created a 400 kbps Flash stream to provide a really good playback experience.”

This also meant tweaking the playback controls to a mobile friendly touch/tap input rather than the mouse click controls of a PC.

But only Android users with the latest OS can get it, “The 400kbps encode requires a powerful mobile phone processor and a Wi-Fi connection to ensure a smooth viewing experience.”

“This means that only newer, more powerful phones connected via Wi-Fi can support the Flash 10.1 streaming experience.”

Of criticism that the BBC shouldn’t be using Flash for the service, Madden said that it was more efficient as it used existing video and audio encoding plants to create the streams, meaning that it didn’t have to pay for new kit or install new servers.

He said, “We just use what we already have to bring a higher quality BBC iPlayer on mobile experience to mobile devices.”