BBC advise current feeds no longer available

Not a fix, but a workaround. I've just stumbled across this on my Debian box whilst trying to use iPlayer.

Seems as, for now, in lieu of an update which uses the new Nitro API (see "http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/retirement.xml" and "http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Introducing-Platform-API"), we need to get the programme URL by hand, using the iPlayer web interface to find the programme of interest. For instance, "http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0276q28/human-universe-4-a-place-in-space-and-time".

Once we've obtained the URL, we can then use the command line :
$ get-iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0276q28/human-universe-4-a-place-in-space-and-time

The above seems to be working for me, at 11 % atm.

Just posting the above in case anyone else, like me, was disappointed to get ...

get_iplayer v2.87, Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Phil Lewis
  This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use --warranty.
  This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
  conditions; use --conditions for details.

INFO: 0 Matching Programmes

... and nothing else, but who /really/ wanted to download and watch a programme.

HTH

HTH

I had tries using the pid but no luck. Hadn't thought of using the URL
complete. The subtitles works but the tvmode doesn't not that that is a
problem. Thanks for the tip I work late into the evenings and can
catch-up on my return.

Best regards

mjg

On Wed, 2014-10-29 at 23:56 +0000, bowmanr wrote:
> Your question #256372 on get-iplayer in Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/get-iplayer/+question/256372
>
> bowmanr posted a new comment:
> Not a fix, but a workaround. I've just stumbled across this on my Debian
> box whilst trying to use iPlayer.
>
> Seems as, for now, in lieu of an update which uses the new Nitro API
> (see "http://feeds.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/retirement.xml" and
> "http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/internet/posts/Introducing-Platform-API"),
> we need to get the programme URL by hand, using the iPlayer web
> interface to find the programme of interest. For instance,
> "http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0276q28/human-universe-4-a-place-
> in-space-and-time".
>
> Once we've obtained the URL, we can then use the command line :
> $ get-iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0276q28/human-universe-4-a-place-in-space-and-time
>
> The above seems to be working for me, at 11 % atm.
>
> Just posting the above in case anyone else, like me, was disappointed to
> get ...
>
> get_iplayer v2.87, Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Phil Lewis
> This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use --warranty.
> This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
> conditions; use --conditions for details.
>
>
> INFO: 0 Matching Programmes
>
> ... and nothing else, but who /really/ wanted to download and watch a
> programme.
>
> HTH
>

Hi,

The BBC have very quietly switched over to the new listings system Nitro.
The previous system Dynamite has been discontinued.
There was no report on the Technology page on BBC News, no published "Go live" date or anything.

I am worried that it might not be possible for get_iplayer to work as it did in the past.
In saying that your link is a good workaround.

From the spec:
"As mentioned above, Nitro is rate limited for all clients, and you should consider how your client
will behave in the event of a rate limitation."
I don't know if that means limited for service providers or on an individual basis (that would seem crazy). I guess the iPlayer for Sky STBs will have an "unlimited" API key. It does seem that the old system had reached its scalability limits and that they now use NoSQL behind the scenes.

I would urge the developers to download this spec incase it is deleted:
http://developer.bbc.co.uk/sites/default/files/Nitro%20for%20Clients.pdf

Also Nitro will probably change in the future as well...

Regards,
Michael.

I've been using get_iplayer with my own frontend, a little Perl script that scrapes the BBC website for titles, PIDs, and descriptions, then asks what I'm interested in and forwards the results to get_iplayer. It only works with Radio 3, Radio 4, and Radio 4 Extra, but might be a useful temporary workaround for someone interested in those channels. I threw it up on Github:

https://github.com/nflorin/inabber

Grab the inabber.pl script, save it to a local file, then run it with "perl inabber.pl" and follow the instructions. I made it for my own use so it's pretty rough, but it should work OK.

Grabbing radio programmes works for me using the --pid=<pid> option.
So for programme url http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04n60mt I use
get-iplayer -g --pid=b04n60mt

I only ever use get-iplayer for radio so can't comment if this works for televisuals.
HTH

The OP said:
> Seems as, for now, in lieu of an update [...], we need to get the programme URL by hand

The OP didn't provide any information on why they think this, or what use of get_iplayer failed to find what they were looking for.

Per the FAQ (that's Q singular - there's just one question people keep asking!), get_iplayer cannot currently find most programmes older than 7 days. But there are workaround. See
   https://github.com/dinkypumpkin/get_iplayer/wiki/faq

Note also that because the BBC website changes quite often, usually in quitre subtle ways, get_iplayer can become out of date and fail to work quite rapidly. A number of people maintain very up to date versions of get_iplayer in ppas and other repositories to keep things working smoothly. The versions of get_iplayer shipped with debian and ubuntu are usually pretty up to date at the point of a new debian release, but still sometimes fall behind.

The project wiki has information on how to install these up to date versions, as well as lots of how-to guides:
   https://github.com/dinkypumpkin/get_iplayer/wiki

Regards
Jon

Just to confirm that the command using just the pid, eg,

get-iplayer -g --pid=b04n60mt

does not work with TV programmes, but using the full web address, eg,

get-iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04mqc4z/spider-house

does still work as expected.

Sorry about this but I have just noticed that my first attempt at using just the pid to download a TV programme contained a typo (I used a single - before pid= instead of two --, hence tthe failure.
Having just tried again without the typo the command without the missing character does indeed work for TV programmes as well as radio.
All I need now is some way of listing just the pids of available programmes without all the rest of their links, otherwise it is just as easy to right click copy and then paste the full link to a terminal.

> Just to confirm that the command using just the pid, eg,
> get-iplayer -g --pid=b04n60mt
> does not work with TV programmes

That won't work because that pid is a radio programme.
  $ get-iplayer --type=radio -g --pid=b04n60mt
does work.

   $ get-iplayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04mqc4z/spider-house
works because that's a tv programme, as does
   $ get-iplayer --pid=b04mqc4z
or
   $ get-iplayer -g "Spider House"

Jon

Yes, sorry Jon, I forgot to change the pid number in that last post, but the intention was simply to show the syntax of the command I used, not necessarily the actual pid.
However, I can confirm that if you get the r4st of the syntax and the pid correct, it is possible to download both TV and radio programmes.

Sorry for the mix-up.
A

Sorry Jon but the information you've provided in your latest post is partially incorrect for the reasons stated by the OP.

The BBC has taken down the RSS feeds used by get_iplayer, before the replacement service - Nitro - is even available. So searching by name ( e.g. get_iplayer -g "Spider House") will no longer work.

It also means that if you use the pid, get_iplayer wont be able to calculate a relevant filename.

A fix may not be far off though, someone has released an updated version of the iplayer xbmc plugin which is able to provide listings (not looked at how theyve done it yet, but the change broke the old plugin) so it's obviously possible to work around

I have just had an update of get-iplayer from te ppa which now is able to download the full list of programmes again, and from a quick test also to get programmes using the numerical listing, exactly as it did before.

Very impressive, and a huge thanks to the person or persons who have made this possible. I only wish I was that skilled to help out in coding of this type!

Just like to add my thanks to the person who supplies the ppa - it works - Many thanks!

May I also thank those who rewrote the code and sorted Get-Iplayer so
quickly.

I must learn coding!

Best regards

Michael Griffiths

ps I shall close question to noon on Thursday

Thanks Jon Davies, that solved my question.