BBC’s iPlayer…Frankly I’m not impressed

The Saviour of All! iPlayer! Never miss another programme again!

For me, it’ve been sheer bollocks for me. A giant steaming pile of turd out of an elephant with a bad case of the runs…

Why’s that?

Simple. I’m deaf.

That’s it. I’m deaf and iPlayer is completely inaccessible to me from day one. But there’s SignZone some might say…well frankly I prefer subtitles. Always have. I don’t like seeing people in the corner for the simple reason that if one have to focus on sign language, you are missing out on what is happening on the main screen. Some don’t have a problem with this. I do. I cannot do it at all…with subtitles - I can very quickly just flick though the text and then watch the main screen…sometime if short, I don’t even look at the subtitles at all, it’s visible at the bottom and I still can read it. You cannot do it with sign language.

Anyway as for subtitles…try hunting for it, you have a better chance of saving the world economy over finding subtitles on iPlayer. Nowhere does it mention it - you can’t find shows that have subtitles…but here’s an idea…BBC have a policy of ensuring 100% subtitles on all BBC channels by 2008…and they did this. Congratulations…I’m pleased with that…so one would naturally assume that one could get 100% subtitles on iPlayer too then since every programmes since then on iPlayer all are subtitled? Ha…what a joke.

Let’s use one example of where the dreadful subtitling on iPlayer really does rub it in for people that rely on it…

Spooks.

Let’s look it up on iPlayer and you can find it here

Can you see ANYWHERE on that site where it mention that it is subtitled?

Nope…so in order to find out if Spooks have subtitles on iPlayer…how do I do this? I have to start it. Yup…start playing it…so let’s do it with what I’ve missed - Episode one to three and part of 4.

Start playing Episode 1…good news…there’s a S button (subtitles).

So Episode 1 is subtitled. And so is Episode 2…this is looking good isn’t it?

Onto Episode 3 - yup no subtitles.

How about Episode 4?

Perhaps they haven’t caught up putting up subtitles for Spooks? That might be why they are still showing older versions (thought iPlayer have a 7 days limit on shows after all?)…but no…that’s bullshit…let’s look at Episode 5…and guess what? They’ve thoughtfully taken the time to ensure that it is subtitled. Hello?! What about 3 and 4? This is beyond a joke and frankly this sort of thing is far too common with iPlayer and is not really acceptable at all.

To be frank…subtitling 1, 2 and then not doing it for 3, 4 and then subtitling 5 is a bit of insult…the message is basically saying “oh look we’re wonderful we’ve subtitled episode 1, 2!” and then the next 2 weeks, not bother to do anything about it. Then come Episode 5 - “look we’re wonderful once again! we managed to get it subtitled…sorry we couldn’t be bothered to do it for 3 and 4″.

That’s all it’s saying to me. So I have missed 3 and 4 basically and I pay the bloody TV licence for what?! How about some refund for my TV licence? I was happy to pay for my TV licence because I had 100% access to the TV, with 100% subtitling on BBC…and then they go and launch iPlayer and suddenly, my TV licencing is looking very unfair to me…

BBC…get it sorted. The time for excuses is long long past it. iPlayer have been in development for a long time, launched in 2007, and over a year later (if you include beta times) they STILL can’t get 100% subtitling working?! Any technical excuses garbage bollocks reason is looking like a joke.

Jonah’s a lucky chap actually

Been suffering from a long run of bad luck…

Let’s see…last week, let’s just focus on the car…

Flat tyre…with a big nail causing a tear in it that’s too big for a patch job…so replacement time…

Then we got a chip on the windscreen…(although hopefuly, it’s small enough for a simple resin patch job) and finally…the bloody car decided to blow the fuse for the headlights shortly before I need to head to Leeds to catch the train to go to London. Fuses are kept in a separate fusebox in the engine bay which isn’t accessible.

I also suffered from a trapped nerve in my back all week which was bloody painful.

There was quite a few others that I couldn’t remember because…

Last night, after that headlight crap with the car, I’m on the train. Everyone asked me if I was sure I haven’t forgotten anything. I say yes, I am sure.

Croydon. 1am. I head to my place. With heavy suitcase. Realise I forgot my bloody keys back in Leeds. After some long excessive swearing and ranting at myself, there was no other option but to head for a hotel as it’s a bloody cold night.

So a long walk back (no trams and no buses turned up) with a heavy suitcase. Travelodge. There’s a buzzer. After 10 minutes finally they let me in. Only to say that they’re full. The staff there was bloody useless.

Jury’s Inn…expensive I know…but they’re full too…but lady there was at least nice enough to phone around various hotels for me. Premier Inn - full, etc etc…she said it’s typical in Croydon for hotels to be full. Arse. Finally she did call a hotel opposite…she said usually they are closed after midnight, but managed to get them to let me in as they do have a single room available…although she said it’s “erm…not a place I’ll stay in”.

I can see that. It stank. Room was horrible with the narrowest single bed I’ve seen. With a sheet covering it that had fag burns in it. But what the hell, it’s a bed and it’s very warm in the room and I’m knackered and I’m just not up to complaining.

Morning…took shower…shower head broke, spray everywhere. Layer of water on the floor. Sigh. But thought to myself that at least the towel’s soft and fluffy. Dried myself off in the bedroom and noticed in the mirror that although the towel might be soft…it’ve left a nice layer of white fluffy all over myself including hair. Oh for fuck’s sake…so a quick blast in the SparyEverywhere™ shower to get it all off and with nothing to dry myself with…I did the best I could…with a fannel.

So Lady Luck…come back please? I’ll like some luck sometime!

starting up once more…

Since I’ve setup a VPS which I’ll be using for my data, migrating it from USA based server (on west coast of USA…so it’s a damn long way from me) to UK and keeping it local. I’m hosted with Gandi, which so far have been good, but it’s early days obviously to say how good they are, but they came strongly recommended to me so…here I am…

Obviously I’ve had Ubuntu installed as my server and set it to expert mode so that I can set it up just so how I like it - which is to upgrade it to the 8.04 LTS version (Gandi use 7.10), switch to the lighttpd webserver (because I’ve never used it so I wanted something new to learn and also because it’s lightweight…I’m on a low powered VPS so anything to lighten the load is always a good thing) and few various bits and bobs.

I’ll probably link this into my Facebook account since it’s a easier way of rambling about all sort of crap, but without expecting people to have any idea what a “RSS” is. They get Facebook. They don’t get RSS - it’s as simple as that so I’m not going to shove it down that they should learn RSS :D…although they should use Ubuntu or alternatives

For now, cheers.