BBC iPLayer New version
juswotmawatchin
Posts: 5,252 Forum Member
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How is it possible to take a simple search file webpage ( iplayer) and make it more complex by dividing categories channels a-z search functions so that we maust navigate for days now to find anything.
The old version was user friendly, simple and "broad" layout gave you an at a glance choice.
Now ....even if you DO KNOW which programme you want to watch it takes more "clicks" and navigation to find it ?
Change for change sake methinks.( simplifying would be th e logical "advance")
Makes the ITV site look classy now LOL
Used to be that a front/ home page glance would scroll through programmes just shown.......now F knows what the front/ home page is all about ?
(p.s I am computer savvy, just seems the layout has been chopped up by a moron )
The old version was user friendly, simple and "broad" layout gave you an at a glance choice.
Now ....even if you DO KNOW which programme you want to watch it takes more "clicks" and navigation to find it ?
Change for change sake methinks.( simplifying would be th e logical "advance")
Makes the ITV site look classy now LOL
Used to be that a front/ home page glance would scroll through programmes just shown.......now F knows what the front/ home page is all about ?
(p.s I am computer savvy, just seems the layout has been chopped up by a moron )
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Comments
It's a pain to look at and a page to navigate - in fact, it's so bad that the BBC felt it necessary to include a video tutorial on how to use it.
No longer can I browse to a page for a certain channel (such as BBC4) and list all of the programmes available to watch. Now I have to trawl through the programmes on a day by day basis, and even then many of the programmes listed aren't available for re-play.
What a joke.
At one point I had a list of all comedy shows but for a large number of them I clicked only to get a message that they didn't have any episodes of that show available to listen to. Well don't list it then!
I used to get a list of all comedy, both radio and TV, and don't see why they have to split them. I've found that a lot of the TV comedy series, for example Mitchel and Webb, work almost as well when you just listen to them (probably due to the fact that so many of them were radio shows to start with).
But that wasn't really how I used it, I used it is to listen to comedies, quizes and sometimes plays (crime and thriller serialisations or now and again Terry Pratchett) or to catch up on TV comedy shows from across BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, Radio 4 and Radio 7.
I often have no idea what's actually been on those stations in the past week, but then I didn't need to. I could just select comedy, order it by date order and look down the list and find out that from the last week I could catch up with Just a Minute and Clare in the Community from Radio 4, Roger & Val from BBC2, Ideal from BBC3 and Giles Webbly-Hogg Goes Off from Radio 7.
That's not something I seem to be able to do now...not that I've found out yet anyway. It's not impossible to use, I've never claimed it to be, it's more more fussy and less user friendly than it used to be.
When it first came out I stuck with the beta for about a week mainly to try out the new favourites options but I agree that the new interface is pants.
When you were stuck with nothing to watch it was great with the old version to just click on a channel and see everything in a certain channel with a certain genre. Now you can't do that. You have to know what you want, A lot of people don't use it like that, they use it to find something on a whim
Anyway, I prefer to use iPlayer on my Freesat box so I can watch in comfort on my TV. It's a different interface.
THAT is the problem.
Iplayer is supposed to be a catch up website.
The old version would list programmes chronologically to date so you could just look at a certain channel / category and see what you missed. SIMPLES !!!
How can you search for something you missed if you dont know what you missed !!!
BBC need shooting. obviously thier philosophy is .....
,,,,,," if it aint broke.....fix it until it is .."
That's great if you know the name of the programme. However, how about if you just want to browse what's available on a certain channel? Yes, you can browse alphabetically but then you also get to see a list of all of the programmes that are NOT available to watch.
The "new, improved" iPlayer is a major failure on that point alone. I haven't even touched on the fact that it's a mess, is hard to navigate, has some completely useless 'social networking' features, that it's hopeless for informing you of programmes that you might like (no, I do NOT want to watch Eastenders, I hate the damn thing, so stop telling me that I can now watch it!), etc.
Personally, I go to iPlayer if I have missed a programme that I wanted to watch, not to find out anything that's available.
I suppose I tend to plan rather than browse.
Seriously...
Scroll down, there is a section called "Categories" then choose "Comedy > Show All Comedy"
Go to channel > List only those programmes on that channel that are available on iPlayer
Nope, afraid not.
Look at that list, notice anything? Now look at the top of that list. It's all TV.
If I want to look at Radio comedy after looking at TV I have to select Radio > Comedy > Show all comedy all over again.
Yes it doesn't take much in time or effort but previously, as my example clearly showed if you actually bothered to read it, I didn't need to even do that as I got all comedy from all mediums in one go.