I'm going to try to pull together in one place all the ideas that appeared all over the place last night.

If you go to bed at Sensible O'Clock you will be unaware of this, but late last night the forums went crazy when glimmers and snatches of live feed appeared, on the page where the video clips usually are.

Some people could see them and some not. It's not known if C5 were just testing, or had big teething troubles, or whatever.

Then the very wonderful Wowsers over at the TIBB forums posted that the address of the feed was

http://brightcove03-f.akamaihd.net/B...g=WYVMTRSXQKUE

Brightcove being C5's video contractors.

Then a lot of people realised simultaneously that the free VLC Media Player is capable of playing network streams, as this method has been used previously in earlier seasons for BB live feed. People familiar with doing this reported instant success, with very good picture quality, and were able to watch the LF until it pinged off at 2am. They were very happy bunnies and went off to bed with silly grins on their faces. Others were not so fortunate. There are confirmed reports of a DS member in Watford, Hertfordshire, who chopped her laptop in half with a kitchen meat-cleaver. A man in Glamorgan attempted suicide by overdosing on Cheryl Cole music. A woman in Edinburgh stuffed her smartphone up her husband's arse and told him his chances of any action that night were zero.


This is only for PCs and Windows - hopefully instructions will be added by others for Macs and mobile devices. If all this is too much for you, invite your friendly local computer-nerd-type person round, give them a glass of wine, and ask them to do it for you.

1. You need to find out if you already have VLC Media Player installed.
Start > All Programs. Scroll up and down the list looking for "Videolan". If it's there click it and VLC Media Player should appear. If it does, don't start it yet.

2. If not, go to http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html and click the orange box "Download VLC." Follow instructions as usual.
Do you want to run or save? Click Run
Are you sure you want to run it? Yes
Welcome > Next > Next
Choose components > Next > Next
VLC Media Player installs.
Completing > Finish
"Privacy & Network Access policy" > click Save & Continue

3. Still with me? Well done. The internet is hell isn't it?

4. ~Now you need to copy and paste the link I posted above into VLC. Tricky, because the method depends on which web browser you're using.(and a good example how tricky it is to give unambigous instructions. Click the link then

Chrome: Right-click > Copy link address
Internet Explorer: Right-click > Copy shortcut
Firefox: Right click > Copy link location

5. Them run VlC, click Media > Network stream then

6. Copy & paste the address into the Network stream slot then OK

7. If peeps could post parallel instructions for Macs and mobile devices (also Windows 8) that would be spiffing.

8. The thing is, even if C5 get the feed working on the site tonight (I think they will), this method is a much more convenient way to watch it, with (probably) better picture quality. C5 may block it, but there's no sensible reason for them to do so, as it doesn't adversely affect their income stream in any way.

If this doesn't work, please post an exact description of what happens, error messages etc, which version of Windows you're using and which browser. Someone will help you.

Thank you SABB you're a star. Thanks for all the links you supply too.

Do you know if Dr Detroit came back on air last night ? Thanks.

im on a mac and have the eye running atm by installing VLC Media player
so hopefully it should run later when livefeed kicks in

Awesome, thanks. Did the VNC route and am seeing the eye now. Just hope they don't change the streaming address...

Can you not just watch it on the website?

I installed VLC for Mac, watched the last 20 minutes and saved the Url in a document to try again next time. Excellent quality and good viewing.

Nice one, thanks.

I wondered this too

That all sounds unnecesarily complicated

Come on now that would be far too easy

Brilliant, thank you for such an informative post op. one question - some said they viewed it on their iPhones ( which I tried, with no success) will I be able to do this? Or will I have to download any special app/software? Again thanks

Does anybody know if I will be able to watch on my Ipad in Spain?

I just worry Sad_BB_Addict that if people use VLC player to watch the live feed it is in danger of not lasting long.
C5 are obviously wanting people to visit their website to make giving us the live feed worthwhile for them.If they don't get enough hits on their site because everyone is watching it through VLC they might stop providing it.
Just a thought

Also for VLC, after you've got it working, do Media -> "Save Playlist to File..."

Put the resulting file on your desktop for easy click watching.

I think those of us that watched on the 5 website simply had http://www.channel5.com/bigbrother already open in a window/tab when it went live. Just saying.

Unable to open 'http://brightcove03-f.akamaihd.net/BB1_01_800@104596?videoId=2365998116001&lineUpId=&pubId=963482462001&playerId=2327383164001&affiliateId=&v=2.11.3&fp=WIN%2011,7,700,224&r=UNVIV&g=WYVMTRSXQKUE'

SBBA this is the error message that appeared using the link and using firefox

Provided you don't paste another URL in VLC player, it should remember the last one you visited and it should still be there every time you start up VLC player. (Well it does in Windows anyway)

But always good to back up the info like you have done in case it ever forgets it.

Hopefully it should be and easy click and watch on the BB website tonight, last night WAS testing for a "live" roll out tonight, at least that is the idea, If anything changes I am sure everyone will be made aware, but good to have this as a fall back though!

I was getting that error message too, until I downloaded the latest version of vlc - the one I already had installed was probably a good few years out of date.

Is it not just launching tonight on the website?

If you want to see this stick around for more than a few days/weeks then please watch via the website, that way they will get paid for you watching the feed (as long as you have adblocker disabled).

Will Channel 5 be able to tell that people are watching it through VLC? If not, I'd suggest watching it on the website instead.

This is an experiment to see if people really will watch it. If Channel 5 don't think people are watching it, they'll discontinue it and it will never return. So watching it in a way that means that Channel 5 can't tell you're watching it is completely counter-productive.

People have to bear in mind that anyone who watched it from the website lost it for good when they lost the stream.

However people found themselves being able to watch the feed using the VLC Player method last night even when it wasn't available directly from the Channel 5 site.

If we dont watch it straight from the website..will we still be included in the 'viewing figures'?

I have a new pc on order which wont be delivered until next week (this old thing can barely keep up with this forum!) - will the new pc have the VLC player already in it?