We needed a solution which would not require a significant and costly change to our current infrastructure. We needed a solution which would meet the security obligations we had agreed with our rights holders.ĥ. We needed a solution which would work both for our websites and for our native Android applications.Ĥ. The diagram below shows that vast majority of Android users are on Gingerbread and FroYo.ģ. We also had to cater for the all the devices which are still on earlier OS versions. We needed a solution that would work on the newer Android devices running the JellyBean operating system.Ģ. We looked at a number of solutions, but there were a few key points we had to keep in mind:ġ. Doing so provided us with a number of cross platform efficiencies as the same infrastructure can be used for delivery on PCs, Android phones, and set-top boxes.Īdobe's strategic decision to remove support for the Flash Player plug-in meant that we had to change the way that we play back this content. Today the latest version is 4.1 (JellyBean) and in between we've had Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and Ice Cream Sandwich.Īs many of you are aware, we chose Adobe Flash as the media format to stream to Android devices. Back then version 2.2 (FroYo) was the latest OS. The Android operating system is constantly evolving and has been upgraded several times in the last two years. We've supported iPlayer on Android since June 2010. And I know (not least from the comments on David Madden's recent post) that this platform is an important one for many of our users. I want to reassure you that Android is an important platform for us. This means, amongst other things, making them available on as many devices as is practical. We want people to have the best experience possible when they're watching BBC TV programmes or listening to BBC radio programmes.

Other applications and websites will follow.

Next week we plan to release a new version of BBC iPlayer on Android which will use this player. It's called BBC Media Player and we are starting to use it with the mobile view of the BBC's iPlayer website. Today the BBC's mobile technical teams have begun rolling out a new way of securely playing video and audio content on Android phones and tablets.

BBC Media Player showing subtitles and playback controls with BBC on-demand video content

Final media player 2011