On Friday, just moments after I wrote about the BBC 's failure to send out any iPlayer invites , I left the office. My urge to enjoy a Friday pint precluded me from receiving my login details just minutes later. So on Saturday I had plenty of slightly hungover time to digest the so-called "future of television".

My first impressions weren't good. Firstly, you get sent your login details, and then, via the iPlayer site, you have to sign up for a BBC account. Yet on future occasions you still need to use the former unmemorable login details to gain access to the iPlayer - bizarre.

Next, you have to download the iPlayer Library app (4MB), but the actual selection of programmes is done through the iPlayer section of the BBC website. Let's be under no illusion here - it's a bit of a faff initially, and I did get a little confused at one point when it said my Windows Media Player needed updating. A box appeared which looked as though a Microsoft-downloaded update was starting, but then it failed.

To solve the problem, I reinstalled Windows Media Player which then updated automatically before I played any content. The programme was last Wednesday's Top Gear Polar Special , which was obviously the golden nugget of content. The remainder of downloads were nothing to write home about - some episodes of Jekyll, Doctor Who and EastEnders, but that's not a worry - it's hardly as though more content won't be forthcoming.

It took about four hours to download the 387MB episode, which we thought was pretty good. Remember the iPlayer uses P2P (Peer-to-Peer) technology, so the more people using the system, the faster your downloads will be. Eventually the speed at which you download will only be limited by the width of your broadband pipe.

Once downloaded, we began playback. Initially the content plays in a little window, but there's a button to expand it into full screen mode or (better still) open it inside Windows Media Player. Suddenly the iPlayer seemed fabulous and the strange startup process paled into insignificance.

I had wanted to watch the Top Gear show last Wednesday, but was elsewhere. Suddenly (well, ish) it was on my desktop and as I have accessed it once, I now have seven days to watch it at leisure - otherwise, I'd have a month. I'm probably pretty typical of the time-poor internet generation. The iPlayer will mean I can watch more, when I want. For me, it's already fulfilling the need it was designed to satisfy.

Dan Grabham blog home

See also: BBC launches iPlayer