Adobe's partnership with Auntie Beeb has certainly swept most of the concerns over the BBC's iPlayer out of the window. Now Mac and Linux users will also be able to get hold of the corporation's TV shows for a week after broadcast. But they won't be downloading them. Unlike the existing Windows Media DRM-based iPlayer tech, the Beeb is only proposing a streaming system for those on Mac and Linux platforms. Understandably, Macheads might be aggrieved they still aren't getting the same treatment as their Windows counterparts.

But hang on, this is actually good news. The reason? I don't actually see why downloading is necessary. The only major disadvantage is that, while we expect the streams to be available for a week as the downloads are, the downloaded files can be kept for up to 30 days (though less if you've started watching) them. But Windows Media files are so damn large. Last week I downloaded a 400MB-plus for an episode of Top Gear on the iPlayer. And all because I'd missed the first 20 minutes as I got home too late from the pub. I'd far rather have streamed it to avoid a lengthy download - and in nicely compressed Flash this isn't so difficult. The entire concept does raise some security issues for the BBC though as it is relatively easy to rip Flash off. Yet whatever the BBC and Adobe decides to about this lesser issue the fact remains that fundamentally, it's all a rather good idea.