Yes, it's true. I'm thinking of uninstalling the BBC iPlayer. I wasso flaming pro the Beeb's catch-up TV service when it launched but nowI've just about had enough.

Basically, the Kontiki technology that underpins the player is taking up 99 per cent of systemresources when I start up. So when I went to watch a programme lastnight I couldn't, since my system was busy dishing out bits of otherprogrammes to other users. But it's not the actual bandwidth that's aproblem in my case, it's the stupid level of processor-hogging. Andthis is happening all the time with my PC, since the process used(kservice.exe) runs on startup.

I wouldn't normally fret, but I hadonly a few precious hours left of my allotted 30 days to watch thefirst part of Michael Palin's New Europe series. Eventually I realised I could launch the footage, then killkservice.exe so it would leave me to watch the programme in peace.

Logging on to the BBC iPlayer forums, I found that oodles of others have the same problem. (They can't find Traffic Cops,either). It appears it's down to the fact that kservice.exe isn't yetoptimised for use with certain system configurations, though I'mwaiting for the Beeb to confirm this (however, from the few posts byBBC staffers on the forums, I suspect they know little about it).

A couple of guys on the forums have suggested fixes which I'mgoing to try next. Mark Greenwood has written extensively (see ' Control the BBC iPlayer')on the subject of restraining the Kontiki apps and provides anexecutable so you can tame the iPlayer's penchant for running wheneveryour PC does. Another user recommends using a throttling applicationsuch as BES to control the processing share of the Kontiki processes.

I'll be trying out these solutions and letting you know how I get on. I still have last week's Top Gear to watch, after all...