Five easy ways to watch BBC iPlayer on your TV
How to free your iPlayer programmes from your PC
The BBC's iPlayer is a wonderful thing, but its power is wasted if you're watching it on a titchy PC screen. From consoles to cables, here are five easy ways to put iPlayer on your plasma.
1. Stream it to your Xbox
You can stream downloaded iPlayer programmes to your Xbox 360 like any other video content via the Windows Media Extender service. For now, there's no live streaming available for Xbox - but we're keeping our fingers crossed that it's coming eventually.
2. Use your Wii or your PS3
If you've got the Wii Internet Channel (aka the Opera browser) then you can take full advantage of the iPlayer on your console, although sadly you can't use the Wiimote and nunchucks to smack annoying people on-screen. A PS3 version is currently in development, although there's a very unofficial version up and running at http://ps3iplayer.com.
3. Use Vista's Media Center
The iPlayer works quite happily in a web browser on Windows, Mac or Linux, but if you've got Vista and you'd like to access it from within the Media Center then the free and completely unofficial TunerFree MCE will be right up your street. Whether you use IE or TunerFree MCE, it's just a matter of connecting your video card to your telly.
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4. Use your PMP
iPlayer works on the iPhone as well as pretty much any media player that supports Windows Media, so it's just a matter of connecting the appropriate TV out cable to your telly. If your device has Wi-Fi you'll be able to watch live streaming content, but if it doesn't you'll need to download to your PC and then copy the files to your PMP.
5. Use Cable
This one only works with Virgin Media: go to BBC1, press the red button and voila! Instant iPlayer goodness.
Contributor
Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.