Get Iplayer for Windows

[James Cook]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:34:45 +0100, you wrote:

>It is tempting.  Make that REALLY tempting.  Trust me when I say that an 
>Ubuntu+get_iplayer package would be much less hassle to put together and 
>test.  However, I think a VMplayer solution could introduce its own 
>headaches.  For one thing, we'd be pushing the target audience onto a 
>new OS that, by definition, they're not necessarily knowledgeable about. 

I suppose where I'm going with this is a VirtualBox holding only a CLI
(command line - shell) Ubuntu/*nix being accessed on the command line
from the host system where you do something like 
">virtbox client shell get_iplayer --pid=w343rft"
and it writes mp4s to the host file system
So in effect no new OS for the user.

>  Sure, the process could be reduced to a cookbook of sorts, but we'd 
>still be putting get_iplayer into an unfamiliar box for Windows users. 
>Plus, we'd be introducing another dependency (and potential source of 
>problems) in the shape of VMplayer.  I think that puts the entry barrier 
>a bit higher than an average Windows user would rightfully expect. 
>Also, we would have to take on the process of maintaining helper 
>applications, at least for the near future (mainline repos lag behind), 
>though luckily Jon Davies currently fills that role in the Ubuntu 
>universe with his PPA.  At the moment we can still utilise the Windows 
>builds of helper apps provided by other developers.  Not nearly as good 
>as proper package management, but essentially free.

A further "advantage" (if this approach works at all) is you'd only
need to maintain one or two (i386, 64 bit, ...ARM ? ) versions of
get_iplayer - and all the tools it uses for ALL host flavours of *nix

JC