Default TV mode option

[Jon Davies]

On 12 January 2013 16:56, dinkypumpkin <dinkypumpkin at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/01/2013 11:16, Jon Davies wrote:
>> get_iplayer doesn't seem to download the best quality stream
>> it can find by default...
>
> If anyone has an argument one way or the other for changing this, please
> chime in.  The argument I can think of for the current default is that it
> prevents new users from eating bandwidth with hd/vhigh downloads they may
> not want.  To quantify: the size difference between high and hd for a one
> hour programme is nearly 900 MB, between high and vhigh is around 300 MB.

which I suppose isn't an unreasonable position to take.  Particularly
at the time when uk broadband was often considered "broad" at 512kbps,
and often capped, sometimes to what now seem absurd levels.

> My own inclination is towards grubby compromise: add vhigh to the default TV
> modes but leave hd as optional.

That's not particularly grubby as a compromise - there are clearly
people who don't want or don't need HD.  Though there's a "best" mode
which downloads the highest resolution and highest quality version
available.

What if the "best" mode changes to be the best SD mode, (and in the
radio world, I guess the best stream up to something between 128k and
320k), and create a "besthd" mode which hopefully is self explanatory
(and in the radio world also pulls 320kbps streams)?

"best" or its equivalent can then be the default, and those who want
HD can easily specify it?

Jon