BBC IPlayer Desktop on AIR. It’s all a little bit tricky.

It’s news we have expected for a while, and it’s here in big bold BETA. The BBC IPlayer Desktop is going to let you download IPlayer video to watch offline at a later date (well within 7 days as it’s using Flash Digital Rights Management Server to protect the catch-up window).

But it was a little tricky and use to find to say the least, although they have updated the site with some docs during the day. Sign up to the IPlayer Labs. Then you can install the player from http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/install/bbc_iplayer_desktop. Or find some content to download (it’s not all of the content mind you) and look for the download button at the bottom and right after the video.

After that it works nicely. Well as long as you remember to change the Settings in the application to give it more than 0 GB Hard disk space to use. So kind-of nicely, it certainly doesn’t feel intuitive.

But it’s just a download manager, that’s all, there is no navigation experience like in Adobe Media Player. It’s just a respository to play your Iplayer from. A bit of a disappointment but if it means getting it this year rather than next, i’m for it.