When I try to empty my DRM folder it warns that I’m deleting a system file…

1. Open up start menu and type in” c:\Program Files\Kontiki\ ”
2. The Start bar should now have a few items in it one called “KHost”. With your mouse – right click it and click “Properties”
3. Click the “Compatibility” tab
4. Under “Privilege Level” check the “Run this program as an administrator”
5. Click OK to close the box
6. Reboot your PC

I have just actioned this and downloaded ‘the Passion’ everything is working fine.

QED

Steve

If you have the DRM right to play a video file, you can make an analogue copy of the output, that will obviously be free of the time limits, and transferring to another device, restrictions.
This clearly defeats the purpose of DRM, but allows a fair use copy to be made that is legal under some jurisdictions.

A program that does this, Tunebite, does work. But you need a very fast computer under most circumstances. Probably no less than 3.8GB if this program doesn’t recognise your sound card, and you have to playback through the Tunebite audio software.

The fair use people have circulated a DRM removal tool, that works on programs for which you have DRM rights, that simply removes the DRM. It is circulating under the name Mirakagi. Although this was probably mainly intended for overcoming music downloads’ restrictions in Microsoft DRM (.WMA) format, it strips DRM from Windows Media video (.WMV, .ASF) too.
Mirakagi and the associate program FairUse4WM 1.3 Fix-2 do strip the DRM from current BBC iPlayer downloads.

So BBC iPlayer can be made to work in Vista, and if you want to ignore the T&C and remove the DRM, you can. As proof of the concept, I removed DRM from two BBC iPlayer downloads, and played them without any problems in several media players using Ubuntu and Xubuntu (Linux operating systems).

Personally, with dual-tuner stand alone PVRs, and DVB-T PC cards in my desktop computers, I cannot really see why BBC iPlayer is needed by most people. If you have a PC, instead of using your broadband bandwidth allowance to download programmes, why not turn your PC into an extra PVR by installing a DVB-T tuner PC card in your computer? I appreciate that some people cannot get an adequate TV signal, but otherwise the downloaded 672×384 video with 128kbps 48kHz sound, is a very poor product compared to PVR recording at full video and sound quality.

I’ll use iPlayer in the rare event that I do not record a broadcast I want to see, because I didn’t know about the broadcast or forgot.

Where the BBC iPlayer downloads might be particularly useful, is for portable players. If I wanted to watch the proceedings of a Houses of Parliament Committee, probably lasting about two hours, a download onto a portable player to watch as the time and opportunity presented itself, would be fine. The MP4 players with a 2inch screen have more than 672×384 pixels. (& a mini-SD card slot, for under £50). I’d want such a download to be free of the time restriction, so that it didn’t delete before I watched all of it, or re-watched interesting bits. For the record, the BBC is not currently making the Parliamentary broadcasts downloadable, but the committee broadcasts are available as live streaming video from the Houses of Parliament web-site when Parliament is sitting, and as recorded library streams at all times. They have been in streamed in .WMV format so far.

Turned UAC off. Uninstalled BBC iPlayer, ran KClean again to remove Kontiki suite.

Reinstalled iPlayer, and started a download. Note for anyone trying to install iPlayer, if you are not watching progress with something like DU meter, is that the first download takes a long time to start. Because first there is a comprehensive set of BBC station logos, twenty second videos, that download on first use.

Success. Chosen programme downloaded without any problems, and played without any problems.

Root-drive (C:)
Documents and Settings
Public
Public Documents
My Deliveries
iplayer_live

The BBC logo files (stored on first download) that precede replay of the downloaded programme file, play the logo video and sound. But the BBC player then stops, and an attempt to use WMP11 results in a not having permission error message. It appears to be solely a DRM problem.

Only DRM folder on my Vista PC is:
Root Drive (C:)
Users
All Users
Microsoft
DRM

The DRM folder contains no files, but has a “Server” folder that is also empty.

So the main answer Bob, is that I don’t have any DRM files at all.
If I’d had some, I probably wouldn’t have asked the question.

Second. Yes UAC is turned on.

I was aware that UAC might be a problem, but I tried to overcome it by changing permissions along the required folder and file paths, to allow access.

This had meant looking at what happened the first time round of installing iPlayer, then uninstalling iPlayer, using Kclean to remove the Kontiki suite, then creating the required folder sharing permissions before reinstalling iPlayer and downloading another programme.

On principal, I’ve tried to keep UAC on. If turned off it makes Vista as vulnerable as XP. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of UAC, it’s just a crap implementation of Server 2003 in Vista, that’s a sod to configure. As anyone who has tried setting up a network simply using their own PCs will find.

Bob, I suspect that your suggestion is going to be turn UAC off.
I’ll give that a try,and report ASAP, but was hoping for a more enlightened response about installing with UAC on.

I accepted the suggested default folder during installation, and that folder is where the main file download is now located.
But Windows Media Player will not play the download.

Vista keeps DRM file separately, and I cannot see anything in the only folder I can find. BBC iPlayer forums don’t cover this point for Vista. There’s access restrictions on most file locations, and actually getting into Explorer locations is a bit of a problem in Vista. I suspect that the iPlayer DRM info is being prohibited access, but there is no error message during downloading.

So can someone who has iPlayer working, please tell me where their iPlayer DRM files are located in Vista, and whether this is the same file that any other Windows Media Player 11 DRM files are located.

There’s no such thing! Which leads to an interesting legal situation in Finland. Under finnish law, only ‘effective’ DRM implementations are protected. And since any DRM solution that can be easily circumvented is therefore not effective, there’s no DRM in finland!

See http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/drm/its-legal-to-break-dvd-drm-in-finland-263712.php and http://www.turre.com/blog/?p=102