BBC's P2P content delivery trials begin

Andy Stallard just got a nice surprise in his inbox from the BBC:

"Dear Andy,

We are delighted to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the Integrated Media Player (iMP) trial. The Integrated Media player offers you the chance to catch up on TV and radio programmes you may have missed for up to 7 days after they have been broadcast, using the internet to legally download programmes to your computer."

The BBC announced in May it would start this pilot for its P2P iMP client in September, so they seem on track.

"As part of the next phase of iMP's development, the BBC will now open up more of its radio and TV schedule - around 190 hours of TV programmes and 310 hours of radio programmes, as well as local programming and rights-cleared feature films.

Five thousand people - from all over the UK - will take part in the pilot. They will be able to search for programmes they want to watch, filter programmes by channel, select subtitles and, in the case of some series, to collect and watch episodes that they may otherwise have missed."

Andy is one of the the 5,000 pilot users for the study. I've subscribed to his feed in the hope he writes about his experiences. A perfect excuse. Fascinating project.