Browse and watch BBC iPlayer from your terminal.

Uses get_iplayer for access to iPlayer content and MPlayer with libcaca for playback in the terminal, all wrapped up in an interface powered by blessed.

Dependencies can be installed on OS X using Homebrew:

$ brew tap dinkypumpkin/get_iplayer
$ brew update
$ brew install get_iplayer --with-deps libcaca mplayer --with-libcaca

You also need to install the required Node.js modules:

$ npm install

cd to the directory where you want to install get_iplayer

$ git clone git@github.com:get-iplayer/get_iplayer.git && cd get_iplayer && chmod 755 ./get_iplayer
$ sudo apt-get install rtmpdump mplayer libcaca0 ffmpeg atomicparsley id3v2

cd again to the directory where you want to install iplayer-cli

$ git clone git@github.com:alexnorton/iplayer-cli.git && cd iplayer-cli && npm install

Edit play.sh to match the path of your get-iplayer executable. Example:

#!/bin/bash

PID=$1

~/softs/get_iplayer/get_iplayer \
    --silent \
    --pid=$PID\
    --stream \
    --modes=hlslow | \
  mplayer -framedrop \
    -contrast 25 \
    -really-quiet \
    -vo caca \
    -cache 8192 \
    /dev/fd/3 3<&0 </dev/tty

Run using:

$ node iplayer-cli

Use the arrow keys to navigate the programme list and press enter to select.

As MPlayer is used for playback you can use any of the keyboard shortcuts it supports. The most important of these is q, which will quit the player and return you to the programme list.