(as this is primarily a Mac site, all the examples are Mac-based. The options for Windows are the same, just the way of starting get_iplayer is a little different)

At it’s simplest level, you can just look up the programme id on the BBC iPlayer site (e.g. b00b671y), and type:

get_iplayer –pid b00b671y

This will probably download the iPhone version because it doesn’t know where to find rtmpdump to get the Flash stream. Supposing we put rtmpdump and ffmpeg in the current directory then we can do:

get_iplayer –pid b00b671y –rtmpdump=./rtmpdump –ffmpeg=./ffmpeg

This will try to get higher resolution video if it is available.
Instead of going to the BBC site to find the programme id, you can search directly in get_iplayer. For example:

get_iplayer ‘Bob The Builder’

Gives you output like this

Matches:
78: Bob the Builder: Project Build It: Series 4 – The Bob House, CBeebies, Children’s,Entertainment & Comedy,Animation,TV, default
79: Bob the Builder: Project Build It: Series 4 – Packer’s First Day, CBeebies, Children’s,Entertainment & Comedy,Animation,TV, default
INFO: 2 Matching Programmes

We can use the numeric id from get_iplayer instead of the pid from BBC. For example:

get_iplayer –get 78 –rtmpdump=./rtmpdump –ffmpeg=./ffmpeg

You can also get more information about the programme:

get_iplayer –info 78
Will give output like this:
Available: Unknown
Categories: Children’s,Entertainment & Comedy,Animation
Channel: CBeebies
Desc: Bob the Builder and his friends construct a new, ecologically-friendly town from scratch. Bob’s designed a kit house that clips together quickly and easily.
Duration: 600
Episode: Project Build It: Series 4: The Bob House
Expiry: 2009-05-17T06:24:00Z
Index: 78
Longname: Bob the Builder: Project Build It: Series 4
Modes: default: flashhigh3,flashlow1,flashlow2,flashnormal,flashvhigh2,iphone,n95_wifi,subtitles
Name: Bob the Builder
Pid: b00792td
Player: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00792td/Bob_the_Builder_Project_Build_It_Series_4_The_Bob_House/?src=a_syn31
Thumbnail: http://node2.bbcimg.co.uk/iplayer/images/episode/b00792td_150_84.jpg
Timeadded: 1242159256
Type: tv
Versions: default
Web: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00792td.html

The modes line gives a list of versions that are available to download. flashhd is the highest quality, then flashvhigh, flashhigh, etc.
You can specify which one you want with:

get_iplayer –get 78 –vmode=flashvhigh –rtmpdump-=./rtmpdump –ffmpeg=./ffmpeg

Not many programmes are available in the flashhd version yet. The best way to find them is to look for the programmes on the BBC HD channel:

get_iplayer –channel=’BBC HD’

Lots more examples, including the PVR functionality on linuxcentre.net

Christine Caulfield has written a nice MacOSX GUI for get_iplayer.

UPDATE 25th July 09: v1.0 of Christine’s downloader now supports the higher resolution versions of the video. In the preferences window, set vmode to flashhd,flashvhigh,flashhigh (or what you want to pass to get_iplayer as the –vmode option). This is very much my preferred way of using get_iplayer now.

next: Playing iPlayer video