How to watch.
In a browser, on anything, without an account. The interesting part of this page is not how to press play — it is what happens on a bad rural line, which is most of our audience.
Four steps, and three of them are optional.
Nothing here requires membership. Loitering is free and even that is not needed to watch.
Open the page at the time.
Any browser, any device. No app, no account, no sign-in wall.
Turn captions on, or leave them on.
They default to on. Turning them off is a choice you make, which is the right way round.
Switch to audio-only if the line is bad.
One button. Sixty-four kilobits, which will run on almost anything, including a phone in a tractor cab.
Or do not watch live at all.
It is in the archive within twenty-four hours, captioned, described, and it stays there permanently.
What it needs from your connection.
Bandwidth
- 1080p
- 5 MbpsComfortable.
- 720p
- 2.5 MbpsThe default on a first load, then it adapts.
- 360p
- 0.8 MbpsWatchable. A grain store is not a detailed image.
- Audio only
- 64 kbpsRuns on almost anything.
- Adaptive
- AutomaticIt steps down before it stalls rather than after.
Devices
- Browser
- Any current oneNo app exists and none is planned.
- Cast to a television
- YesThrough the browser, the ordinary way.
- Offline
- Archive audio onlyVideo stays on the site.
- Account required
- NoFor any of it.
Designed for a bad line, not a good one.
Most streaming is designed on urban fibre and tested on it. The result works beautifully in a meeting room and falls over in a farmyard, which is where this audience actually is.
So the default is 720p rather than 1080p, the player steps down before it stalls rather than after, and there is a one-button audio-only mode that almost nobody in a city would ever use and that a quarter of the live audience does.
It is a slightly worse experience for the people with good broadband and a considerably better one for everybody else, which is the correct trade for this particular audience and would be the wrong one for most.
Designed on fibre, tested in a meeting room, and useless in a farmyard.
The practical questions.
No. Nothing on Broadcasting is behind an account, including the archive.
Switch to audio-only, which is one button and sixty-four kilobits. Or wait twenty-four hours and watch the archive copy, which does not stream and can be paused indefinitely.
Cast it from a browser. There is no app and there is no plan for one, because an app for seven broadcasts a year is a maintenance liability.
You get Breaking Down, which is a real page with a real explanation rather than a spinner, and it says when it will be back.
No account
For anything on Broadcasting.
Audio-only, one button
Sixty-four kilobits.
Captions on by default
Off is a choice you make.
In the archive in 24h
Permanently, at a stable address.
Captions and audio description.
On everything, as a commitment rather than a feature.
Pestering, at your invitation
We named the newsletter after the imposition so that opting in means something. Unsubscribe in one click and we will not chase you.
