NEW ITV Player app IS HERE ... for Samsung fandroids only. Ha ha A new version of the Android app to watch ITV's online telly is now available - exclusively for Samsung gadgets. But eager viewers with or without Sammy gear may want to stick with the earlier build of the ITV Player software until the bugs are squashed. The app exclusive lasts until the end of August, and applies to the new …
"Sod a new app. How about increasing the bitrates they offer. They've never been very generous in that regard. Watching ITV Player is like watching iPlayer from ten years ago."
I tried watching something on the thing a while back, twas like watching a cinepak intro from a megacd game circa 1994. Awful, awful quality.
Itv used to have a few good shows, but it really is television for the council estate now, mind numbing, lowest denominator crap.
If by some miracle there are people who want to view ITV's programmes on a device that isn't a Samsung one, STV did release a player recently (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.stv.android.player).
Just use a Scottish postcode (like the postcode of Ibrox Stadium - that one works ;) ).
Voila! No real need for the rubbish ITV Player as most of the same programmes are also available on this not-as-restricted-as-ITV-Player app.
There are a lot of programs not shown on Scotland's version of ITV. STV didn't show series 1 of Scot and Baley (UK police drama) and instead put on Underbelly (Oz police drama). The usual claim from them is they wanted to show something more regional, but it looks like they wanted something cheaper.
They have since caught up as the show is popular, but if your favourite show isn't one they want to pay the premium for, it won't be on in Scotland or on the STV player.
And tomorrow, all the footy fans wont be able to see the FA Cup north of the border.
The new (and improved) Samsung only app has been out for a while now and has mostly worked fine for me (notwithstanding the fact it is counter-intuitive and won't even exit on pressing back). Hopefully they'll have ironed out the issues by the time they'll let me download it to my Nexus 7.
was during the Rugby World Cup in 2011. The matches were at such a godawful time in the morning that I couldn't face the walk to the pub. Next World Cup is in 2015 and it's in the UK so all the matches will be at reasonable pub times. Maybe I'll watch ITV again in 2019, not sure where that World Cup will be.
The ITV Player app has never been used on any of my mobile devices, but I have a Samsung Smart TV and I did use the app there - once! Slow, flaky and not half as good as iPlayer.
Hardly watch ITV at the best of times - and anyone that complains about BBC!! For all the bias, paying the licence fee, overpaid presenters, etc I can put up with for the quality of output, the news, the kids channels, investing in new talent, trying new things compared with ITV. I've been to the US a few times on business and the lack of quality TV is appalling, so many channels, so much choice, so much drivel! If we are not careful we will have that over here!
not bothered about the content but I installed it to see how it ran. Worked just fine on my S2 once I found something I wanted to pollute my eyes with (cant go wrong with superbikes!).
Seemed to scroll ok and buffer just fine. Only niggle was the exit button gets obscured in landscape mode. That will probably be pretty dire on a tablet!
ITV is terrible, even the News looks dull and ‘washed’ out compared to the likes of the BBC and Sky, I know the point of watching the news is for information and not to look at flashy graphics and how good the presenters look (I’m not American after all) but every time I try to watch it I get distracted by how crap it looks. Apart from a few half decent drama series (the type the BBC does better) it’s rubbish like Britain’s got Talent, X Factor and Celebrity (in the loosest sense of the word) based drivel.
The only reason I ever watch ITV is because of the Football coverage, and that’s only just bearable to watch, due to the amount of adverts, they have a 60 minute build up to a game, which is 45 minutes of adverts interspersed with small amount of talking , they sometimes even resort to putting adverts on during extra time, “Did you see Everton score against Liverpool? No, I saw an advert for Wicks”
Why does the ITV player need to know your precise location? The STV app doesn't and doesn't want to download all your contacts and generally steal all your info either.
What does knowing where someone is give to ITV?
I also agree with the poor quality of programmes, ITV is just another channel to skip over when trying to find something worth watching...
Hi All,
I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience this time with playback. There are multiple factors that could be contributing to the perceived poor experience.
As a core developer of the media player and the person responsible for Android specific implementation I would love to work with you to prove that our playback is actually much more sophisticated than that of any other Adobe AIR on Android application (especially the BBC IPlayer/Media Player).
Our programmes are all multi bitrate streams at 400, 600 & 800 renditions and can be played on 3G or WIFI - There is no restriction. We also intended to launch with 1200, but it proved to be to processor intensive on some non Samsung devices. 150 and 300 renditions were also in scope but there were a few minor issues that prevented availability in the initial release. We could fix this but it hasn't been deemed a priority.
Our adverts are also available in two renditions at 300 & 600. It's a good idea but not the best implementation. For me personally this is a problem. We should do more... I hate that the progressive http adverts have the power to ruin the experience.
Personally I have found myself very frustrated by some of the decisions made. However to date I have tried extremely hard to do my best with the restrictions. Perhaps this article could be used to force a more proactive response to our users concerns.
I think we should have easily got a high 4 on the Play store...
I can assure you I had the media player working across every device I could test it on, see image below:
http://emergence.tv/itv-android-all-devices.png
Regards
Doug Gray
The Register 
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