The BBC have started to roll out an updated version of the iPlayer which offers a new 'high quality' option, delivering video encoded in H.264 at 800kbps. And wow, does it look sweet (unfortunately I cannot embed the image here as it's too large). And that's before you blow it up to fullscreen - I played it on my 24" iMac and the quality was truly impressive. What's more important though is the fact that this player is so easy to access, and videos play without rebuffering. Click and watch, it cannot get any easier.

This news is pretty major, considering that Flash Player 9 is required to play the H.264 encoded content. "Back in December of last year, relatively few people had installed the Flash player needed to play H.264 content; now almost 80% of BBC iPlayer users have it", says Anthony Rose on the BBC Internet Blog. Clearly this sets a benchmark and should convince any doubters that Flash Player 9's features are now totally ready for mainstream - including its hardware acceleration features.

I wish the whole world could access the iPlayer pages because it is an online experience that's largely unrivaled. I've heard that the BBC is thinking about releasing some worldwide content - you should look forward to it.

There's lost more info about the H.264 rollout on the BBC Blog.