BBC iPlayer alternatives rated

ITV Player

Of all the on-demand services we looked at, ITV Player has the lowest picture quality with a smaller video window than the other broadcasters. Our measurement of the video window size, achieved by taking a screengrab and using PhotoShop to to determine the dimensions, told us that the video window is around 512x288 pixels, making it the smallest on test here.

There are some good things about ITV Player though. It doesn’t time out -- which means if you pause a video and come back to it later, it will still be there, ready to play. We also, bizarrely, quite appreciated the ITV Player progress bar, which tells you how many advert breaks you should expect.

There is some archive material on ITV Player too, with episodes of older shows like Surgical Sprit and The Saint, which makes it quite an attractive option for fans of older shows -- and a potential draw for ITV's older audience.

The trouble is that, although ITV player really could be very good, the picture quality is a bit of a let-down. There's no option to download, which is a crying shame, plus it's the only service from a non-BBC broadcaster that doesn't have some sort of option for rental or other pay content.

Our verdict: 4/10

Sub-par selection of shows, worst picture quality of all the player.