It would be useful to preserve the functionality of downloading news, sports and other embedded videos if get_iplayer had a --vpid option which skipped the lookup of a pid's versions and went straight to downloading the vpid requested.

I'm prepared to put in the time to write, maintain and host a simple PID/VPID extractor which would pull out embedded PID, VPID and image links from BBC pages if get_iplayer could gain the option.

The alternative is using nitro to work backwards from a vpid to a pid:

Quote:node nitro -v p0406t6p
.
* Programme Cache:
p0406t6l clip    Video Available  Online Media Pipeline : July 2016 : How spoof agony aunt Aherne became TV star
 3m S01E01/01 Caroline Aherne: Spoof agony aunt who became TV star
 p02r4g9s (Online Media Pipeline)   p02r7hcf (July 2016)   p0406t6p (vPID)
 bbc_webonly @ 2016-07-02T15:17:42Z

Cache has 1 entries, 0 hidden

This has come up before, and the answer from me is still no. youtube-dl already provides access to BBC embedded media. It has better code, more developers, and the rapid release cycle necessary to keep up with changes to all the related web pages. Given that, I can't see the attraction for the average user in running two different applications (and possibly maintaining two different scripting runtimes) just to download 2-minute video clips.

EDIT: Thanks for your offer, though.