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How can we help?
To make your experience of bbc.co.uk as enjoyable and useful as possible, we use the latest technologies across a wide range of media (audio, video, animation, interactive games and news tickers). For easy-to-follow advice about technical issues click on the relevant subject below. For other help subjects look in the left/right-hand columns.
- Making pages load more quickly
- Watching video, listening to live radio or sound clips
- Getting games, animated movies or 3D pictures to work
- Getting a website address to work
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Making pages load more quickly
- The speed of your connection to the Internet can make all the difference to the time it takes to load webpages. We recommend a modem with a minimum speed of 28.8kbps.
- Our Webwise guide to internet connection can be found here.
Slow downloads
If you're using a slow modem connection you'll find that sites rich in multimedia elements will take longer to download. If browsing for text-based information, you could either:
- use our 'text only' service or
- turn off the images setting in your browser.
Download times also vary depending on the number of people visiting the site. With very high demand our servers may slow down a little. NB: Network congestion may occur when major news stories are breaking on the site.
Browsers
Our site is optimised for Versions 3 and above of Microsoft and Netscape browsers.
- The BBC Webwise Browsers Factsheet is here.
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Watching video, listening to live radio or sound clips
We provide a wide selection of audio and video BBC broadcasts over the Internet. Wherever they occur, you will see a  symbol for video and a  symbol for audio.
To watch video or listen to live radio/sound clips you'll need to install the latest free version of RealPlayer onto your computer. Please go to the Real.com website using the links below and download the player appropriate to your computer. You do not need to buy the $10 version to access BBC audio and video services.
For Windows '98/2000/ME/NT4/XP
Solaris 2.6/2.7 - Linux 2.0
- Go to http://www.real.com/products
/player/bbc.html and follow the instructions given in order to register. A cookie will be placed on your PC so that whenever you visit that site again your details will be recognised and set for any future downloads
Please note: - It is recommended that Mac and Windows '95 users download the Free RealPlayer 8 Basic.
- Please go to the Real Archive download page
- Click on the 'previous versions' link located in the grey bar running across the centre of the page.
- In the next page you will see a link to 'Download Free RealOne Player Only' in the grey portion to the right - click on this.
- You will be taken to a registration form which should be filled in accordingly.
Please visit our Audio/Video troubleshooting FAQs page for more tips, detailed explanations and answers.
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Getting games, animated movies or 3D pictures to work
- bbc.co.uk contains interactive elements such as animated movies, clickable guides and games, which may require a Shockwave or Flash player plug-in to be installed. These can be downloaded free from the Macromedia website.
- Some of our interactive content uses Quicktime - identified by the
 symbol. Viewing requires a player which can be downloaded free here.
- 3D animations require the Cosmo 3D player. The player, and instructions on how to use it, can be downloaded free from Cosmo Software.
- For our 360° photographic tours you'll need the free Ipix player.
- PDFs are BBC text documents which can only be viewed using Adobe Acrobat Reader. This software can be downloaded free here.
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Getting a website address to work
When entering the address of a site manually into the location box of your browser please ensure that it contains:
- www. first
- lower case text only
- no spaces or illegal characters
If you find an address on bbc.co.uk that doesn't work, look for the site in our A-Z guide or contact the webmaster.
Unable to access advertised sites:
We aim to launch sites before they are advertised, however this may not always be possible. Should you be unable to access the site you are looking for please visit our A-Z guide and follow any links from there or contact the webmaster.
Broken links/Can't find an existing site:
bbc.co.uk is constantly updated to provide relevant information. As a result you might find that older sites are moved or archived and their addresses changed. Whilst we try to adjust links you might still find some that return an error. To find out if a site has been changed or deleted please try visiting our A-Z guide and adjust any old bookmarks accordingly.
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More help with:
Further help is available at:
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