Box of Broadcasts (BoB)

What is BoB?

BoB is a service from the British Film and Video Council that enables you to record and view TV and radio online from over 50 free-to-air channels in the UK, including an archive of over 10,000 programmes. See bobnational.net or our Box of Broadcasts guide.

How do I access BoB?

Go to the BoB homepage
Type University of Northampton into the Where are you from? box (if you just start typing Northampton a link should appear)
Click Submit and log in using Athens (Athens help)

What are the benefits?

Record: You can schedule programmes to be recorded which will be broadcast over the next seven days, as well as retrieving programmes from the last seven days. All you need is access to the internet and your ATHENS login. You do not need to be on-site at the University. You can schedule up to three per recordings per day - if you need more, just email digitisation@northampton.ac.uk.

Playback: You can playback recordings over the internet, which means you can access them wherever you have an internet connection. You don't have to worry whether the DVD will be in the library!

Access to the national BoB online archive: As well as the material you have recorded, you can playback and make clips from all the material recorded on BoB by other UK university staff and students.

Make clips and create your own play list: You have your own profile within BoB, so you can make your own clips to play in lectures and store play lists of your favourite broadcasts.

Use Subtitles: Subtitles are available on all programmes - you can select to have subtitles turned on or off depending on your preferences.

Are there any limitations?

Licensing arrangements do not permit Open University programmes to be recorded via BoB. If you wish to record an Open University programme, contact the digitisation team, who will arrange to record it onto DVD under the OU licence (this service is for staff only). You can view a list of forthcoming Open University programmes.

BoB cannot be accessed outside the UK.