Have noticed a few new modes creeping into the tonight. hlsvhigh, hlshigh and hlsstd.

Attached the output.

hlsmodes.txt

They are supposed to be there (modes != versions). Will be explained at next release, but feel to give them a whirl.

Are these getting ready to support the changeover from RTMP to HLS and HDS

Yes, though it's still unknown how that's going to work in practice.

Have we heard any more about when these changes to HLS and HDS are going to happen? Last time it was mentioned I think they were talking about moving the audio streams away from RTMP later in 2015 but apart from the live TV streams already being HDS, I don't think anything had been said about moving TV away from RTMP.

No clue. If experience is any guide, they probably won't announce it beforehand, so we'll just have to wait until get_iplayer is blown up again.

I am not having the issues noted in this post stream but this is great reading on how the code works and some of the fun with Perl. I am can see a number of techniques I have not seen before.
Thanks for all your efforts.