Tech Digest

BT and Universal team up to offer video downloads (but with a free DVD!)

Big news from BT. Nope it is not the announcement of the launch of its broadband TV service BT Vision, that’s coming in the autumn, rather the company has announced a deal with Universal to offer the film company’s movies for downloads via its BT Vision website and, in the future, via its BT Vision set top box.

Starting from the end of July consumers will be able to download the movies from the BT Vision website to their PC paying between £7.99-16.99 for the privilege. The really odd bit is that for their money consumers not only get one copy for their PC and another which they can port onto a mobile device, they also get a DVD of the movie through the post a few days later. Dan Marks, CEO of BT Vision, suggested that this was because of research which showed that three times as many people would subscribe to the service if a hard copy was included.

The movies will be in a Windows media format and will play on any ‘plays for sure’ Windows Media compatible devices. Eddie Cunningham, chair universal Pictures UK, acknowledged that the BT deal was the first of many, so don’t rule out Universal movies on your iPod video then. The movies, the first of which will include King Kong and Pride & Prejudice, are around 1-2 Gigs in size and take from around ninety minutes to download on a two Meg connection.

While the website move makes sense for BT the big push will inevitably when BT launches its BT Vision set top box service in the autumn. There users will be able to download the Universal movies to their set top box. BT says too that users will be able to access the movies any time, and won’t necessarily need to store them on the BT Vision box’s hard disk.

Freeview announces 'Freeview Playback'

Apparently we all know what Freeview is (a package of free channels on the digital terrestrial platform right). But not many of us are yet aware of digital TV recorders (or PVRs) which can be used for recording digital TV programmes on to a built-in hard drive. So Freeview, in conjunction with the Digital Television Group, is launching a new initiative called 'Freeview Playback'.

Expected to be on the market by September 2006, the Freeview Playback brand will be used on all digital terrestrial PVRs. It seems like a good idea, though maybe the name isn't the best one they could have chosen. Personally I would have gone for Freeview Plus - after all everyone knows what Sky Plus is and really this is the terrestrial equivalent.

More Freeview stories:
Freeview hits 10 million mark
Freeview digital TV in your car

Digital switchover awareness low

Never mind the move to HDTV, according to a new survey, awareness of the switchover to digital TV in the UK is "alarmingly low", with 38% unaware of the government's intention to switch off the analogue signal and only 7% knowing that the switchover was planned to be complete by 2012.

In response, Digital UK, set up by the TV industry to oversee the switchover, said a £200m public information campaign would be launched in May, with money going to retailers, manufacturers, charities and consumer groups to build awareness.

The Which? report found half the people surveyed did not realise they would require a set-top box, satellite dish, cable or broadband internet to receive programming once analogue ends, while six out of 10 believed it was wrong to enforce the change.

The Border ITV region will be the first to have its analogue signal switched off in 2008 as part of a trial. Digital UK claims there has been a "significant" increase in awareness in the region.

Digital UK website

Via BBC

More TV:
Freeview hits 10 million mark
Internet sends TV viewing into decline

CES 2006: Is this Telewest's next box

At the CES Innovations bash this evening we had a very interesting chat with the folks from Scientific Atlanta - the company that makes cable boxes like this for Telewest. It has just unveiled a new box which features a cable decoder and 160 Gigabyte hard disk drive, like the Telewest, but also includes an integrated DVD recorder. The company says that it is offering the DVD as a response to demands from consumers who apparently run out of storage on the hard drive and want further archiving options.

The box, which will be rolled out in the US in the Spring, also includes three TV tuners and is compatible with High Definition TV transmissions. The company is also working on a version of the box that will stream video (including HD) to other TVs round the home.

Obviously Scientific Atlanta isn't saying that the DVD combi will be available from Telewest, but let's just say it is there and it would be a smart move for the cable company to offer it.

NTL buys Telewest for $6 billion

We've lost count of the number of Telewest/NTL merger stories we've run over the past few months, but now it's finally happened. NTL is set to acquire Telewest for about $6 billion, paying close to $24 a share - both companies operate in the UK but are listed in New York. The deal includes Telewest's Flextech digital TV business (Bravo, Living TV, Trouble and Challenge) which Telewest had put up for sale earlier in the year.

It's hoped the deal will create a single strong cable company that can compete more effectively with satellite's BSkyB. NTL's chief executive Simon Duffy is to become CEO of the combined company and Telewest's acting CEO Barry Elson is expected to stand down reports Reuters.

Telewest's Teleport TV

We've said before that cable company Telewest has been a bit slower rolling out Video on Demand (VOD) services than its rival NTL. But now it seems the Woking-based company is fighting back with the launch of a new on demand service called Teleport (wonder where they got that name from then?) Initially the service will only be available in Cheltenham and Gloucester, but there are plans to roll out the service to more than a million customers by early next year. The move follows the launch of a movies-on-demand service in nearby Bristol.

Telewest viewers can access the Teleport service via their existing set-top box and remote control. Teleport Movies offers a library of 200 current and classic films from FilmFlex for between £2 and £3.50 per night. Other services include Teleport  Replay (a second chance to catch programmes like EastEnders and Casualty) and Teleport Life (specialist interest programmes).

Due to be added soon, Teleport TV will include classic BBC series such as Morse and Waking The Dead, plus music videos on a subscription basis. Telewest Broadband has already secured content from a wide range of providers including Filmflex, the BBC, Flextech, Discovery Networks Europe, National Geographic Channel Europe, Nickelodeon, Jetix (formerly Fox Kids) and Playboy TV. The BBC agreement will initially provide over 180 hours of documentaries, natural history, drama, light entertainment and children's programmes.

Belfast gives NTL's VOD the nod

While Telewest seems to have been a little tardy on rolling out VOD (that's Video on Demand), rival ntl just keeps adding new areas to its On Demand service. Latest to get the instant video at your fingertips service is Belfast. Hundreds of movies can be acccessed at the touch of a button from ntl's central servers including Collateral, The Stepford Wives, Shrek 2 and Alfie. Other highlights include a music video jukebox service featuring the likes of U2, Scissor Sisters, Keane and Eminem plus over 50 hours of children's programmes without adverts.

NTL

iPlayer+ offers PVR - but no hard drive

Long before it became the law to use the 'i' prefix for every piece of consumer electronics, in fact way back in 2002, French firm Netgem introduced the iPlayer. It's essentially a digital terrestrial (Freeview) box but it can also be used for sending e-mail, surfing the net, even listening to MP3s. It's also TopUp TV ready.

Actually I thought the product had disappeared altogether (you can't seem to get it anywhere on the net these days), until I received a press release this morning plugging a supposedly sooper-dooper new model, the iPlayer+.

As well as a 7 day EPG (now standard on most Freeview boxes) the iPlayer+ features Bluedelta Design's Phantom+ PVR for programming. However annoyingly you'll still need a separate recording device for capturing them which seems a bit of an omission to me. Why they haven't bunged a hard drive into what is otherwise a cracking product is beyond me.

The iPlayer+ retails for £89.99 (without keyboard).

Netgem

Telewest to launch HDTV this year - ahead of Sky

Let's face it, in the battle for the digital TV high ground, cable has always come out second to Sky. But now it seems Telewest is fighting back, announcing that it is to launch a High Definition TV service this year - several months ahead of its deadly rival, at least according to industry magazine New Media Markets. Content will be distributed through Telewest's video-on-demand network and will only be available by using its personal video recorder (PVR). The BBC's natural-history series, Planet Earth, is one of the HDTV offerings that Telewest is likely to show. Other content could come from the US where high-definition TV content is now about the same price as standard definition.
Launched in January, Telewest's VOD network is currently only available to 2,000 customers in Bristol. However, Telewest claims it will be rolled out to all 1.2million digital TV customers across the UK by early 2006. Its PVR box, a 160GB model with three tuners is expected to be available in the next couple of months. Click here for details.

Meanwhile, BSkyB is working on a new version of its PVR - called unofficially Sky Plus Plus - which will support HD. BSkyB has publicly committed to launching HDTV in 2006 although some kind of service may now launch before the end of the year. NTL, which is expected to merge with Telewest very soon, currently has its own plans for HDTV and a PVR which it expects to launch next year.

Panasonic announces Freeview PVR box

Panasonic has announced the upcoming release of their its Freeview PVR box. The TU-CTH100 comes with an 80GB integrated hard drive, which you can use to record all those episodes of Joey that you’d otherwise miss. It features dual tuners so you can watch one channel and record another and can store up to 45 hours of footage on the hard drive (that’s about two and a half series of twenty-four. It comes with an apparently intuitive interface for the channel guide (which has information about programmes up to one week in advance) and the hard drive, allowing you to quickly access to what you’ve recorded.

The box will also allow you to seamlessly switch from playback to live recording, meaning that you can start watching the first part something that you’re recording: useful if you walk in ten minutes late for Trisha, for example. The box also allows you to watch two channels simultaneously. Panasonic has said the release of the TU-CTH100 is coming “soon” and the box is expected to retail for £280.

Freeview for under £40

No we've never heard of them either. And we're not sure why they're called Inverto - doesn't that kind of mean inside out? Sadly, this digital terrestrial (Freeview) box isn't inside out, but it is probably one of the cheapest we've seen retailing for just £39.99 from Unbeatable. As you might expect there's not too much to get excited about but it seems to have all the bits in the right places.

Inverto IDL-800T:
Full DVB-T and MHEG-5 compliant
2 Scarts (TV and VCR)
RF loopthrough
Now and Next Programme Guide
Subtitles and Teletext

Er. That's pretty much it.

Unbeatable