Posts Tagged ‘tvcatchup’

TVCatchup streams to mobile as broadcasters aim to spoil the party

by David Gilson

June 11th, 2010 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

TVCatchup running on NokiaAs promised, we’re keeping you up to date with the latest happenings at TVCatchup.

Last week TVCatchup opened a private beta for streaming live TV to Blackberry, Android and Symbian phones. (Update: Palm webOS too.) However, they announced on their official forums today that the beta was going public for anyone to test the service.

To access the mobile streaming version, point your phone’s browser to: m.tvcatchup.com

According to the TVCatchup forums, Vodafone is not supporting their streams, and judging from Twitter, there seems to be mixed results on other mobile networks. Clearly, streaming video data will clog up mobile networks, so we recommend users to stick to WiFi, on which the service works well.

Continue reading »

TVCatchup ups its game for the World Cup

by David Gilson

May 28th, 2010 | Posted in Net TV | Comments1 Comment

TVCatchup, the UK TV streaming service, announced on Twitter today that they are introducing low and high quality streams along side their standard quality stream. Their tweets suggest that this is the first in a series of updates to coincide with this year’s World Cup tournament.

TVCatchup viewers can access the new streams by heading to the channels page, and then choose from the three links on the top-right corner of the channel grid. Other streaming services we’ve looked at have stream quality controls within the video player itself, allowing for in-situ bitrate adjustment. Hopefully this is something TVCatchup can add later.

TVCatchup engineers are still fine tuning the new streams as this post is being written. Although we’ve tested the streams and everything seems to be running well.

Continue reading »

Zattoo turns off BBC streams, could TVCatchup be forced to do the same?

by Steve O'Hear

April 26th, 2010 | Posted in Net TV | CommentsNo Comments

Following a request from the public broadcaster, Internet TV app Zattoo has stopped carrying the BBC’s content.

Although only available to viewers in the UK, Zattoo was able to live stream all of the BBC channels because, it argued, of what is effectively a legal loophole.

From our previous coverage:

Because each channel carries a public service remit, under section 73 of the UK Copyright Act, cable operators can re-transmit broadcasts live and uninterrupted without first seeking permission. Zattoo is effectively piggybacking the existing cable television provision.

Interestingly, along with pressure from the Beeb, Zattoo tells paidContent that it also paves the way for the service to launch a browser-based version alongside its existing desktop client. So in that sense, it may be partly a commercial decision, as presumably Zattoo doesn’t feel its legal defense holds enough water when competing with the BBC’s own browser-based iPlayer.

Continue reading »

Review: TVCatchup – Streaming live TV to your browser

by David Gilson

April 21st, 2010 | Posted in Net TV, Review | Comments1 Comment

tvcatchup frontpage

TVCatchup is a UK-only VoD site with a difference. When the site launched in late 2007, TVCatchup offered live streams of UK Freeview TV channels, along with the ability to record programmes. Unfortunately, copyright concerns saw TVCatchup withdraw their site, until relaunching, sans PVR functionality, in late 2008 (Source).

In its current form, TVCatchup is very simple, offering only live streams of almost all UK Freeview (free to-air) channels. The website gives a list of all available channels which can be clicked on to view. Better still, there is a TV/PVR like programme guide, showing a horizontal timeline of what’s on currently, and allows you to go forward (and back) in time to see what’s coming up. It also allows users to drag and drop TV channels into any order they like. However, there’s no EPG data available. Along with the channel list, there is a tab giving access to UK Freeview radio stations, this is in a testing phase, and during this review the audio player loaded but didn’t stream any audio. We’re sure this will be fixed soon though.

Continue reading »