Channel 4

There's still an excessive amount of adverts though. I've yet to see my mum watch more than five minutes of a programme on demand five with it out being interrupted by adverts all the time.

Well, I wouldn't know about Demand 5 because I've never watched it. But that was my point, the commercial streaming services are unbearable. The BBC I-player and ad-free subscription services like Netflix though are brilliant and more convenient than linear telly.

STV player can be a hit and a miss, ie sometime you get ads, and some times you dont. It tends to just be 100 seconds.

5 on demand, I've never seen adverts on it.

You haven't seen adverts on demand 5? Well, you are certainly lucky. I hate having to use demand 5 if I miss a programme or what not because, on top of the excess amount of adverts, if you try to move forward or back in the programme it cuts to a lifetime of ads even if there wasn't one scheduled before/after where you clicked.

You're right about STV also sometimes though it doesn't work at all.

I don't really like having to sign up to watch a service either. I get that it's a quick registration process but as I prefer watching something when it's on IMO it just adds to the pain especially if you can't remember your login and have to go through that process of getting a new password only to watch a 30 minute programme.

I really only use ITV & demand 5, out of the two, demand 5 is better at least the advert lenth is shown and I feel I have more control. Where ITV starts, with a full load of ad's and the times it has failed, it has repeated those ads again.

Just reading this article, I noticed it mentions a 'Channel 4B' while I certainly cannot remember it, does any one else know anything about it?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sport/cricket/194168.stm

I remember some of it being shown on the original Film4 but without the paywall, don't know if that block had a separate name?

Yeah, Film4 used to take uninterrupted cricket coverage when the racing was on. In the same way, extra horse races at big events like the Cheltenham Festival used to be available on there too.

I don't recall it did, and there was no pres either, it just crashed into the coverage, and crashed out at the end.
Curiously during periods when it was simulcasting with the main Channel 4 service, coverage continued while C4-Main took an ad break, but the commentary lapsed.

It was essentially a red button service without the red button. Think initially it was called something like C4 Extra on screen but ultimately they just directed people to Film4Four (which in those days didn't begin broadcasting till 6pm). Coverage usually continued within the racing on C4 too, which despite complaints at the time wasn't too different a situation to the norm at the BBC.

Though other than the Sky+HD implementation the picture quality of iPlayer isn't great (720/25p at best these days and a pretty low bitrate) Certainly not a patch on Freeview HD, Freesat HD or Sky HD. They are more convenient - but I couldn't watch them unless there was a compelling reason to. (Though the Sky+HD version is as good if not better than broadcast off-air quality - and incredibly useful)

Netflix stuff is encoded quite well, but good luck finding an external set-top box that lets you watch it at 24p native and avoid 3:2 pulldown judder (which you don't get on broadcast TV as we have 2:2 symmetrical pulldown) Personally I find 3:2 unwatchable and stopped after attempting to watch one film during my free trial period. I did find that a WDTV Live could be forced into 24p mode - but the Netflix UI was horrid on it.

Yes, I noticed that. I don't have Sky+HD, but my brother-in-law does, and I was astounded at the quality, as you say, it could well be better than off air. It's very data hungry though (of course !)