Freeview Connect - catchup TV from main broadcasters

The BBC, ITV and C4 are now looking at getting their catch up players on TV as standard and launching a "Freeview Connect" brand as they scale back their links with Youview.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/09/bbc-channel4-itv-catch-up-freeview-connect-smart-tvs?CMP=twt_fd

Probably how they should have done it in the first place really - although I think most smart TVs now have at least the BBC iPlayer and Demand 5, and probably 4oD too - though that has been slow off the mark in some cases. I believe ITV Player has an exclusive contract with Samsung as far as Smart TVs go, but suspect that will come to an end sooner rather than later.


Wouldn't be surprised to see the BBC ultimately bring all their extra live streaming under the iPlayer brand too.

BBC already have a Red Button iPlayer on many Freeview HD boxes don't they? (Very similar to their Freesat service)

Let's hope this service uses broadcast standard 50i rather than 25p streams (as the Freeview HD service does)

I think for it to work it basically needs to unite what is out there at the moment without requiring any further kind of upgrade.

I hope that the broadcasters agree to unite the technical standards for this offering so that there's a communality in viewer experience. This very much sounds like Kangaroo revisited though, and might provoke objections.

I think this kind of thing will only ever appear on new TVs and boxes, so there will be a need to purchase some extra equipment. There is no incentive for manufacturers to continue to release/allow new updates and firmware for their devices once they are a year or so old. They will have moved on to their latest devices.

Not really, quite a few manufacturers have their equivalent of an 'app store', where you download or update various services and applications and install them on the equipment. Panasonic, Samsung and Humax being 3 brands that do this.


However there are certain restrictions with such services. My TV has iPlayer on it, but as Brekkie says, it apparently won't get an ITV Player or 4OD app because they are currently exclusive to Samsung tellies. I assume this new product will be platform neutral like iPlayer