Great news iPhone and iPod Touch owners! TVCatchup – the UK’s brilliant online TV streamer – has just launched a huge bundle of new channels for their site.
Many more of the Freeview channels are now available to stream free, anytime.
Just some of the new channels include Channel 4+1, BBC Four, ITV3, ITV4 and Fiver.
The service is still totally free and works over 3G or Wi-Fi so don’t miss out!
Head straight over to iphone.tvcatchup.com to get started.
Big news iPhone and iPod Touch users – you can now get live TV in the UK on your Apple devices.
Before I explain and you explode in excitement, you need to head straight over to http://iphone.tvcatchup.com to get the service.
The service is in beta so you only get some of the Freeview channels, but all the big ones are up on there.
I’ve just tried it now and it’s absolutely brilliant. The service is apparently optimised for 3G and Wi-Fi, but I’ve just ran it through on Wi-Fi and it streams in harmony. I’m on a 2MB connection here and it loads up really quickly, and hasn’t buffered once in the last 15 minutes. Perfect!
This is another brilliant addition to the TVCatchup service. Perfect if you’re in need of some TV and you aren’t at home.
Great work TVC, I’m really looking forward to the final version, but for now the beta is way more than I need!
A little legal note: Remember you need a UK TV license to watch TV while it is being broadcast. For your own legal safety, make sure your license is up to date before using the service. Thanks!
I just randomly found a fantastic free service. It’s called TVCatchup – bit of an odd name for a service that isn’t a catchup service. EDIT: One of the moderators has let me know that they are planning to add in recording capabilites in the future – looking forward to that.
It allows you to stream all of the freeview channels available in the UK for free. You can watch every free-to-air channel online, using the helpful online service. It even has a simple but useful EPG that runs in your web browser.
The service, predictably, is only for use in the UK. However, it works anywhere in the UK that can get a broadband connection, so if you’re in an area where Freeview/digital signal is poor, this service is a godsend! If you don’t have a TV license, it’s probably a bad idea to use the site, too. TVCatchup has said it will not actually police this.
You simply sign up for a free account and you’re off. Watch whatever channel you want whenever you want. The only thing you have to be careful of is your bandwidth limit – this will quickly chew up your bandwidth – so if you’re on a tight limit, I wouldn’t recommend prolonged viewing.
There is a short advertisement when you start a channel, but as far as I know that is all (with exception to adverts shown on TV channels).
I think it only works on some ISPs. Me, being on Tiscali (don’t ask why), miraculously it works. The service will tell you on signup if your ISP is not supported. TVC has told me that it is peered with all ISPs – I’m not totally sure what this means, but presumably there are few (if any) ISPs that actively block usage of TVCatchup.
This really is a fantastic service. I can now get all the channels I don’t get on Freeview, online. If you want to see for yourself, get a free account at www.tvcatchup.com.
Sony are now demoing the new kid on the block in the TV department – OLED. OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode, and is a new technology that might open up a brand new era in television.
This new technology means that the TV picture is naturally much brighter, so you don’t need a backlight on the TV. This not only saves a large amount of electricity, but means that TV’s can be so much thinner!
They aren’t cheap though – and the majority of people won’t be able to afford them for a little while yet (especially in the financial crisis at the moment), but maybe in a year or so they’ll be a bit cheaper and affordable.
For me though, I’m looking forward to OLED TV’s in laptops – I mean imagine how much it would improve battery life! We’ve got a lot to look forward to!
Well, after the BBC announced a couple of weeks back that they are to stream BBC1 and BBC2 starting in the next few days, it made me think – could I live with internet TV over conventional TV?
Of course, you still need a TV license to watch live TV; no matter whether its over a transmitter or an internet connection. So its no way of a couple of hundred pounds (don’t get excited). You can watch iPlayer and other on demand services without a license since they are not live, and as long as you don’t have a TV in your house, you are OK.
But I mean internet does seem to be becoming a little more practical now. We can get a huge proportion of the channels on Freeview over the internet now, and if you are one person in a house and you can cope with watching TV on a monitor, then it might save the cost of a TV and the channels to go with it.
As far as I know, you can get BBC1 and BBC 2 (in the next few days), BBC3, BBC4, ITV 1, 2, and 3, and a few other channels online. And I suspect a huge range of other broadcasters will start online soon.
As long as you have enough bandwidth in your broadband, you might find it very useful to have TV online, and I think it should be something to look forward to.
What do you think about it?