Channel 4 Watch Live

Apologies if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but how long have Channel 4 been live streaming online? You can watch C4, E4, Film4 and More4 but not 4Music.

http://watchlive.channel4.com/

It also has its own favicon, same as the normal one (the 1999 logo) but recoloured to have an orange background.

Hmmm they kept this quiet!

I think watching Channel 4 online has been available for years via Channel4.com but certainly not E4, More4 and Film4.

They launched a live stream of Channel 4 years ago if I remember rightly, then they ditched it.

So this looks like a brand new service - or a revived service at least - with the addition of their other channels as well.

Well... I can remember them trialling it for a Big Brother series (the one with yellow/black striped look - yes, that's the extent of my show knowledge) and then *I think* they left it up full time for a bit afterwards.

But I also think they then took it down at some point as I can remember searching for a live stream within the last few years (yes, that's how much I require C4) to no avail?

Yes I only found it through the 'recently answered questions' section on the 4Viewers site.

Yeah, I remember they launched the online simulcast as a trial years ago before anyone else - so early that they didn't even have the rights to stream adverts, so in the breaks (as well as certain shows) you got a nice loop of 4 music and an animated holding screen. Possibly was based in Windows Media Player?

And then dropped it sometime later. I'm surprised it took them so long to bring it back officially actually. Possibly in prep for Paralympics, getting live streams going? Just stuck on E4 and it's taking the HD version as source - wonder what the max-bitrate of the stream is, is it HD?


Edit: The 2006 launch - http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/channel-4-launches-broadband-simulcast-service
And this year's relaunch - http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/multiplatform/c4-to-simulcast-all-content-online/5043108.article

It definitely looks HD - although the stream does take a few moments to get up to the highest quality. It must determine what bitrate to use on the speed of the connection.

It also seems that they are using the same sponsorship sting for each show as on TV. I just clicked on More4 and it's showing Location, Location, Location - the 'Property on 4' B&Q sponsor was the last ad I had to view before the stream started. Very clever.

Woah check out the More4 stream - it's using the proposed More4 HD DOG. Internal HD stream?

I'm finding these streams, useless, not seen 1 second of live TV. Keep getting an insufficient bandwidth message, my speed is not great, but it can handle other live streams fine.

Have you got AdBlock enabled?

That helps, thanks.