What is Happening to TopUpTV?

Well apparantly not as Film4 is moving to channel 29 from tomorrow according to announcements tonight.




No - it's basically a modified version of Sky+, where your TUTV box will automatically record programmes overnight.


Having done a bit of research it's not a unique system - and with the right programmes it could work, but the line up printed above has no appeal to me at all.


I think in theory Sky+ could offer some similar "On Demand" service via their own boxes. According to Wikipedia, standard Sky+ boxes actually only allow viewers to use half of their hard drive and record 40 hours, with the other 40 hours reserved for unspecified Sky+ content - which could easily be On Demand stuff taped overnight TUTV style - though it would be even more limited than TUTV's.

Isn't that what I said?

I'm seriously worried...you're a moderator on a TV forum and you don't know that Eurosport UK is a Topup channnel or not? You imbecile, it replaced E4 when E4 went onto Freeview....LAST YEAR!

Well, I meant "no" as in the "yes" sense of the word!


Anyone heard any more information on the BT Vision service supposed to be launching soon, which would offer On Demand content via Broadband. It be interesting to see how they compare!

According to Greg Scott on QuizMania tonight, ITV Play on Freeview is moving to Channel 31 from tomorrow. And your post answers what I was going to write about where Film4 is moving to. Ironic really, they spent all that time advertising Film4 as being free on Channel 31 and then three weeks later change channel numbers.

Someone has posted all the details in the Five US/Life thread.

Basically ITV4, Film4 and E4+1 move from 30-32 to 28-30, ITV Play and Quizcall move from 35/36 to 31/32 and Five US and Five Life launch on 35 and 36 respectively.


It is so stupid though - no long term planning at all in the allocation of numbers.

I think Freeview also have some stupid rules regarding their EPGs where rather than slotting in to 28/29, if lower LCN become available the other channels move up the EPG and new channels are added at the end.

Ideally Freeview should be doing what Sky did a few months back - recategorize everything, put the specialist channels further up the EPG and leave space for future expansion.

As an example (and I know this will never happen but its hypothetical anyway), terrestrial channels are protected, positions 1-5. Shift the entertainment channels to the 10's - ITV2, ITV3, Sky Three, E4, ABC1, E4+1, ITV4 - to positions 10-16 respectively. Move the shopping channels - QVC, Ideal World, bid.tv, price-drop.tv - to positions 20-23 respectively. Move the News channels - Sky, News 24, Parliament - to 30-32 respectively, Children's to 50-52 and specialist channels from channel 60 onwards, including things like ITV Play, Quizcall and Teacher's TV.

This arrangement on its own adds enough logic and enough expandability for a while and while not totally future-proof, is a bit better than what we have at the moment.

Still no sign of it actually launching properly, but some info about how the Anytime hours split up:

http://uk.geocities.com/free2viewtv/TUTVcomparison.html


Eurosport gets all it's chopped hours back as part of the Anytime service, but the others don't. Also, all Anytime content from UKTV Gold and UKTV Style is taken from the "live broadcasts" of the channel - so if viewers wanted them they could just tape them off the channel themselves.


And with the launch of Setanta Sports due next year, they'll be even less channel space on offer!

You missed BBC3&4

BTW, can anyone explain - what's up with channel 34 if Setanta haven't launched yet? It's been there for yoinks (not being a subscriber, I can't view it)

TOpuptv Anytime

In my personal opinion, Topuptv is going through difficulties. They have messed about with orders and those who put in their orders early which includes me, have not got our boxes.
It has been muted that Topuptv has actually started but the boxes are taking too long to deliver. Perhaps the ship from Japan got marooned in Hawaii

They've been on DTT for some time now, stealing CITV's bandwidth when they need to show a match on a Saturday afternoon. Before CITV, they took ITV NC off air for the same reason. They currently operate a Pay Per View service, an unencrypted hidden video stream protected by an MHEG application.

I don't think Top Up TV are doing themselves any favours at the moment and I'm now back to the opinion it can be nothing but a flop.


What is interesting is what might rise out of the ashes - and I'm sure the On Demand idea will remain.


Freeview are launching their official PVR brand Freeview Playback later in the year, and with a few tweaks it would be possible to get some sort of on demand service on the platform, using for example the unused hours of the BBCi streams.