Project Canvas 'YouView' Trust approved

I'm beginning to think that BSB is getting paranoid over Canvas. Can they be concerned that with Universal High Speed Broadband on the Horizon (BT's 20MB service will be available to well over 50% of the population by 2011) that the open nature of Canvas and it's delivery prospects could mean that a viable and open alternative to using Satellite as a multichannel distribution mechanism is in sight?

If the service becomes the norm, and the developments seem to lead me to believe that it'd be a matter of time that the costs involved in adding Canvas to a television receiver will be minimal, then is Sky threatened.

The damage that could be done to Sky is considerable. Most households will have all the tech needed for real monetised multichannel services without the need for a box, with it's associated card and decryption software.

I think BSB can see it's own demise and are terrified at the prospect.

They objected further to the service today.

Doubt that very much as, SKY already has this service in operation and makes you pay, you can watch sky live view Xbox and computer, (without a box) so there already got there finger in the pie.

Sky are probably afraid they wont be able to come out with their own IPTV Version of sky which they can monetize and control. Also everyone seems to be involved or have some imput except for Sky, but if this is intentional or at sky's behest I don't know.

There is a point in that the BBC are playing the major part, and it being a both commercial and public service setup, a conflict of interest, but why cant sky be working alongside them to introduce a monetized element for their Sky Player. But perhaps they want to encourage competition, knowing they have equal expertise to the BBC, and knowing Channel 4, ITV, and Five could not compete alone.

The sad thing is Sky will probably get their way, but if it was the other way round with Sky controlling the IPTV market the OFT and OFCOM would be fine with it.

Well until another company decides to invest in a new satellite delivery system in this country, and they get competition then we can see how OFCOM and the OFT treat Sky.

My point is that Canvas will make a Satellite Delivery System redundant anyway.

Sky have a tantrum at the slightest 'threat'.

How programmes are delivered won't make any difference to whether this loathsome company continues to exist or not.

Doesn't BSB have their fingers in quite a few pies? As far as I've been able to tell, what a lot of people buy Sky for is their access to sports and some other channels that they also run. So long as they don't opt to offer these things on Canvas, and nobody is going to force them to, the audience who wants those things will buy whatever they need to just as they do now.

You neglect the Wholesaling issue and the fact that with an internet pipe then competitors can bid for sporting rights and feed them to the public via that rather than Satellite.

Yeah, that's what you'd think but they'll resemble US cable more and more as time goes on. If you have satellite in the US then you can't get very good coverage of some sports teams because cable giant Comcast owns numerous city stations and a national and keeps ripping them off the satellites for more negotiation hardball. While they hold out for money, frustrated fans who can get out of their subscriptions switch to cable so they win either way.

In the case of Sky, they'll probably begin by putting their non-sport stuff on their while telling sports fans to buy a dish, and if they get outbid and games start showing online then they'll pull their other content from it. That vertical monopoly strategy is pretty effective.

I'm still curious to know how this Canvas stuff is going to interfere with bandwidth capping. How will BT and the like will respond when every nan and granddad in the country who only ever checks their mail and watches some videos of cats, begins consuming as much data as a BitTorrent user?

Project Canvas: OFT approves internet TV service

Project Canvas, the broadband Freeview TV joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva, has been approved by the Office of Fair Trading.

If Project Canvas was cleared by the BBC Trust, it would allow viewers to watch on-demand services, such as ITV.com, the BBC iPlayer, and other internet content, via television sets. Photo: Getty Images The Office for Fair Trading has approved Project Canvas. Photo: GETTY
The internet connected TV set-top box, which has faced strong opposition from several media and technology companies such as Sky and Virgin Media, is now expected to go into production, having cleared its biggest regulatory hurdle.

The joint venture received provisional approval from the BBC Trust in December and will have to wait for final clearance before forging ahead. However, a senior TV executive, close to the Canvas negotiations, said: “Now that the OFT has given is approval, the service is a shoe-in. It is very unlikely that the BBC Trust would go against the OFT’s judgement in this scenario.” In order for the project to forge ahead, the BBC Executive had to apply to the BBC Trust for approval.

Project Canvas plans to combine the digital terrestrial TV service of Freeview with broadband in a next generation web-connected set-top box and hopes to deliver internet protocol television (IPTV) to the masses. It would allow viewers to watch on-demand services, such as the BBC iPlayer and other internet content, via television sets. It would also be available on Freesat.


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(I realise that I'm replying to a very old comment, however...)

Internet delivery just doesn't work for large scale broadcasting. It's essentially unicasting many times, which is nowhere near efficient. Even with upgrades to BT's network, I reckon that if everyone tried watching a World Cup final, or a state funeral - or even EastEnders through their broadband pipe, the internet would grind to a halt. Or, to use another analogy, the pipes would get clogged.
Sticks on hills - or hunks of metal floating through the air - may be expensive, but at least you can get a lot of bandwidth to a lot of people with no extra cost per viewer.

That said - I do rather like getting iPlayer and 4oD on my telly through my Virgin cable box, and I'm rather annoyed that my new flat can't get cable. For catch-up services, a Canvas box would do nicely, thank you.