BT befriends Google's lonely TV dongle – and saves YouView

BT is to make Premier League football available on Google's Chromecast TV platform, in a huge filip for the platform. Google started selling Chromecast in the UK last month - here's our review. While Chromecast bundles the usual OTTs (Over The Top) services including Netflix and YouTube, the only UK broadcaster support so far …

[RyokuMas]

BT and Google in bed together???

Next stop: halfway through a call, you're interrupted by an automated advert. Google have been listening to and analysing your call, and have determined that these products might interest you...

In fact, part of me is surprised that Google-based Android doesn't already do this in some capacity...

[mrh2]

"The broadcasters are now backing a new platform called FreeView Connect, which has yet to be officially announced, but is likely to be built into TVs next year. ®"

Except, beyond a Guardian article which also wrongly claimed the BBC and other PSBs were walking away from YouView, there's been no confirmation that FreeView Connect actually exists.

[Justa]

BT Sport, Youview, Now TV, Talk Talk, Chromecast, BT, Freeview Connect...

I doubt if even the late Bernard Matthews ever saw so many turkeys in one place.

[Irongut]

Clearly you haven't used Chromecast. Best 30 quid I've ever spent.

[The last doughnut]

YouView isn't bad but unfortunately the box manufacture was farmed out to Lord stingy-arse Alan Michael Sugar so you can guess what the hardware quality is like.

[Malcolm 1]

The shop bought and BT provided boxes are made by Humax - the quality is pretty good as far as I can tell. No worse than any other Freeview PVR certainly. I've no experience of the Huawei boxes TalkTalk provide though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Youview box manufacture => Lord Sugar ???

"box manufacture was farmed out to Lord stingy-arse Alan Michael Sugar"

It was? I knew the old barrow boy had a seat on the YouView board till he fell out with them, but...

"so you can guess what the hardware quality is like."

No need for me to guess. I look at the Humax that arrived from dabs/btshop courtesy of Father Christmas.

It's like any other Humax I've seen. Not like most Amstrad stuff I've seen.

[Jock in a Frock]

S'rAlan didn't make the boxes :-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouView#Set-top_boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

TalkTalk boxes are made by Huawei, BT's are/were Humax. AMS just ran the venture for a while, before realising he was trying to get arch rivals to lay their IPTV cards on the table.

YouView having expensive proprietary PVR hardware in this day and age seems quite backward in a world of Chromecast and ten quid NowTV boxes.

[Jason Bloomberg]

Suhalan

Don't let facts stand in the way of your hatred.

[Anonymous Coward]

Football ... bah.

I can has OTT Discovery or NatGeo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Discovery or NatGeo?

"I can has OTT Discovery or NatGeo?"

Course you can.

Course, in order to get them, or similar channels, you also have to pay for a whole load of stuff you don't want (let alione want to to pay for), over a delivery mechanism you may well not be interested in.

Which is a shame. Because you'd presumably pay for them as standalone channels but you won't pay for them as part of an overpriced bundle. And the same goes for me, and quite a few others. But hey, that's the "free market" for you.

[tin 2]

re BT saving youview

Given that youview got quickly bastardised into "new TV platform for BT that doesn't suck" I am not surprised they saved it, and that broadcasters are not interested.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a BT broadband customer but I'm able to watch BT sports online at my place using my old mans login details. Will it still work with Chromecast?

[Neil_]

I'd like a proper reason why the broadcasters don't like YouView. The linked article mentions they don't like BT/TalkTalk profiting from it... but what's wrong with that? At retail it (was) a £300 box, if someone wants to provide finance for it/lease it then good luck to them.

Seems a shame to waste all the effort that has gone into an open, scalable platform that works, is in homes and should become cheaper.

[PeterM42]

So how will anyone make money out of YouView?.....

....before it goes the way of other unprofitable ideas.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So how will anyone make money out of YouView?.....

Youview is designed to make money from advertising revenue for the catchup services, as content watched from catchup has adverts that cannot be skipped. so youview is designed to encourage catchup viewing and to make it seemless and easy, so you don't have to bother pre-recording, if its all available anyway.

YouView earns revenue for the catchup services so it is in the interest of all the services, and is supported by them (does it earn commission from ads watched via YV boxes?).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So how will anyone make money out of YouView?.....

" content watched from catchup has adverts that cannot be skipped"

Thank you for pointing this out.

I think if more people knew this, the sales figures would be lower still.

On the whole Youview is a nice concept at first glance, shame about the adverts spoiling it..

[Parax]

Youview is a dead end borked fork of freeview.

By restricting the setop box to not allow local content (local media servers) they have already created a duff set top box. but worst of all Youview does not support ConnectTV so does not support freeview content delivered over the internet (there will soon be many channels delivered this way) like MotorsTV on Freeview channel 240 which works on any recent internet-connected FreeviewHD unit but is not supported on youview boxes.

The future of youview looks dim. when a standard smart tv will support ALL the freeview content delivery routes and has apps for iplayer and the other offerings.