TVCatchup

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TVCatchup was an

Internet television Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air a ...

service for viewing free-to-air UK channels. It operated as a

cable service Cable television is a system of delivering television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of televisio ...

and retransmitted

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

, Channel 5, and

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

, amongst others, only in the UK. Users were able to access the service via desktop browsers as well as smartphone and tablet apps. The service was funded by advertising, with advertisements preceding the live channel stream. The service was originally launched in 2007 as a

personal video recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...

in the cloud, before being redesigned as a live-streaming service. , it had nearly 10 million active users, according to the company, with 2 million viewers tuning in to the service to watch the England versus Poland FIFA World Cup qualifier on 15 October 2013. On 4 June 2014 TVCatchup Ltd went into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

by order of London's High Court of Justice. The service remained online, despite winding up and liquidation orders made in May 2015. In August 2017, Bruce Pilley, a former director of the company, was banned from being a company director for nine years for failing to disclose that the company had a winding-up order against it when drawing down a loan.

Features

TVCatchup retransmitted free-to-air channels appearing on

Freeview Freeview may refer to: * Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia * Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), ...

and

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Digital UK. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. Free ...

within the UK. Users were able to view up to 17 channels live via the Internet. , the website also offered a catchup service, providing listings for recently aired programmes from the UK's four largest broadcasters, and redirects viewers to their on-demand services. It was possible to record TV in 2007, but that functionality was removed in 2008. The company said in 2010 that the facility would be returning to the site.

Channels

The following channels were available to all United Kingdom television licence holders:

Infrastructure

TVCatchup owned its entire infrastructure. In 2010 it was reported that the network had a capacity for 50 GBps.

Platforms

The service was accessed through desktop browsers with

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

installed. It can also be viewed on the

Windows Media Center Windows Media Center (WMC) is a defunct digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate e ...

functions of

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...

(Home Premium and Ultimate) and Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005. TVCatchup was accessible on mobile devices through a range of free apps. An

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

app was released on the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

in 2011 for both iPhone and iPad. The app was compatible with Apple Airplay, meaning it can be viewed on a TV set. The app can be set to receive only via WiFi, to avoid incurring potentially high streaming costs. An Android app was released in September 2012, available from the

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android (operating sys ...

store. In December 2012, an app was launched for the Kindle HD Fire tablet. In February 2013, an app was launched for Windows Phone 8. All mobile devices can access the service through their browsers. There is a plug-in available for

XBMC Kodi (formerly XBMC) is a free and open-source media player software application developed by the XBMC Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium. Kodi is available for multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, with a software 10- ...

. It used to be watchable on a PS3, however as of a firmware update in 2010 this is no longer possible. There was also an

Adobe AIR Adobe AIR (also known as Adobe Integrated Runtime and is codenamed Apollo) is a cross-platform runtime system currently developed by Harman International, in collaboration with Adobe Inc., for building desktop applications and mobile applicatio ...

desktop application released in Beta mode on 28 April 2009 for the

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: ''Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All the ...

8.10 operating system, which was to be gradually updated to include features such as a full TV guide and PVR. TVCatchup released an

cross-platform desktop PVR into Beta mode on 8 May 2014, with features including a full TV guide, pop out player and PVR .

Dispute with G Zero

In December 2015, TVCatchup announced on their site that they had commenced legal action against G Zero Ltd, an app developer it had originally contracted to provide mobile apps for its service. It is claimed that GZero used TVCatchup's IP to create and launch their own app, ToView Live TV which offers a similar service using both an advertising and subscription model. ToView is, according to the complaint, a re-brand of the original TVCatchup app. As of February 2016, this legal action is still pending and the GZero app is still available in app stores. TVCatchup relaunched their app in December 2015.

Legality

TVCatchup retransmits free-to-air channels over the Internet on the basis of section 73 of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988c 48, also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received Royal Assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law ( ...

(CDPA 1988), which allows for the retransmission of 'qualifying services'. Its status as a cable service was challenged by

and Channel 5, when they issued legal proceedings in June 2010. In the hearings held in June 2011, Lord Justice Floyd in the

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...

ruled that TVCatchup's defence relying on s.73 of the CDPA 1988 was valid. The judgement expressly excludes retransmission of any other channels under these provisions as well as retransmission to 3G mobile devices, home WiFi Mobile reception remains unaffected. In a court order dated 7 October 2013, the High Court ruled that TVCatchup should cease retransmitting the 'digital channels' of ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 but not the principal channels. TVCatchup was also required to deposit an amount of £200,000 in lieu of costs and ordered to cease retransmission by mobile broadband, although it has been granted leave to appeal this decision. Meanwhile, reception by WiFi remains permissible. On 26 March, the Court of Appeal dismissed TVCatchup's appeal, meaning the PSB channels may only be streamed by WifI. On the same day, the Department for Culture, Media & Sport published an open consultation on the balance of payments between television platforms and public service broadcasters within which the department stated the government's intention to repeal section 73. Although the Welsh public service broadcaster S4C is covered under the provisions of the CDPA 1988, the channel entered into a formal carriage agreement with TVCatchup in August 2013. The site was initially conceived as an online PVR service, where users could select shows from one of 30 free-to-air channels to record up to one week in advance of their broadcast. However, following concerns from broadcasters about the functionality of the site, TVCatchup voluntarily suspended its services while their concerns were addressed.

Discontinuation

iOS app According to the Apple App Store listing for the iOS TVCatchup.com app, the company who published the app was ''Toyon Investments Limited''. Companies House, in the UK, report that company as being "dissolved" on 26 February 2019, which will likely be the reason behind the discontinuation of the TVCatchup.com streaming service. Android app The Android app is published by a company called ''Spaceshifting, LLC.'', and as-of March 2021 is still available to download in the Google Play Store, despite the listing stating the last update published for the app was made on 16 October 2017, and most recent user comments reporting the app as being non-functional. According to ''OpenCorporates.com'', this was a company registered in Nevada, USA, and it declared "dissolution" on 8 February 2018. Social media As of March 2021, a Twitter account still exists for TVCatchup.com, but has not posted since 14 March 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tvcatchup Streaming television Media players Television in the United Kingdom Android (operating system) software IOS software Windows Phone software