Hello, I am looking now into some sofa friendly online catchup service for my television, or indeed a new internet connected TV.

The problem though, is that it seems so many devices have apps or services for one of the main TV channels in the UK, but not all. In other words, I was considering the Roku box, but after looking at it, it seems to only have the BBC iPlayer. 4OD, ITV catchup etc all seem to be missing.

Likewise, I am looking at some TV sets with built in Internet apps, but again, it seems that some have the iPlayer and channel 5, whilst others only iTV etc.

Essentially, I would like something, whether a TV or set-top box that has an app for at least the following channels:
iPlayer (inc. HD)
ITV
4OD
(and possibly also) Channel 5

So, I am wondering if people who have bought any such kit could contribute to a comprehensive list of devices here and which of the main UK Television apps they include? Also, if those apps have HD options and if they have live TV streams as well.

I know some people are going to suggest just plugging in a laptop to the TV, and yes, I realize this is an option but I would prefer a more "sofa friendly" solution. i.e. something I can control with my remote whilst in a horizontal position and in no physical or mental capacity to move ;O)
That said, any PC, Linux or Mac front-ends that work with remotes (Plex, XBMC etc) that come to mind, please include your successes. I must say, I have had only mediocre success with Plex working a buggy and crashing 4OD and XBMC a buggy SD version of iPlayer.

Try having a look at Apple TV. It's £99 and as far as im aware has pretty much everything your looking for.

Thanks for your reply GONZO. I did look at the Apple TV, and it didn't seem to have any apps for the UK TV channels.

It is possible that you may be referring to the jailbroken version. If this is the case, and anyone has such a jailbroken device with iPlayer, 4OD, ITV and channel 5, please add here the services available, and which jailbreak service one should apply.

Two best options would either be a PS3 or Xbox 360. PS3 has iPlayer, ITV Player and 4oD (no 5 on Demand) and Xbox 360 has BBC iPlayer, 4oD and 5 on Demand (No ITV Player). You can get a cheap 360 for £130 or a PS3 for £160. For Xbox 360, you have to pay an annual subscription (Xbox Live) for 4oD or 5 on Demand, but BBC iPlayer is free. PS3 services are free. Both have some other amazing on-demand apps to like Mubi, VEVO, Vidzone, LoveFilm and Netflix!

As you said, ignore Apple TV, it doesn't offer any UK streaming catchup services at all unless hacked.

I don't recall any boxes that offer all 5 UK terrestrials except for the Playstation 3, and it means using the web browser in some cases which is clunky to say the least.

The Xbox has every one except ITV, and some useful additional services, but requires Xbox live subscriptions for some of them.

I don't believe anyone offers HD except iPlayer, and even then it's a very small selection.

It sounds like you might well be best holding off a little while for YouView tbh.

Phazer

Well that's just pants. I assumed that as all the iDevices had them then there should be no reason as to why AppleTV wouldn't have them.
How wrong was I

I agree with this

Personally, despite the XBL subscription, I think the Xbox 360 just edges it over the PS3, as although there is not currently an ITV Player on the Xbox, it does have Sky... plus also 4oD is via an app and not an absolutely horrendous web browser like the PS3.


Yup. Sadly there's nothing on Apple TV, other than Netflix. If you have an iDevice, though, you should be able to "AirPlay" iPlayer etc. from that to the AppleTV [except for Sky Go].

Forgot about Sky Go!! Yep definitely agree Xbox just pips it! The apps work brilliantly too, the ps3 versions of ITV Player and 4oD are horrible!

If you do go that route, I've got an ASUS eeebox strapped to the back of my TV (it fits to thewall mounting bracket sockets as long as you're not using them and I control it using a Cideko air mouse/ keyboard that's about the size of a wallet - very sofa friendly.

Takes a few days to get used to it to get precise mouse control without thinking about it, but after that you have the joys of using a PC without the need for a desk

review (they've come down in price since then):
http://www.reghardware.com/2010/05/1..._air_keyboard/

Brilliant help guys, so a current rundown would be: (Can someone confirm if 4OD are only via the web browser on the PS3?)

PS3:
iPlayer = yes
ITV = yes
4OD = yes (only via web browser???)
5OD = no

XBox360:
iPlayer = yes
ITV = no
4OD = yes (with annual subscription costs)
5OD = yes (with annual subscription costs)

So far I have had the following successes with the following frontends on my iMac. This would be an option maybe for XBMC or Plex on a small, cheap Linux/windows box like platelet suggests (thanks also for the link to the controller - something like that would be very important to allow the setup to be more sofa friendly)

XBMC:
iPlayer = yes (though live streams seem to fail)
ITV = yes
4OD = no (plugin fails)
5OD = no (plugin fails)

Plex:
iPlayer = yes (including live streams - though no HD?)
ITV = no
4OD = yes (buggy though)
5OD = no

There are of course a great deal of other potential boxes out there, such as Roku, Boxee and the various internet connected TV's as well, which would be great to see mentioned if people use them.

This is sadly the one with the best potential, yet where it seems licensing issues has completely crippled it.

All the major channels (iPlayer, ITV, 4OD and I think even 5OD) have apps for the iPhone & iPad and they work great. The ideal situation would be to use the iPad app to easily select from the sofa what we wish to watch and then simply select airplay to stream to an Apple TV and watch on the big screen.
... perfect, except from what I understand is that on all Apps the airplay feature is missing. They even block direct connection to a TV as I have tested this with the iPhone to composite connector. This works great for iTunes videos and other streaming videos like Air Video (3rd party app to stream from your computer to iPhone/iPad) but all the official channel catchup apps block the screen out to TV.

There is a way around this though, and that is to fire up the app on an iPad, then use Airplay mirroring to stream it to the TV via an Apple TV. The big catch here besides being an arse to do each time, is that the aspect ratio is wrong on the big screen with black sides - not quite what I am after.

Such a pity. The perfect interface on the sofa, airplay would do the job, but the lawyers have said no. :O(


.... Alternatively, could this work with Android tablets? Do the channels mentioned above even have apps for Android tablets (sorry, I know a bit about iPads as I have an iPhone, but not much yet regarding Android).

Is it possible where Apple has restrictions that Android could offer a path. Are there ways to connect an Android tablet to a TV either via HDMI or wifi streaming and would the channel apps send it across? Alternatively, because Android allows flash (?) can one watch catchup TV on an Andriod web browser which can then be streamed to a normal TV?

I just came across this: http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/tvs/samsun...view-50007245/
and I was wondering if anyone here has bought one of the new Samsung 2012 model TV's (The ES series). I have read in a UK review on CNET (linked) that the browser is one of the few with Adobe Flash and so it works with many video websites. Unfortunately, they don't specify which and if that includes 4OD and ITV. If it did, it would give the full range of built in UK catchup services since it has Apps for iPlayer & 5 on demand, and the other two by the web browser.

I would be hoping that the browser has significant responsiveness and that the touch remote they have works good from the sofa.

*All* catchup services on the PS3 use the (crappy) browser, except for iPlayer, which has an (excellent) app.


Although they may not have AirPlay themselves, AFAIK AirPlay still works perfectly fine using it via the multitasking tray thing, without mirroring. iPlayer certainly works fine, I've not tried the rest.

The guy who said 4od and 5od doesn't work on xmbc is mistake, these work really well, maybe you need to update these. Iplayer content is in HD as well and looks really nice. As confirmed Itv player works too.

I have a jail broken apple tv and feel this is the best option. You can leave this running 24 hours, so it is always ready to go, the apple tv is also silent, some people like this. This means you can easily switch between tv freeview and apple tv whenever you feel.

The apple tv is easy to jailbreak, there are guides on apple tv hacks (google it), I would be willing to help. You can also get Netflix natively on the apple tv, as well as other xmbc plugins, good ones are Hulu, furk.net bit torrent, veetle- has good streams of family guy, American dad, also live streams has hd streams of hbo, Cinemax, comedy central, sky sports, movies and fox.

Also you can all his via xmbc on a laptop/pc, to make this Sofia friendly you get remotes. Another remote option is a Xbox remote for windows which can be configured via a program called pinnacle profiler. this works well , I did this before I got the apple tv, my laptop noise annoyed, hence why I switched.

To people who say xmbc is buggy, it is not, older version and plugins has been, but the latest versions are very smooth.

OK, I've just done an AirPlay test from my iPhone to my Apple TV using the various iOS TV apps:

TVCatchUp (live streaming Freeview) - AirPlay works perfectly, without Mirroring. It is available from within the app itself, without having to bring up the multitasking tray thing and enable system-wide AirPlay.

BBC iPlayer - AirPlay works perfectly, without Mirroring. You do have to enable it via the multitasking tray thing (double-click Home, swipe all the way to the right, enable AirPlay), but Mirroring is not needed.

4oD - AirPlay works perfectly, without Mirroring. You do have to enable it via the multitasking tray thing (double-click Home, swipe all the way to the right, enable AirPlay), but Mirroring is not needed.

ITV Player & Demand 5 - No AirPlay support at all. If you have AirPlay enabled system-wide, all you get is the audio, no video. I didn't try Mirroring.

Only problem with using an Apple TV for that: The 3rd gen. Apple TV has not yet been Jailbroken, and likely won't be for some time (it's apparently going to be harder than the iPhone or iPad!). To Jailbreak an Apple TV and install XBMC, you have to make sure you have a 1st or 2nd gen. model.

Now that is interesting. So, iPlayer and 4OD work perfectly well with airplay (if only via a slightly less than elegant way) and only ITV & Channel 5 will need mirroring. This is great, so there are no aspect issues with 4OD and iPlayer on a wide screen TV(?)

Thanks for checking this out Matt!

So, as an update:
PS3:
iPlayer = yes
ITV = yes (only via web browser)
4OD = yes (only via web browser)
5OD = no (only via web browser)

XBox360:
iPlayer = yes
ITV = no
4OD = yes (with annual subscription costs)
5OD = yes (with annual subscription costs)

Jailbroken Apple TV 2nd generation:
iPlayer = yes (via XBMC)
ITV = yes (via XBMC)
4OD = yes (via XBMC)
5OD = yes (via XBMC)

Apple TV + iPad (or iPhone) via Airplay
iPlayer = yes
ITV = yes (but only via mirroring with aspect issues)
4OD = yes
5OD = yes (but only via mirroring with aspect issues)

So far I have had the following successes with the following frontends on my iMac. This would be an option maybe for XBMC or Plex on a small, cheap Linux/windows box like platelet suggests (thanks also for the link to the controller - something like that would be very important to allow the setup to be more sofa friendly)

XBMC:
iPlayer = yes (though live streams seem to fail)
ITV = yes
4OD = no (plugin fails)
5OD = no (plugin fails)

Plex:
iPlayer = yes (including live streams - though no HD?)
ITV = no
4OD = yes (buggy though)
5OD = no

Still would be cool if someone with the latest 2012 ES model Samsung TV's could mention if the internet browsers work with 4OD & ITV. This would be an acceptable in-TV solution until a decision is made on an external box

No problem!

Yep, absolutely no issues with iPlayer and 4oD via AirPlay.

That's brilliant Matt D.

I am considering now something like a Samsung ES6500 model (or similar) which has built in Apps for iPlayer & Channel 5, and then maybe an iPad + Apple TV combo for 4OD (and iPlayer as well if the interface is better and the live TV out works via airplay)

As for ITV, I guess I will have to do that via mirroring.

If anyone on the other hand knows of any internet ready TV's that have an ITV app built in that would be great to consider.