Five has recently been put up for sale by its parent company (European TV giant RTL) and is thought to be struggling with covering the costs of taking part in Project Canvas due to the running costs it would entail. The estimated share Five would need to contribute would be in excess of 16million over the next four years, which is certainly a significant commitment if you are looking to sell the company fast!

Five, Fiver and Five US are out of Channel 5

Project Canvas has recently been given the Go-Ahead by the BBC Trust and is said to remain on track for launch in the first half of 2011, despite the loss of a Five as a shareholder, and currently the idea of calling the service YouView is being suggested.

In a statement, Project Canvas director Richard Halton said: “We’ve had excellent support from Five. They share our goal of bringing the benefits of internet-connected TV to all. We look forward to working with them as a content provider to the platform in the future.” So there could still be hope for any future incarnations of the fifth terrestrial channel coming to the service soon.

Canvass or YouView is set to be released early in 2011 and last week The Telegraph revealed that the set-top box, which will retail on shop shelves for approximately £200, will also be offered for free as part of a TalkTalk broadband subscription package.

The New BBC iPlayer has been branded as “Simple, Personal, Connected” and the update will be focusing firmly on these three areas as well as some more under the bonnet tweaking to improve the service, so what does “Simple, Personal, Connected” mean?

Well, we will break it down by area, “Personal” refers to the new BBC iPlayer new login system, dubbed BBC ID which will allow users to setup a BBC ID account online or on the BBC iPlayer console and once setup the system will allow you to mark favourites, offer smart recommendations and send/receive those favourites via the new Facebook and Twitter integration.

The New BBC iPlayer has Facebook, Twitter and Live Chat features

The Facebook and Twitter integration is part of  the “Connected” aspect of the new iPlayers system and as stated above users will be able to share what they are watching, what they like to watch and  comment on shows and share all this with their friends. Undoubtedly the account logins will be incorporated into the BBC ID login so users don’t need to constantly login to individual services each time they want to say how awesome the latest Eastenders episode is.

The second part of the “Connected” aspect of the new BBC iPlayer is the inclusion of a new live chat system, which will allow users free chat via the iPlayer console.  Initially this will be only available for Microsoft Live Messenger service but users will be offered a sign up screen if they want to setup a new account for chatting and once logged in, users will be able to see a live chat window next to the video content and will be able to chat and share with friends. The BBC have stated that the windows live messenger is the first IM service to be integrated and if there is a demand for additional services then they will be incorporating other IM services such as Skype, Yahoo and  Facebook chat.

And the “Simple” well this comes in the form of the above features in an easy to use and updated OS, the BBC’s on-demand chief Anthony Rose was able to word it better by stating:

“We spent more time designing than building the new BBC iPlayer. We wanted to add social and friends, but in order to do that we had to resist the temptation to put Facebook, Twitter and recommend buttons on it. We came up with something that’s almost more  like an application. You start off with a webpage, and slowly customise it to yourself.

“When you first go to the site, you’ll see two panels: Featured and Most Popular. After you’ve played a few programmes, you’ll see recommendations. The site will remember all your modules. It’s simple to use.”

And finally there was also talk of another forthcoming iPlayer update that will allow users to get On Demand content from other TV providers such as Channel 4 and ITV.

The BBC have announced that they will be engaging in several “linking partnerships” with other broadcasters and will start to import data other from rival on-demand services such as ITV Player, 4OD and Demand Five to the iPlayer console.

There is currently no date being suggested for the other on demand services being incorporated but the new BBC iPlayer is live in Beta today, and will be released as the default version by the beginning of July.

Project Canvas is a joint venture which sees the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Talk Talk and Arqiva in partnership to be able to provide a common platform to deliver TV content to people all over the UK.

The service has recently been under consideration by the Office of Fair Trading with regards to any risk that it may have monopolised the system but upon a closer inspection the OFT has decided that there is nothing  untoward and thus have given  project Canvas the go ahead.

The Green light means that we may even see the first signs of Canvas by Christmas 2010.

Project Canvas a partnership between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Talk Talk and Arqiva

The setup itself will need a IPTV enabled box (generally something with an internet connection) and retailers and manufacturers are expected to start getting boxes out ASAP which will range between £100 and £200 in price, the boxes will enable the users to access standard Freeview and Freeview HD services but they will be able to be switched between TV on demand services via Canvas.

It is also expected that the Units will start to incorporate PVR technology to allow users to record live or on demand TV to watch at their own leisure.

The BBC iPlayer will be slowly released across the whole range of Freesat boxes over the coming months, with last month’s Humax boxes getting the first batch of updates, and as of last week any Bush, Goodman’s and Grundig Freesat users will also be able to access the service.

So if you have a Bush, Goodman’s or Grundig Freesat box then to get iPlayer, all you need to do is to connect up an Ethernet cable to the back of the unit then run the automatic update, this’ll take about 40 minutes to download and install.

And if you already have an Ethernet cable then its pretty likely that you already have BBC iPlayer ready at your fingertips.

To find out simply access one of the BBC channels (BBC1, 2, Three and Four) and then press the Red button to activate the interactive menu.

iPlayer now on Bush, Goodmans and Grundig Freeview boxes

And if you still don’t have BBC iPlayer access then it may be bad news for you, as a small number of these Freesat boxes won’t work with the BBC iPlayer feature… but fear not, as the parent company of all three brands Harvard plc have offered any user without the iPlayer support a free replacement model. To claim your upgrade you simply need to call Harvard on 0871 230 4695 and they will arrange an upgrade but you will need to pay £14.99 for the delivery of the unit.

Not a bad deal huh…

Today the digital TV providers, Freeview, have announced that Freeview HD is officially “Official….” although it’s been available to some users for the past few months the service was announced today to kick start the subscription free HD revolution (for the UK anyway).

As the name states the Freeview HD service is a completely free service that will be available to any UK viewer and with the Digital switchover nearly halfway through its rollout it means that almost 40% of the UK will be able to pick up Freeview HD for the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa.

An HD service has been touted on Freeview since its inception but gained momentum in September when the National retune made space available on the digital airwaves for HD broadcasting.

Since then many of the terrestrial channels have announced and launched HD versions of their channels, most of which are currently available on the subscription services of Sky and Virgin and for customers who are using FreeSat HD setup.

Now that the service is official we can expect manufacturers to begin to release HD versions of their set top box’s in the coming months and these are expected to start from under £100 at the lower end but higher for Major brands and PVR Recorders. So if your looking for a branded HD PVR box you should be expecting to pay around the £250 mark.

But for this you will get access to the BBC channel, which will show a mixture of content from all of the BBC channels (BBC1, BBC2, BBC Three and BBC Four) and all the top BBC shows, also ITV HD (and S4C HD in Wales) and new to the free to view HD market will be Channel 4 HD which was previously only available on Sky and Virgin. As stated a few weeks ago channel Five’s HD offering failed to meet the criteria stated by OFCOM so fans of CSI and Live From Studio Five will need to get the Virgin Media TV service. Alternatively there is an expected BBC announcement regarding the slot that Five have left vacant which was snapped up by the BBC, which will hopefully announce new HD channels coming to Freeview HD at the end of the year.

It certainly will be interesting to see how Freeview and Digital UK handle the HD rollout before the summer as they are still very busy with the Digital TV rollout that is ongoing until 2012, but for any updates stay tuned to the GadgetHelpline.

For More info on Freeview HD visit: www.Freeview.co.uk

In an interview with the Telegraph the BBC’s head of future media and technology Erik Huggers, stated that they are currently running beta testing of the new service for the release of the 3.0 software version.

Mr Huggers said “People will be able to bring their Facebook friends onto the iPlayer so they can share what they are listening to or watching with each other more easily.”

For the integration to work, users will have to setup a BBC username and password which will then create an account  in which they can setup the login details of their Facebook, Twitter and Bebo accounts. So once connected to their various social networks users will be able to see what their friends or followers on each site are sharing or watching, by a series of “coloured puffs” situated beneath the player that displays the feeds.

Mr Huggers also said that these social networking partnerships would stretch across to different parts of the BBC website in time, but wouldn’t add any further information to this.

It will be interesting to see how the 3.0 beta will be put out, and it’s a bold and pro active move for the BBC as they are stepping into the next frontier of social networking and information sharing.

On the back of both the announcement that ITV will soon be providing HD content for both Sky and Virgin customers, and last weeks announcement from Channel 4 that Virgin Media customers will be getting exclusive access to the forthcoming E4 HD and Film4 HD channels, Virgin have launched the new Set Top box for its HD service. The box itself will be available from 22nd March 2010 for a one-off cost of just £49 plus installation to all existing Virgin media customers.

A sleek new design

The set top box itself will be made by Cisco and will feature HDMI, SCART, USB and Ethernet ports for connectivity as well as the best-in-class power saving function which is designed to cut down power usage by approximately 95% in standby and in a future proofing move, all of the new V HD box will come pre equipped with 3D playback functionality.

Currently the box is only available for standard digital users as a PVR version for V+ users is touted as coming very soon with the rumour of it also integrating TiVo technology.

Customers will be able to get the box in 2 ways, by either going for the £49 box plus a installation charge of £35 or from 1st April 2010, self-installation (Quick Start) may be an option, where available, for homes already connected to Virgin Media’s cable network. Quick Start is free to existing customers throughout April or £15 in all other circumstances.

Once the box is installed Virgin Media have promised free access to HD channels from ITV, Eurosport, Discovery, SCI FI, E4, Film4, BBC and Channel 4 and Virgin customers on the XL package will then also be able to access further HD channels such as: ESPN HD, National Geographic HD, FX HD, MTV Networks HD and LIVING HD plus further HD content via its on demand service!

This really does show what Virgin Medias intentions are for the HD market as this is a big step which surely Sky will have to match if not better.

Over to you Sky?

The iPlayer Beta test that has been running since late last year has proved to be a big hit with its customers who were provided a code for the private testing.

So now Humax and BBC are offering the service free to all of its Foxsat-HD receiver and the Foxsat-HDR recorder boxes.

Users only need to connect a broadband router for it to work, and once the Broadband connection is setup they will simply need to press the Red button on any BBC channel to launch the interactive service then select BBC iPlayer Beta to catch up on all of your missed programs.

From April, iPhone users will be able to download the free News App from Apple’s App store, which will ensure that users get  fresh content from the BBC News website. The BBC have also stated that the iPhone App will also include audio and video content as well as the standard text,  and enable users  to send comments and pictures directly back to the newsroom.

The Beeb have announced that during the following months the Sports App will be released in time for the June World Cup. Initially it is stated that the Sports App will focus on the World Cup coverage before expanding into more diverse sport content.

But fear not Android and Blackberry users, as once the iPhone apps have been released the BBC have given  assurances  that the News and Sport applications will be coming to the Android and Blackberry App stores not long after the iPhone release. The BBC has indicated that it will initially focus on building applications for the iPhone and then look to move the applications to other platforms. But if you’re a Symbian customer then you may have to make do with some other news readers for the time being, as there is no official word on any Symbian versions of the apps.

The BBC have also stated that they are in the midst of creating an official iPlayer App and are looking for a release “Later this year”…… a bit vague but it’s all we’ve got. Until then keep your eyes peeled on the Apple App store in April and on the GadgetHelpline for further updates.

The old iPlayer on Wii faced problems from the start with a number of users reporting serious interface problems which disrupted viewing and made it difficult to catch-up on programmes. The new and improved channel comes complete with a revamped interface to address these issues.

Only consoles with a UK broadband connection will be able to access the channel which will go live on November 18.

To get on board with the Wii iPlayer, you will need to download the service from the console’s online shop for the very reasonable price of free.

Erik Huggers, director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC, said that the new Wii service was a big step up from the old BBC iPlayer system, as it provides a “faster, high quality and improved viewing experience”.

The iPlayer is also available on Sony’s PlayStation 3 console, while Xbox 360 gamers were given access to Sky TV.

Unfortunately Microsoft had to suspend the Sky service right after launch due to “unprecedented levels of simultaneous demand”. This has since been rectified.

There is an estimated 6 million Wii consoles in British homes, making this a widely-spread target audience for the Beeb.