YouView Has Now Truly Arrived, In Time For Christmas

The long awaited subscription-free digital TV and catch-up TV (YouView) for UK household has finally arrived. According to the YouView site, the YouView boxes are now available to buy from a range of high-street and online retail outlets. YouView ISP partners TalkTalk and BT are now offering their customers YouView set-top box as part of their TV, phone and broadband packages.

YouView which started under the name “Project Canvas” has spent over three years in development. It was schedule to launch last year (2011) then sifted to this year in time for the Christmas season. Since July, the YouView box has been available at Retail partners John Lewis, Currys, Comet, Argos, Amazon, Richer Sounds and the Euronics Group priced at £299.

With YouView now available to millions of people in the UK through BT and TalkTalk, said YouView, viewers will have access to more than 100 digital TV and radio channels while taking advantage of the ability to scroll back through the last seven days catch-up TV.  In addition they will have access to a huge on-demand library of content from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky’s Now TV, STV, BT Vision and the TalkTalk Player, all delivered direct to the viewer’s main TV.

“YouView has now truly arrived, with the launch of a major advertising campaign this weekend and great offers from BT and Talk Talk for their 10 million customers”, said Richard Halton, CEO of YouView.

“The last couple of months have proven to be very positive for YouView, following our announcement of the product back in July”, said Lord Sugar, Chairman of YouView.

“We are now available in multiple retail outlets nationwide and are looking forward to offering this simple-to-use box to customers through BT and TalkTalk, further supporting our desire to provide extraordinary TV for everyone.”

Humax, one of the technology partners is now shipping its Digital Television Recorder for YouView, which features Broadcom’s set-top box SoC (System-on-Chip) platforms.