Ready To Play With Global Digital Broadcast's UK IPTV Service

BRIGHTON, UK — The long awaited channel line up for the UK’s first open, consumer, IPTV service, PlayTV UK, is now being released. Powered by the Global Digital Broadcast (GDBTV) network, PlayTV UK offers free to view channels and a number of packages including Play Entertainment and Family, Play Movies, the international and foreign language channel package, Play World and the largest selection of sports programming through Play Setanta and Play Sports.

PlayTV UK is available on its exclusive set-top box service and through its triple play package which incorporates the set-top box with telephone and broadband services.

GDBTV co-founder, managing director and co-director of PlayTV UK, Jim Deans, says: “Finally, after four years of hard work, IPTV is now looking like it is supposed to. Our platform facilitates niche, small and independent channels to sit alongside the major broadcasters and, with our extensive sports offerings, it allows Rangers FC to sit alongside Accrington Stanley. This is what we have wanted all along – to provide a platform that can be used by everyone.”

PlayTV UK’s free to view line up includes: BBC 1, 2, 3 and 4; BBC News 24; BBC Parliament; ITV 1, 2, 2+1, 3 and 4; Channel 4, MORE 4, E4 and E4+1; Five, Five Life and Five US; Sky Three and Sky News; Virgin 1; CBBC and CBeebies; Film 4 and Film 4+1; UK History; Dave TV; The Hits; TMF; UK Entertainment; Teachers TV; the Community Channel; QVC, Price Drop TV and Bid TV; Ideal World; LBC; STV; CITV; Nuts TV and Smile TV.

The IPTV-based Play Entertainment and Family packages include: Discovery Home and Health, Discovery Knowledge, Discovery Real Time, Discovery 1, DMax, Discovery Turbo, Discovery Travel and Living, Animal Planet and Discovery Science; Fashion TV and Fashion Men; the Performance Channel; Main Street; Paramount 1,1+1, 2 and 2+1; CNN; Al-Jazeera; Russia Today; Information TV and Information TV2; TV Polari; Wedding TV; 18 Doughty Street; Redskin Records; The Magic Channel; UK Entertainment; RCTV; Dave Courtney TV; Turkish Travel; MTV, MTVR, MTV2, MTV Hits, MTV Base and MTV Dance; VH1 and VH1 Classics; TMF; Nickleodeon, Nick Toons, Nick Junior and Nick Replay; the Cartoon Network, Cartoon Network 2, Toonami, Cartoonito and Boomerang.

Play Setanta offers Setanta 1 and 2, Setanta News, NASN, Setanta Golf, Racing UK, Setanta Ireland, Liverpool TV, Arsenal TV, Celtic TV and Rangers TV; whilst the Play Sports package provides Eurosport 1 and 2, TV Scuba, Huddersfield FC, Sussex Cricket, TV Freestyle, TV Boardrider, Suzuki, The Baseball Channel, The Fight Network and Race Clubs.

Play Movies hosts Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and TCM2, plus Sixty 6 Films; and applies a no advertisements during movies policy as standard.

Many niche and community/local IPTV channels are also available on the platform, including TV Brighton, TV Luton, TV Chichester, TV Christchurch and channel 1066; with numerous acquisitions, including a dedicated football channel which plays host to independent football clubs’ own TV offerings, are being added on a continuous basis.

The Play World package is devoted to bringing the best of foreign language programming to the UK and further details about this offering will soon be available on the PlayTV UK website. A secondary subscription service, which broadcasts adult content, is being made available independently to the Play packages.

PlayTV UK’s set-top box service is currently rolling out, with 1,000 set-top boxes in the UK marketplace at the time of writing and ongoing figures standing at 10,000 within six months and 50,000 within the next year. In addition to the set-top box to television delivery, many of the channels will also be available on PlayTV UK’s secure virtual set-top box application. This means PlayTV UK can to broadcast to 86 countries around the world and can be received by anyone, anywhere, with a broadband connection.

PlayTV UK security, being on the GDBTV platform, is unsurpassed. GDBTV implements secure iGuardian age verification systems as and when relevant to content, i.e. U rated content can be accessed by anyone, whereas 18 rated content, for example, requires age verification before it may be accessed. No other delivery method allows video-on-demand with a secure age verification system.

GDBTV also provides Microsoft Digital Rights Management and a unique secured conditional access model; in addition to the GDBTV eWallet technology running bank processing from three major high street banks and Thawte-approved security software (highest level encryption), incorporating 3DSecure (verified by VISA and Mastercard SecureCode).

David Wray, GDBTV co-founder, director and co-director of PlayTV UK, concludes: “We are the only broadcaster currently offering the type of PIN security which is so crucial to a family home environment. We are, of course, extremely proud to have led in this area for a couple of years now and we would like to see other broadcasters catching up and implementing their own security measures.”