How can I get YouView on TalkTalk? Pay-as-you-go TV over broadband

How can I get YouView on TalkTalk?

Latest news for YouView on TalkTalkFirst, you need a TalkTalk broadband subscription. You will need to be a ‘fully unbundled’ TalkTalk broadband customer – you pay TalkTalk for your line rental and phone as well as broadband.

After that, you have two options: get a subsidised YouView box from TalkTalk, or buy the Humax DTR-1000 YouView box in the shops. Find out more about the standard YouView service.

The Humax retail box is available now, but TalkTalk is still completing trials with the Huawei box, ahead of its full launch, but you can pre-register online. To get the subsidised Huawei YouView box, you will have to subscribe to TalkTalk’s Plus broadband package, currently priced £14.50/month plus line rental.

Installation will cost £50, with an engineer visit to check and fine-tune the customer’s broadband connection.

Spot the TalkTalk icon on YouView

What Freeview channels are on YouView with TalkTalk?

All of the Freeview and Freeview HD channels available in your area are free to anyone with a YouView box.

What catch-up TV is available on YouView with TalkTalk?

The BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD and Demand 5 are all available to anyone with a YouView box connected to their broadband internet service.

What is the TalkTalk Player?

TalkTalk Player is the name for TalkTalk’s on-demand and live streaming video player on YouView. It will appear in the YouView Guide for anyone with a TalkTalk broadband subscription.

What extra channels are on YouView with TalkTalk?

The basic layer of TalkTalk Player offers no channels: you can watch films on a pay-as-you-go basis through TalkTalk Box Office, billed back to your TalkTalk account.

Alternatively, you can buy a range of TV Boosts, from a £5/month starter pack of Sky entertainment channels, with the same price for bundles of music and children’s channels, or more comprehensive entertainment bundles for £10/month and £15/month.

You can also get the full Sky Movies service for £15/month or Sky Sports for £30/month, and ESPN’s sports channels for £10/month.

You can find full details of the TalkTalk TV packages here.

Can I pause, rewind or record TalkTalk TV channels?

You can pause and rewind the live TV streams on the TalkTalk Player, but you can’t record them. TalkTalk has promised to introduce this function in future.

What will happen to the current TalkTalk TV (former Tiscali TV and HomeChoice)?

TalkTalk confirmed it has no official plans yet to close the hybrid TV service it acquired when it bought Tiscali UK. Tiscali TV, formerly HomeChoice, has some features absent from YouView, such as the ability to record on-demand TV channels delivered overed broadband.

However, it’s inevitable that TalkTalk will eventually want to focus on a single service, which carries numerous costs in terms of support and renting dedicated IPTV-quality bundled DSL lines from BT on a different basis to its own broadband service.

Latest news for YouView with TalkTalk

Pause, rewind and fast-forward streaming channels on TalkTalk Player

Live streaming channels on the TalkTalk Player on YouView now come with PVR-style pause, rewind and fast-forward, with recording in the pipeline.

The latest software update was downloaded last night to the Huawei YouView boxes used by TalkTalk customers.

Laurence Miall, TalkTalk’s director of TV, blogged: “Those of you who take one of our great value boosts will now automatically have access to this feature.

“We are continuing to work on more great features including recording functionality in the TalkTalk Player and other services so watch this space for updates.”

YouView with TalkTalk: Pause, rewind and fast-forward streaming channels on TalkTalk Player — Jump back, jump forward, jump to start

The new feature is available on any of the live streaming channels from Sky, UKTV, Disney, MTV and others, available through pay-monthly boosts in the TalkTalk Player.

It allows continuous rewind and fast-forward from the most recent channel change, or users can jump back and forth up to five minutes, including jump-to-live and jump-to-start options.

The boot time of our TalkTalk YouView box has also gone from a frustrating 30 seconds or more to under 10 seconds, which TalkTalk might not want to admit needed fixing, but will be great for users.

January 16, 2012

TalkTalk TV adding 1,000 subscribers a day

TalkTalk TV is growing slowly but surely, adding 1,000 new customers a day according to the the current figures.

Since launching its YouView-based service, TalkTalk has added 29,000 TV subscribers (including those taking part in the trial) to its TalkTalk Plus package, which includes a free Huawei-made YouView box (worth £299).

TalkTalk TV adding 1,000 subscribers a day

We’ve reviewed the nicely-designed Huawei YouView box which gives you access to 70 Freeview channels, 4,000 hours of catch-up service and the best of the Sky TV channels including Sky 1, Sky Atlantic plus all Sky Sports and Sky Movies channels, available from £5/month extra – we’ve broken down the prices here.

Take up of TalkTalk TV has been bolstered by the TalkTalk Plus package which provides unlimited broadband and a year’s subscription to Lovefilm.

November 13, 2012

HD on-demand arriving in 2013

TalkTalk will be bringing HD channels on its YouView-powered TalkTalk TV service this year.

Speaking to TalkTalk’s director of TV Max Alexander, Broadcast [paywall] reports that HD content will be delivered on-demand to match the HD broadcast channels that are already available on the TalkTalk YouView box.

Sky, UKTV, Disney and Sony are named channel partners, so we may get HD movies available from the Now TV app, a Dave catch-up app and Disney on-demand.

Though you’ll need a solid connection – with a download speed of at least 5Mbps – it looks like it won’t matter if you’re on a TalkTalk fibre connection or not.

Alexander said that the HD services should be live before Christmas. More details when we hear them.

October 10, 2012

Bizarre Fawlty Towers-Ab Fab mash-up launches TalkTalk’s YouView service

In a surreal publicity stunt involving Joanna Lumley hitting Basil Fawlty’s car from Fawlty Towers with a plastic branch, TalkTalk today launched its YouView box and pay-TV service.

Recombu Digital has had hands-on with the Huawei-produced box for a week now, and we’ve got a full review of TalkTalk Player, plus the video walkthrough below.

David Kirby, TalkTalk’s creative director for TV, revealed that there’s already a busy roadmap of improvements for the coming months.

These include recording for linear TV channels streamed over broadband, and the same channels appearing in the YouView programme guide alongside Freeview channels (TalkTalk currently has its own programme guide in the TalkTalk Player).

Also in the pipeline are a mobile app, and ‘if you like this, ‘you might like this’ recommendations as users browse TV.

September 27, 2012

500 new TalkTalk installers for YouView launch

TalkTalk is hiring 500 installers to deliver YouView to customers and check their broadband connections are running at the best speed possible, when it launches this autumn.

YouView installation visits will cost £50, although the YouView box produced by Huawei will be free to susbcribers on the TalkTalk Plus broadband package.

TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding told The Sunday Telegraph: “”This will be the first time TalkTalk engineers have been going into people’s homes. We want to make absolutely sure that they’re the right people with the right manner as well as appropriate skills.

“We’re adopting a measured and controlled approach to ensure the launch of YouView from TalkTalk goes smoothly.”

September 7, 2012

How can I get YouView on TalkTalk? Pay-as-you-go TV over broadband