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Microsoft Eyes UK Digital TV Provider

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the cradle-to-grave dept.

xiox writes: "This story by the BBC claims that Microsoft are planning to "rescue" the failed digital TV provider in the UK, ITV Digital. This would enable them to get a large share of the British TV market, as the British Government has decided that all TVs will have to switch over to digital by 2010."

8 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Boost X-Box Sales? by bildstorm · · Score: 5, Funny

    So will Microsoft be giving away a new version of the X-Box as a digital tv receiver? That'd be about the only way to boost sales of X-Box games there.

    --
    The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
  2. Microsoft buys UK by nyjx · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Seems to tie in nicely with the The Register's long running set of services of Microsoft tying up the UK government's on-line and internal services.

    If this happens we may need to float the british iles off into the mid atlantic and quietly sink them.

    --
    .sig
  3. Oh great by greg2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    So Now anyone in the UK who wants Digital TV is going to have to chose between Rupert Murdoch or Bill Gates. Fantastic ;-)


    For those Americans Not in the Know obout our state of affairs accross the pond, ITV digital has Over bidded to get the TV rights to most Football (Soccar) games over here and as a result has gone bust. It's parent companies (both established broadcasters "Carlton" and "Granada" are using Legagal technicalities to get out of paying the Football clubs the money they were promised. This has left a lot of smaller, less well off clubs facing financial ruin, unless a buyer can be found. Whilst it is true that I think Microsoft is Vile, if it saves all of the threatened clubs my opinion of them will increase dramatically.

  4. Microsoft and ITV by aaronsb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    About a week ago, Microsoft laid off about 65 employees in their TV division due a "re-organization". (including me)

    Almost all of the people who were cut were developers and technical people.

    Since the restructure, they're attempting to target the low-end middleware platform. For example the software that runs on a Motorola DCT-2000 cable box, and gives you the channel listings, and in the future VOD and purchase control.

    It makes me wonder what they're trying to accomplish by purchasing yet another small itv company in the UK when they don't make enough money to support their own engineering efforts.

    Aaron

  5. I've been looking... by Tsugumi · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...but I can't seem to find Ctrl-Alt-Del on my remote.

    1. Re:I've been looking... by dackroyd · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ironically they could have used one on the remote - one of the reasons why ITV Digital has gone under is the pathetic quality of their set top boxes.

      I used to have one and the top list of annoyances has to be:
      1) The channel refusing to change at all, despite having new batteries in the remote

      2) The channel change refusing to take the second digit of a channel change - "No goddamnit I said channel 26 not channel 2"

      3) Flipping through channels takes ages as it takes almost two seconds to buffer enough data to display a new channel, so scrolling from Sky 1(26) to MTV(33) would take 15 seconds...annoying if you're just checking to see if JackAss has come on yet.

      4) Having to walk over to the box to reboot it (by pulling the power cable out)about once a week, as the box refuses any input from the remote (including on/off)

      5)Super low picture quality. I don't know what codec they were using, but from the banding it looked like they were converting the image to 16-bit before converting it into a mpeg-type stream. This is okay for normal shots such as people in a room, but for Star Trek it sucked as any subtle colourations in the background would be displayed as three bands across the screen.

      But at least they weren't owned by Rupert "Pay no taxes" Murdoch. I suspect M$ won't buy them as their tech is so bad and they are direct competitors to R.Murdochs Sky One in the UK, and it would probably be a mistake for Microsoft to make him a strategic opponent.

      --
      "Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
  6. <mumble> Sensationalist <mutter> by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative
    This would enable them to get a large share of the British TV market, as the British Government has decided that all TVs will have to switch over to digital by 2010.

    ITV Digital? "Large share"? Don't make me laugh. Many of us can't even get channel 5 properly, yet, in spite of being in a major city. Those who have satellite and/or cable forget that there are still many, many people in the UK who don't.

    This whole story is one big sensationalist rumour. I've heard so many "possibler buyer" stories about ITV Digital in the past couple of weeks that I've lost track. Why is this one any more likely?

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  7. Re:Microsoft vs. AOL Time warner - the saga contin by darien · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, we had ITV Digital vs. Sky Digital, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International. It was never a remotely equal battle. In fact MS is probably one of the few companies big enough to take on Murdoch. And just think - two vast cross-media companies, each with billions of pounds to spend, slugging it out in cut-throat competition for market share. Sounds like heaven for the happy consumer caught in the crossfire. As long as one of the companies doesn't actually win, of course.