Youview is delayed to 'early 2012'

YOUVIEW will now be launched over a year late in early 2012 but it plans to have a product trial underway by the end of this year.

The IPTV product Youview seemed unstoppable, promising a subscription-free, open Internet-connected television service for the UK that had the backing of the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 and 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arquiva. Until the sudden departure of its CTO Anthony Rose last December, that is.

Although it has survived anti-competition accusations from Virgin Media and Sky, who have the most to lose if Youview is successful, it turns out that the open IPTV project is beset with technical problems.

Last month the Daily Telegraph reported that Youview consortium members were saying that the Internet telly system doesn't work and technical standards have not even been agreed with the digital terrestrial television standards body, Digital TV Group.

However today's announcement about a 2012 start states that Youview "will shortly publish its core technical specifications for launch which have required significant technological innovation as well as industry engagement to create a TV platform, based on common standards."

With its open approach Youview is claiming that its technology can be built into many devices, but it will be launched as a set-top box with high definition TV and personal video recording capabilities.

A FAQ released by the organisation at the beginning of the year says that Youview will need an Internet connection of at least 2Mbps bandwidth to work. µ