Talk:Top Up TV

hannspree remote codes

Does anybody have the remote codes for the hannspree hannslounge 26" tv for the DRT6300-25 box? ive looked everywhere n i cannot fnd them thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.64.186.58 (talk) 09:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

smartcard

I think the article should mention that the Top Up TV service relies on your DVB box having a smartcard reader (I think it's a smartcard - TUTV call it a "viewing card"). Also noteworthy (although I guess unsourced) is how rare a box with a smartcard reader is becoming. My local Comet sells ten different decoder boxes, but none have the smartcard slot, and the salesman predicted Top Up TV would shortly fold. -- John Fader (talk | contribs) 11:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Number of Subscribers

To date TUTV has not released any subscriber figures. All figures relased have been quoted as industry sources. Figures released early in 2005 ranged from 140,000 to 200,000 subscribers. At no point has anyone stated that this is better or worse than expected.

IDF 2nd Sept 2005

Why is some of it in capitals?

--86.12.212.131 (talk) 23:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

A Few Changes

1. Have restructured the whole article into sections. The old one was starting to look a mess.

2. Various Rephrasings

3. Removed reference to BARB ratings. If they were based on this they would have Sky One (and prob Living).

4. Added bit about ASA.

5. Joined Xtraview and PAYG bits together. Removed bits about retailers. AFAICT you get the card from TUTV

6. TUTV Active it is pure conjecture that it will be expanded beyond 3 pages.

7. All of TUTV's space is on Five's side of Mux. See Link!

86.140.50.38 02:46, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello 86.140.50.38, if that is your real name, Have you thought about signing up to Wikipedia? It's free (click the link at the top of the page), for more information look here. theKeith 13:55, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Top Up TV Active Merge proposal discussion

I removed the redlink to Top Up TV Active because I did not think it would warrant an article of its own (even if it were individually important enough, I believe the information would be better presented in the context of its parent service instead of being gratuitously split up).

I notice that someone reinstated the link and created the article anyway. I still think this is a bad idea.

Fourohfour 13:37, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I would agree with that. There is nothing on the other article that couldn't be include here. Especially, when you consider this is basically the same off-air screen that is used on the other channels when they are off air.

86.130.142.212 13:41, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

In the absence of any dissenting voices, I have merged the article into this one. Fourohfour 14:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Red Hot TV

On what basis is Red Hot TV included on the Top Up TV channels list? There is no indication from Top Up TV that it is part of their offering. Check out the Top Up TV website. Television X is part of Top Up TV but requires an additional payment. Red Hot is not. Although Red Hot has been banned from using the Freeview tag for its marketing, this does not by mean it is part of Top Up TV. IP 00:15, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree totally and I have removed Red Hot from the channel line up section of the article. I have also edited the Red Hot article to indicate that the channel is on Digital Terrestrial as the channel is neither marketed as part of Freeview or Top Up TV. Sonic 10:11, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Someone has reverted the edit without citing it is on Top Up TV. I will dispute its placement in the list until it is proven that it is part of Top Up TV. The Red Hot TV Website ([1] Warning: Contains adult material) clearly states that Red Hot is on DTT and does not mention Top Up TV in any way. The Top Up TV website does not mention Red Hot in its channel line up either. [2] Its inclusion should only be on the Digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom article. Sonic 10:17, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Red Hot is not officially part of TUTV, however, its existence on DTT is down to TUTV. TUTV provides the broadcast space, charging infrastructure, video protection (cf encryption) etc., etc. for it to be on DTT. Without the presence of TUTV it would be unviable and TUTV are in fact mentioned in Red Hot's t&c's! IMHO just because TUTV Chooses not to advertise the link does not mean they are completely unconnected. In that respect I think the Red Hot/ TUTV connection at least needs a mention on this page. pit-yacker 15:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

FACT: Top Up TV provides all the support services necessary for the Red Hot TV pornography channel to be on the digital terrestrial platform. It supplies the channel space, it supplies the MHEG coding and payment technology system for the Red Hot channel. There are direct financial and contractual links between Top Up TV and the owners and operators of the Red Hot channel.

A suitable form of wording for the Red Hot channel entry might be:

Red Hot TV [Channel times here] Although not part of the formal Top Up TV channel line-up, Top Up TV does supply the channel space, encrytion and payment services for Red Hot and thus allows it to broadcast on the digital terrestrial service. TWF, 13:05, 6 May 2006

I could agree with that and I have removed the dispute tag and wikified the note placed next to the Red Hot entry as suggested on the Wikipedia Manual of Style accordingly. Sonic 12:27, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Cartoon Network Extended Hours???

I am unable to find any reference to this. Top Up TV's website still says the original hours. Given the imminent launch of TUTV Anytime such a move would seem slightly strange. pit-yacker 11:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The Top Up TV website still states that the channel is broadcasting between 06:00 and 18:00 [3]. --tgheretford (talk) 11:10, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for cleanup - August 2005

As wel as the problems stated by the former tag that was on that page, I believe there are issues regarding the layout of the page according to the Manual of Style. I have used a cleanup template and tagged this article for cleanup.

There is no introduction to the article as Wikipedia:Lead section suggests, as with the editor who added the tone tag, the article does not read like an encyclopedia article and some parts may look like advertising. --tgheretford (talk) 11:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Top Up TV Anytime

I dunno whether it should be expanded, but I think considering the service was officially announced today [4], and the article features very little about the service. Could it be possible that the current article could be expanded with the information on Top Up TV Anytime?

Also listed here: Wikipedia:Requests for expansion#August --tgheretford (talk) 19:38, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Top Up TV Anytime - merge?

Someone has started a new article on Top Up TV Anytime. I'm not sure whether it warrants a separate article (most of the information in that article was just copied and pasted from this one). I just wanted this article expanded rather than a new one created (although I did clean up the new article). It isn't a new separate product from Top Up TV, it is what Top Up TV is having to become because of pressure for channel space on Multiplex A. What do other people think? --tgheretford (talk) 12:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I think Anytime is intended to replace most of the existing service, so some of the information in this article will become redundant. Both articles should be merged to show how Top Up TV's services would change as a whole. RobWill80 14:43, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Top Up TV is a company, TUTV Anytime is one of their products. BSkyB gets a seperate article from its product of Sky Digital, describing its history, formation and so on, so could TUTV. The "Top Up TV" article could include the present service, management, formation, its failed mux D bid in 2002, comparison to ITV Digital, differences, broadcast space, change of direction and so on. The TUTV Anytime page should include information on the service only, its channels, how many programmes, launch and reason, comparison to other VOD services, remaining streaming channels and so on. If the two articles were tidied up in that format, you would have two full informative pages. Marbles333 10:50, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Disagree (but only just) - it's to become a major part of what top-up tv offers - that part makes me agree, but it's also a rather different product with a rather different way of working. This makes it seem worthy of an article in it's own right discussing the mechanism, unique hardware etc, but should not be repeating much of what is already in the normal top-up tv service.Neilajh 13:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Merge. Once TUTV Anytime launches it will be TUTV. It is an evolution of the TUTV service and belongs in the same article Pit-yacker 23:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

As I say, I disagree, because TUTV is a company, not a product.Marbles333 17:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

On balance, these two articles should be merged with perhaps the new Anytime service starting at the top followed by the full Top Up TV article to put it in a historical context. The creation of the new article, featuring promotional text directly from company's website, comes across as an attempt to distance the latest Top Up TV service from its somewhat controversial past and this form of attempted "record cleansing" is not appropriate for any encyclopedia. Therefore the two articles should be merged together again to give a proper balance. How do we alert the moderators to do this? TWF 11:49, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyone, according to Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages can merge a page together, regardless of status. Considering reading the opinions on here, the majority agree to a merge, so I will do it now. --tgheretford (talk) 13:34, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Done. --tgheretford (talk) 13:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Merger with Top Up TV Promo

Since it appears that this pretty un-notable barker channel has closed after less than a month, does it really deserve its own article? IMHO the precedent set by "Top Up TV Active" and "Top Up TV Anytime" suggests it should be merged. Pit-yacker 01:39, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Well ideally each TV channel (past and present) needs an article of its own with its relavant categories and templates (the UK ROI TV channel infobox has to be used for all channels; it would look butt ugly stuck halfway down the Top Up TV article). You don't wan't old information in the TUTV article, plus what would happen to the "Top Up TV Sampler" information in it, it would be too confusing if all that false information was in the Top Up TV article. It would also make all the categories in the TUTV Promo page go all haywire; we'd have "Top Up TV" coming up as a defunct British television channel! Perhaps the page could be re-styled to include all forms of television promotion by Top Up TV, including Active???? Marbles333 19:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The different iterations of the channels are effectively different channels. In which case, consistency says they should have separate articles in the same way as the original Sky 2 and Sky Two do. The alternative route of consistency is to briefly mention TUTV's plethora of short-lived barkers in the main TUTV article. I think the real question when making such a decision is whether a "channel" whose sole purpose is to act as a few minute looping barker for a TV service is really worthy of an article as being a "television channel", and is the TV channel infobox just being used for the sake of it? IMHO this is more like an infomercial than a channel, at which point do we have an article for every infomerical that has existed, and if so why not every advert? I think the issue is especially acute given that the "channel" lasted a whole 2.5 weeks. The nearest parallel I could see would be having articles for other barker channels such as "Sky Box Office Preview" which seems equally ridiculous given that all the detail about "Sky Box Office" is explained in the Sky Box Office article.

As for including TUTV Active in the article, since this wasnt originally a barker it shouldnt be included in a barker article. Which again would raise a question of how to split an article for all the barker channels and the main TUTV article.

On the topic of the amount of detail on the main TUTV article, I think some of the minute detail could do with being slimmed down anyway, as it is going to start to get confusing talking about things such as Bloomberg leaving and reappearing again . However, this is probably best left until after the original service closes.Pit-yacker 00:35, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Top Up TV Europe

TUTV Europe is just a sub-company of Minds1 Limited that is responsible for collecting the subscriptions. There are around 4/5 Top Up TV companies (using the names Top Up TV and Minds), and Europe is just one of them, so collectively, shouldn't they be called plainly "Top Up TV"? The original "Top Up TV Limited" is now Minds1 Limited, so that name can't be used. Marbles333 17:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

This article is a mess

As the title says, I looked at the TUTV article and didn't understand a word of it.

First of all, the opening paragraph incorrectly gives the reader the wrong perception, for example it states Top Up TV formerly offered a subscription television service with 11 time shared television channels, which would instantly cause confusion, as the article makes several references (in present tense) to time-shared channels. Of course we know TUTV still broadcasts 7 of those in a time-shared format to previous customers, but it is not made clear to the reader that TUTV still operates two different services, and that service is still running. Then, later on in the paragraph it again mentions the former subscription service and it also mentions that TUTV still operates 7 streaming channels, so where the hell is the reader left here? Does it exist or doesn't it? The casual reader would not know.

Secondly, there is a sub-section on "Channels", which talks about the 7 remaining linear TUTV channels, but how is a reader meant to know that's the linear service not Anytime? Okay there's a "content" section in the "Top Up TV Anytime" sub-section, but its not layed out in the same way as the "Channels" sub-section on the old service (in a bulleted list), and its a third-level section wheras the "Channels" for the older and smaller service is in a second-level section; highly confusing. All I see is a big ruck of text with two logos stuffed at the side; I would not think to look at that section to see a list of channels!

Thirdly, the "changes to the line-up" section is confusing still. Although we know its referring to the linear service, how are other people meant to know that? It describes it as the service and there is no mention about it being about the old thing.

Although I won't do it unless people agree, I suggest the article should be layed out in a more organised and updated fashion:

• Top Up TV - introduction, company information, company re-structure, CEO, staff, Channel 5
• History of Top Up TV - much breifer than the present one and don't include about Five pinching broadcast capacity.
• Top Up TV Anytime - breif paragraph of reason and launch

>Content - list of channels, how many programmes, additional/main package

>Equipment - DTR, prices

• Original service - breif paragraph about linear service, launch, prices

>Channels - list of channels, hours, numbers, mux, standalone/PPV/main package

>Changes to the line up - info about ex-channels and reason why it was axed

>Broadcast Capacity

• Advertising and Promotion

>Top Up TV Active >Top Up TV Promotional Channel

• Criticism - controversial information

Or even if that looks messy, perhaps the de-merger of information on Top Up TV Anytime (products) and Top Up TV (company). I don't know if its just me that thinks this (probably because I won't read anything if it doesn't look presentable or if it's not in the right order) or what. Compared with the Freeview article, this one is much inferior. Apologies for any criticism at the people who have contributed, but it's been in this situation before. Marbles333 14:44, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

In response to this discussion, I have added a template for cleanup in the article. --tgheretford (talk) 23:16, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree and have tried to tidy. We don't give any reasoning for losing channels (losing bandwidth), it's disjointed, we list channels it stopped carrying as *closed* (now fixed). We need a list of which multiplex space it had at which time, and what it used them for. We need to highlight how many hours of each channel you actually got - and at which times of the day. We are not interested in channels that showed 5 minute trailers on repeat, and a channel rename isn't a new channel. Xtraview isn't a "patented technology" (woo) as that's just marketing spin. The insecurity of xtraview (using security by obscurity) needs highlighting. We have lots of stuff in the future tense about 2006. It needs a LOT of work. 90.192.184.83 09:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Future

According to the Top Up TV Channels, further changes are going to occur in February 2007, which include Eurosport and UKTV Style being reduced to only being shown 2 1/2 hours a day and 3 hours a day respectively.--NeF 16:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Confirmed at topuptv.com:

There are further changes to the existing Top Up TV service happening early February 2007. TCM, UKTV Style and UKTV Gold will continue as before with British Eurosport now being shown in the morning.

The revised Top Up TV Line-up is: Channel Channel Hours UKTV Gold 4pm - 1am UKTV Style 1pm - 4pm British Eurosport 7.30am - 10am TCM 7pm - 1am

Marbles 17:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

What has happened to this article?

What on earth has happened to this article? Not only has the structure I implemented last year gone missing, but also the article is so over-repetitive. It needs a massive cut in content I believe, and a much clearer organisation using headings / subheadings, like I implemented previously. It is also out of date in places, and contains much original research. I cannot donate any more of my time to re-organise and clean-up this article yet again, hopefully the rest of the community can. /Marbles 20:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Full of speculation, WP:OR and half of the lead section reads more like a gossip and rumours section rather than a serious overview of Top Up TV. Might get my axe out sometime soon... --tgheretford (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Box Reliability

Is it worth adding to the note near the end on how, though the recent (2.88, 2.91) updates have "done much to improve certain aspects of the recorder", i.e. adding some questionable features and some that should never have been missing in the first place (subtitles! those oh so new things that were introduced by teletext in, oh, 1979 or thereabouts?), it hasn't actually done much to fix the flaky core functionality or add genuinely useful stuff. I don't much care for it being short on fripperies, at least not whilst it is still less reliable at the basic usability level than the old 1993 VCR I recently mothballed because it had a squeaky drive belt.

Recordings are missed, mistimed, or are sometimes so damaged that attempting to view (or delete!) them carries a very high risk of crashing the box. Fast forward and rewind completely confuse the thing (seriously, what the hell?). There is still no "search to time" function or the ability for recordings that were made one after the other to flow continuously (particularly if they all have 1-minute guard times and therefore overlap slightly). Estimated recording time is far too optimistic and generally unreliable except as a very vague indicator of how full the hard disc is (and this is after disabling all the TUTV channels, to free up the entire HD for standard freeview recording - I saw no reason to even go for the one month trial, let alone pay for subscription, given the quality of service the box offers). Etcetera... again, all stuff that this fairly average £300 (in 1993, and it's £80/2000 replacement) VCR offered in fully-working glitch-free form, and most if not all DVD players & recorders.

I do however have open, in another window, a page that details what's (allegedly) in the 2.91 update, so I'll copy that in quickly if that's allowed... or at least paraphrase it. 82.46.180.56 (talk) 20:12, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ummm... seriously, what is Top Up TV?

This article is a little hard to understand :)

It looks like Top up TV is a combination of the following

• A Top Up TV+ box - DTR recording Freeview DTT programs (and records any of the services below)
• A subscription to Top Up's live pay TV channels (what ones?), but the Top UP channels are slowly being removed??
• An "Anytime" service which sends a selection of programs to the box overnight, rather than watching live. These are watched on demand
• A Picture Box service - one movie a night
• Setanta live payTV subscription
• Possibly 3rd party live pay channels (eg: Uk Gold?).

Is the above correct? Greg (talk) 01:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

logo

can someone upload the new top up tv logo —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.64.168 (talk) 19:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

 Done -- [[ axg ⁞⁞ talk ]] 20:55, 23 March 2009 (UTC)