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 | |
| tvtv | |
| Industry | Media |
| Founded | 1999 |
| Defunct | 2023 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Owner | rtv media group GmbH (Bertelsmann) |
tvtv Services, trading as tvtv, is a consumer-oriented pan-European electronic programme guide (EPG) service provider, owned by the arvato AG subsidiary rtv media group GmbH since January 2013. It was formerly broadcast on Freeview channel 304 (owned by YooMedia, timesharing with Absolute Radio) until 30 October 2008.
In 1999, the first tvtv website was launched by Munich-based company Fast TV Server AG to enable remote programming. In 2001 Fast TV Server announced the first personal video recorder (PVR) with remote programming, [1] and in 2002, the first TV set with EPG and PVR was launched. [2]
In November 2003, Sony acquired Fast TV Server AG's EPG services, and tvtv Services became a branch of Sony UK Ltd, but continued to be run from Munich. This was followed by the launch of the first digital PVR in 2004 and the first customized web-EPG in 2005.
In September 2011, the ownership of tvtv was moved from Sony UK to the US Sony subsidiary Gracenote, under its German daughter company Gracenote GmbH. The purpose of the move was, according to the official press release, "to enable Gracenote to expand its portfolio of products and technology to Smart TV manufacturers, cable operators and broadcasters." [3]
In November 2012, tvtv suspended the offer for new subscriptions to their online services, and announced that existing subscriptions would not be extended. [4]
In January 2013, tvtv was moved from Gracenote GmbH to the arvato AG subsidiary rtv media group GmbH. With this transfer the rtv media group expands its portfolio to further digital products and is constantly on a growth course with positioning its products as leading platforms for program navigation and advertising media for online and cross-media campaigns.
In 2023, Bertelsmann decided [5] to close down its RTV Media Group GmbH subsidiary and with it all offline, online and print operations.
tvtv enables users to personalize their TV listings, receive personalized and collaborative recommendations, recommend programs to their friends and remotely control their recording lists via the World Wide Web or a mobile phone. Tvtv provides EPG technology and metadata to various set-top boxes and websites of large cable operators, digital TV sets, digital video recorders, TV tuner sticks, mobile devices [6] and web portals. In order to benefit from the premium services like remote recording, users need to have a compatible device and register for the service. [7] The delivery of metadata for set-top boxes, TV tuner sticks and hardware in general as well as the online recording function was ceased on February 28, 2013. EPG data delivery for select services continued until December 2017 [8] . The tvtv websites for Germany, Austria and Switzerland were operated by rtv media group until December 2023.
Wyplay
A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes (STB) with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices; such devices may alternatively be referred to as personal video recorders (PVRs), particularly in Canada. Similar small devices with built-in displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates.
MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital multimedia home entertainment system, or home theater personal computer. It can be considered a free and open-source alternative to TiVo or Windows Media Center. It runs on various operating systems, primarily Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
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Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for current and upcoming broadcast programming. Some guides also feature backward scrolling to promote their catch up content. They are commonly known as guides or TV guides.
MediaPortal is an open-source media player and digital video recorder software project, often considered an alternative to Windows Media Center. It provides a 10-foot user interface for performing typical PVR/TiVo functionality, including playing, pausing, and recording live TV; playing DVDs, videos, and music; viewing pictures; and other functions. Plugins allow it to perform additional tasks, such as watching online video, listening to music from online services such as Last.fm, and launching other applications such as games. It interfaces with the hardware commonly found in HTPCs, such as TV tuners, infrared receivers, and LCD displays.
Super RTL is a German free-to-air television network owned by RTL Deutschland. The channel originally launched in 1995 as a joint venture between RTL Group predecessor company CLT-UFA and Disney's Buena Vista International Television Investments division.
Sky+ is a discontinued personal video recorder (PVR) and subscription service from the satellite television provider Sky in the UK and Ireland. Launched in September 2001, it allows customers to record, pause and instantly rewind live TV. The system performs these functions using an internal hard drive inside the Sky+ set top box, an upgrade over the standard Digibox.
Windows Media Center (WMC) is a digital video recorder and media player created by Microsoft. Media Center was first introduced to Windows in 2002 on Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). It was included in Home Premium and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, as well as all editions of Windows 7 except Starter and Home Basic. It was also available on Windows 8 Pro and Windows 8.1 Pro as a paid add-on. It was discontinued as of Windows 10 and the operating system also removes all of Windows Media Center during an upgrade from previous versions of Windows, although it can reportedly be unofficially reinstalled using a series of Command Prompt commands.
Gracenote, Inc. is a company and service that provides music, video and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies, worldwide. Formerly CDDB, Gracenote maintains and licenses an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio compact discs and vinyl records. From 2008 to 2014, it was owned by Sony, later sold to Tribune Media, and has been owned since 2017 by Nielsen Holdings. In 2019, Nielsen Holdings announced plans to split into two separate publicly traded companies, Nielsen Global Connect and Nielsen Global Media. In October 2022, Nielsen Holdings completed the sale of Global Media, including the Gracenote subsidiary, to a private equity consortium.
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InterVideo WinDVR is a commercial digital video recorder (DVR) software package for Windows operating systems. It allows PCs to work as a TV set and a DVR at the same time, using a hardware-based TV turner card. It has an integrated electronic program guide (EPG) that is updated via the Internet. Its direct competition came from CyberLink PowerVCR.
GB-PVR was a PVR application, running on Microsoft Windows, whose main function was scheduling TV recordings and playing back live TV. GB-PVR is no longer under active development and has been superseded by NextPVR, also known as nPVR.
Digifusion was the brand name of Fusion Digital Technology Limited, a British consumer electronics company that began trading in 2002, producing a range of digital terrestrial televisions and receivers. Fusion was part owned by Beko, the Turkish electronics giant, who were responsible for all product manufacture.
Freeview is the brand name of the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia intended to bring all of free-to-air (FTA) broadcasters onto a consistent marketing platform, to compete against subscription television, in particular Foxtel. The strategy coincided with the expansion to 3 digital channels for each FTA network and the planned phasing out of analog television in Australia. Important services from Freeview include its free-to-air channels with an enhanced EPG across all channels. Freeview also certifies televisions, set-top boxes and personal video recorders (PVR) which meet its standards.
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VBox Home TV gateway is a network-enabled live TV tuner and PVR HDTV set-top-box produced by VBox Communications Ltd.