ITV, far from moping over having to flog Friends Reunited for a £100m loss, is set to launch an HD channel on Freeview — the terrestrial broadcast wotsit — by the end of 2009. It’s thanks in part to the BBC, which has leased some of its broadcast spectrum bandwidth to ITV. For 50 per …

In the great hi-def format war of 2007, Toshiba lead Team HD DVD into second place as Blu-ray‘s minions claimed victory. Today, the Japanese giant has confirmed to CNET UK that it has applied to join the Blu-ray Disc Association. “Toshiba aims to introduce digital products that support the Blu-ray format,” the company said, “including BD players and notebook PCs …

If you missed such thought-provoking documentaries such as The Boy with Seven Faces, or Body Shock: Head of a Girl, Body of a Donkey, rest assured — Channel 4 has you covered. The ass print in your sofa is likely to get sizeably more cavernous from 25 June, when much of the old content only available to Windows users through …

A week after the BBC’s catchup service went hi-def on the iPlayer Web site, Virgin Media customers can now stream HD iPlayer content through the Virgin V+ HD set-top box, absolutely free. You’ll need to be a licence-payer, of course. You can get access to HD iPlayer content over Virgin Media from today. If you don’t have Virgin Media, however, …

Last week we reported that the BBC began streaming live TV to mobile phones in the UK. BBCs One, Two, Three and Four, and BBC Radios One to Seven, plus others, are now available for over-Wi-Fi streaming to various handsets, including the Nokia N96, and we’ve been trying it out over the weekend. The short version It’s alright. The long …

For years, cinema goers and DVD buyers were repeatedly lectured via the medium of the pre-roll video: downloading movies was stealing, like pinching a handbag or a car. It bordered on offensive, since it was mostly only paying customers who were ever forced to sit through them. Thankfully, the Industry Trust for Intellectual Property Awareness — owners of the delightful …

Channel 4‘s free TV catch-up service, 4oD, can now be accessed with any Web browser on Windows, Mac and Linux, putting the last 30 days of its programming on its Web site, for free ad-supported streaming. It’s the would-be step cousin of the BBC’s iPlayer, using Adobe Flash video — like YouTube — instead of Windows Media Video. Before now, …

Blu-ray went new kinds of wireless at CES earlier this year, with LG and Samsung both adding Wi-Fi to their Blu-ray players. Who better to play catch up than the creator of the format, Sony? It just announced its first standalone Blu-ray player with Wi-Fi in Las Vegas — the BDP-S560. True, the PlayStation 3 had Wi-Fi from the day …

It seems that, if the world’s not going crazy about Twitter, it’s going crazy about 3D movies. But not the wretched intestinal-discharge type of 3D movie that usually involves some American mammal, a pop-star voice actor and a despicably disposable plot, but actual 3D, with 3D glasses and actors that fly out of the cinema screen and everything. The UK’s …

Back in the day, Avanti was the name of a superb map on the original Half Life mod, Team Fortress Classic. It is also the name of a Durex condom. But now the name has been recycled for the latest and greatest Internet and DAB radio from PURE Digital. Its full name is the Avanti Flow, and it’s the second …