"If production models live up to the prototypes and the ambitious promises I want one," agreed several hard-nosed journalists at the 3View pre-launch party at the oppressively trendy showbiz Ivy Club.

I'll be trying a 3View unit as soon as final products are ready and will report in ERT magazine. In the meantime, here is some background.

The British start-up will initially manufacture in China, then move it Hungary. The twin-tuner set-top box receives Freeview HD using the new DVB-T2 standard, records to a 500GB PVR and streams from Sky Player, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook by broadband connection. BBC iPlayer is promised, when the company has convinced the BBC that security requirements to prevent copying are in place.

Although the box, which costs £299, receives Freeview HD and has a name that sounds similar to Freeview, it is not badged with the Freeview logo. “This is purely a marketing decision,” says Robert Blackwell, 3View's commercial director. “Because it does much more than a Freeview box. It doesn't just receive HDTV off air, it's also an Internet media box. Badging it as Freeview could cause great confusion.

“The circuit board is made from two plug-in modules. One has the Sony T2 chips – so far Sony is the only approved supplier – and the other is a dedicated PC from Sigma for media processing. So we can easily modify production for foreign sales.”

Although use of the Freeview logo is royalty-free, the box must be approved by the UK's official digital TV testing body, the DTG. A full test for a Freeview IDTV or set-top box is £6,000, while a PVR is £7,000.

A BBC spokesman present at 3View's London launch event explained why 3View can promise but not yet deliver the iPlayer function.

Although the BBC does not require the box to have a Freeview logo, it does require assurance on content protection; namely that the box cannot record the iPlayer TV catch-up stream to an internal hard disc or external memory device. This is why the iPlayer stream is always delivered by broadband, never over the air. The BBC's servers look for an ID code that must be returned by the consumer device before streaming can begin. The code, which Freesat free-to-air satellite boxes are designed to deliver, confirms that there is no option to record the stream.

Although Freeview HD boxes have an Ethernet socket for broadband connection, they are not yet approved by the BBC and so do not yet have an ID that satisfies the BBC servers. The 3View box is also not yet approved, but this is expected “soon” and hopefully in time for the first boxes to go on sale.

Fingers crossed that 3View can deliver on its promises. As I said, if it does, I want one.

Barry Fox