All right, last comment, honest. This slashdot comment: http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=157009&cid=13164416 says that the Promise TV prototype was actually recording one of the six Freeview (digital terrestrial) multiplexes -- a multiplex being a group of digital channels broadcast on the same frequency. I believe it was BoingBoing that made the false leap from "records a subset of UK digital terrestrial channels" to "records all UK channels": http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/25/promise_tv_pvr_recor.html Presumably Technology Review then took this, plus a separate report of "records 12 channels simultanously", to arrive at their false "all 12 channels in the UK" reporting. The TV Squad post then further twisted this into "only 12 satellite channels total in the UK". Shoddy reporting all along the way, frankly.

Strictly speaking Freeview is _partly_ run by the BBC; BSkyB and Crown Castle also have equal shares.

"To be fair the UK only has 12 channels total on thier satellite system." Oh, please. Would even a _little_ research have killed you? UK digital satellite (subscription): http://www.sky.com/ordersky/channelpackages/allpackages UK digital cable (subscription), for example: http://www.home.ntl.com/page/tvpackagecompare UK digital terrestrial (free to view): http://www.freeview.co.uk/whatson/index.html I count way more than 12 on all of these. Pack your bags. And another inaccuracy: there are, and have been for _eight_ years now, five UK broadcast TV channels, not four. (Channel 5, now simply branded as five, launched in April 1997.) But hey: let's not let the facts get in the way of cocking a sarcastic snoot at the backwards Brits, eh?

We have hundreds of channels available via satellite and cable. The 12 channels are those available via "freeview". Freeview is digital terrestrial broadcasting. A one off decoder box purchase lets people receive digital signals through a standard aerial. It is run by the BBC, although not all of the programming is theirs.