Is there a limit to how old something can be when you stream it after trading it to be watched?
Does it depend on programme type?
I'd expect sport to only be available for a week or two but hope it would be MUCH longer.
I'd expect tv series, sci-fi or drama, to be available for months.
Outside of sport, most channels are only pointers to their app. In particular, BBC, ITV, C4, and most U& content is just a link to their app, so it is a question of how long it is there [and not all programmes appear there] which is up to the app provider.
Five and Sky basic content appears in catch up - I doubt there is any difference in what is available on Stream and your existing Virgin Media service, and the same goes for Quest. If there are particular programmes from those channels you want have a look at what you get today in catch up as it varies.
Some of the smaller channels without apps carried by Virgin Media do have the week's programmes available by going back in the EPG similar to the sports channels, but others, such as Talking Pictures, where Virgin Media doesn't carry their app, can only be watched live.
OnDemand availability is generally dictated by broadcaster rather than genre, for the most part.
C5 is typically 2 or 3 months these days, the NatGeo channels I believe are 2months. C4 & BBC are dictated by their app but is broadly going to be several months.
What we really need is some sort of device that could store the programs locally, and then you could keep them available for as long as was required by you, and even store programs from the channels that don't have catch up services.
But surely this is just the stuff of sci-fi!
As a rule of thumb, catch-up is available 7-30 days after brodcasting and is determined by the broadcaster’s metadata, which includes expiry timestamps, which is sent to VM. This is covered by the broadcaster's licence as it’s a time-shifted broadcast.
In contrast availability for longer periods is called on-demand which done under VoD (ODPS) registration as it’s independent of broadcast scheduling.
The method of delivery, be it from a CDN, VM's VoD servers or whatever, does not determine whether a stream is catch-up or on-demand (only geeks care about this).
