Not to be confused with the P2P Internet TV venture that goes by a very similar name...Babel TV is launching on November 6. This is an IPTV play that involves a set-top box—referred to as a “hardened PC” on the company’s web site—linking up a house’s broadband connection with its Freeview digital TV system. It will enable users to watch Internet-based television shows; buy content on-demand; time-shift, record and store programs from Freeview; as well as store and use other kinds of content such as music.

All credit goes to the company for furthering the pursuit of digital content business models, but this is becoming an increasingly crowded area for new products. In the UK, not only are broadband providers like BT (NYSE: BT) and Tiscali (and potentially Orange and even BSkyB) offering IPTV services that link up with Freeview, but Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) TV is also in the picture with a set top box that lets users view Internet content via their televisions. Babel TV will retail for £295 ($606) and is one of the first commercial products released by DaweVision, headed by Peter Dawe, founder of UK ISP Pipex in 1991 (now part of Tiscali), and Mark Turner, who founded Demon. Another, Babel Disc, is a service that lets users store their files in remote locations and use them via a cached system. release