Home Video Channel (HVC) was a British cable television channel that began operating in 1985, broadcasting low-budget films between 8:00 p.m. and midnight. Film genres included horror, action, adventure, science fiction, and erotica. In 1992, a second channel, The Adult Channel, was launched by HVC's owner, Home Video Channel Limited (HVCL). It broadcast erotic films and softcore pornography.

In 1994, HVCL was acquired by Spice Networks, a television channel group owned by Playboy Enterprises. In 1998, HVCL was merged into Playboy TV UK, a Playboy subsidiary that had been broadcasting Playboy TV in the UK since 1995. Playboy TV UK ceased transmission of the HVC channel in 1999, but it continued to broadcast the Playboy TV channel on the Sky UK digital satellite platform. In 2011, Playboy TV UK was sold to Manwin (later MindGeek), and Playboy TV ceased broadcasting in the UK in 2018.

The service started on 1 September 1985. It was created by Ealing Cable as one of two channels introduced to help build up content and viewership. The other was Indra Dhnush, a subscription-based Asian channel launched in May 1986 devoted to Hindi films and television programmes with some material in other Indian languages. During its early years in operation, HVC purchased many movies as cheaply as possible, making copies via low-band U-matic tapes and distributing the films to other cable operators (along with a paper-based schedule) to play within their own local cable areas using a semi-automated system.

In March 1987, HVC was sold to one of its rivals, Premiere, and the new owner continued with the channel's existing operational model including the distribution of tapes, and increased its broadcasting hours to 7:00 pm–7:00 am. In 1989, HVC was sold to a private consortium which expanded its operation by switching to a system of direct broadcast to British and European cable operators instead of sending out tapes, transmitting on the Astra satellite system.

The company started a pornographic network called The Adult Channel which was launched on 31 January 1992, a satellite-delivered subscription service that feature cable-related versions of adult movies (with softcore content) and top quality erotic programmes as well as various selection of short stories from Teresa Orlowski. The Adult Channel broadcast for four hours a day commencing at midnight, and was available to approximately two million cable and four million (direct-to-home) satellite households in the United Kingdom. The Adult Channel was also broadcasting throughout continental Europe and had subscribers in over 40 countries. HVC continued to operate during the evening with its movie service showing science fiction, erotica, action, adventure and horror films (especially the uncut versions where available) during the pre-midnight period. The two services were offered to cable operators as a seamless 8.00pm to 4.00am programming service at a single package price.

In January 1995, the station transmission was moved from the Astra 1B satellite to the new Astra 1D, the channels used frequencies that were not available on the original Sky receivers as they were outside the original BSS band. Sky issued viewers with frequency shifters (known as "ADX Plus Channel Expanders") comprising small boxes as the size of a cigarette packet, with a single switch and an on/off LED circuit connected between the dish and powered by the receiver, these allowed viewers to switch manually between the Astra 1A and Astra 1D frequency bands with a difference of 250 MHz.

Several factors were believed to have contributed to this decline by the launch of two competing pornographic services in 1995 – including Television X (2 June) and Playboy TV (1 November) – to increased piracy, along with the channel's use of an Astra 1D satellite transponder. By 1997, The Adult Channel had lost subscribers and much of its market share in the United Kingdom. In an effort to address these issues in 1998, the company restructured HVC's management and instituted a change in its transponder to allow it to broadcast on the British Sky Broadcasting satellite from August 1998. The cost of the new transponder was less expensive and the changes were successful with the number of subscribers increasing. The Adult Channel was broadcast after the Sci-Fi Channel and The History Channel as two widely distributed networks. HVC also switched to the Sky encryption technology in October 1997 to curtail signal piracy. HVC also increased The Adult Channel's programming budget for 1998 with an added emphasis on European programming. The company also increased HVC's advertising budget and reallocated it to the UK DTH market in an effort to regain lost market share.

On 1 May 1999, Home Video Channel has ceased transmission after 14 years on air with only the Adult Channel continuing to broadcast afterwards.