Lets wait until apple change their terms and conditions to remove Sky Go from the app store. I'm sure it wont take Apple long.
Sky's mobile movies move leaves Apple, Amazon gasping
It has been five years since Apple unveiled its TV tuner – and it increasingly looks like Cupertino missed the boat. Sky this week added on-demand movies to its Sky Go service, which means anyone already on the platform can view shows from the couch on a mobile or a tablet. Sky’s 11 live linear channels are also available for …
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 13:35 GMT Paul M 1
Thing is that Sky actually make very little of the content they show and what they do produce themselves is far from compelling. They're business model is based on tying up exclusive deals for content distribution, be it football, US drama series or films. This model is starting to get a lot of attention from the competition regulators.
Without its exclusives Sky are nothing more than yet another video library so they've got to hope they can keep the gravy train rolling.
-
-
Wednesday 30th November 2011 08:15 GMT thesykes
except...
You are missing out some vital facts from that...
Sky are part of Murdoch's empire, which includes Fox. Who produce movies and TV.
Sky broadcasts over satellite, meaning customers don't need high-speed broadband connections to watch HD films. My broadband speed struggles with standard def streams, let alone 2 HD feeds simultaneously, which the Sky+HD box copes with quite happily.
Sky boxes are everywhere. Millions of people have them. How many people actually have even heard of Apple TC, let alone own one?
The people with the real power in TV are advertisers. If they see a channel going to Apple TV exclusively, they'll drop their spend. They want maximum exposure for their money and when comparing millions of Sky customers and 14 Apple TV owners, you can guess where the money will go. (14 is a guess, it may be less) Sport' governing bodies will not sell rights to a company who cannot give sponsors the exposure they want.
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:20 GMT Tom 38
£20/month is the cheapest stock Sky sub
There is no additional charge for watching sky go.
My flat only has the 1 satellite feed, and the landlord is not keen on upgrading the entire block, so I can't get/use Sky+ (2 feeds required) or SkyHD (4 feeds), so there was no way I would take a 'proper' sky equipment+12 month sub, so I used to subscribe to Sky Player.
Sky Player was also free to use (in addition to your sub), you could use it on up to 5 computers and 1 Xbox and you could watch sport or movie channels on it. You could also access the sports channels on your iDevice, for an additional £6/month. The quality on maximum was almost HD, and looked really nice blew up to 42".
Then came Sky Go, which 'unifies' all this. You no longer have to pay £6/month per device, but instead you are now limited to 2 devices in total. Yep, 2 devices, across laptop, home pc, phone, tablet and console. Pick 2. Want more? Tough shit, pick 2.
This riled me a bit, but I still didn't cancel. I still want to watch cricket (I know, I know..). Tuned in bright and early for an India vs England ODI, and fuck me, 'This content is not available to be streamed' - Sky hadn't even bought the streaming rights to the damn content, despite advertising it to me in never ending "Check out what's on Sky Go!" spam emails.
At that point, I cancelled. Fuck them.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 15:02 GMT TeeCee
"...Sky+ (2 feeds required) or SkyHD (4 feeds)..."
Er, no. HD is actually one feed, if you take the non-PVR box. The "standard" HD box is Sky+ (PVR) and uses 2. No idea where you're getting the requirement for 4 from, it's cobblers. They do tend to fit a four connector LNB on installation, but two connections remain unused unless you have two or more boxes connected.
The PVR boxes will also work on one feed, but won't allow you to watch something live while recording something else at the same time.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 16:11 GMT Tom 38
I guess that changed then. Original Sky HD boxes used dual LNB feeds for each channel, as this used DVB-S and MPEG2 encoding at the time, which required both feeds at once for some channels (I have photos).
They also seem to have re-done the boxes in the 6 months since I last looked - no SD boxes, everyone gets a Sky+ HD box, and you no longer have to pay for Sky+, only for HD - presumably you would get FTA HD without paying extra.
You still require at least two LNB for the PVR boxes to work correctly - I'm guessing you've never tried, because they only sort of work with one LNB, once it tries to download Sky Anytime programming overnight, the box will likely freeze. I've also seen it refuse to start a scheduled recording when you're not watching anything.
Clearly your definition of 'works' is different to mine.
-
-
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:20 GMT QuinnDexter
No extra costs - I'm not lying!
I've got Sky Go on my iPad and regularly watch the sports channels. I'll point out that I don't subscribe to the movie package, and would never intend to, but that additional functionality at no extra cost to those who currently enjoy it is great and should be applauded
Is the license fee I pay each year good value when I only watch Top Gear and MotD on terrestrial tele? Whether it is a bargain or not is all a point of perspective...
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 13:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Not sure about this article
First there's no Sky Go on Android, or even a concrete release date while it's been out on iOS for months. So they do seem to care about which device you use.
Then it's very easy for Amazon to control this on their tablet, they simply won't let the app into their app store. Only geeks will sideload it then.
As the article correctly says Apple makes their margins on the hardware itself, so it's doesn't care that much, they're hardly gasping about it. iTunes store is not such a big revenue earner for them, more of a reason to stay within the ecosystem.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:20 GMT ant-e
Just to clarify, Sky Go works over 3G for the normal 11 channels (and it's pretty good too!) but requires WiFi for the on-demand service.
There is no extra cost involved, but you can have two Sky Go licences per Sky subscription. Bit of a bummer if you have a PC/Mac, iPhone and iPad as you can't use it on all 3...
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:20 GMT Bluenose
What about Sony
Sony have a foot in both the content and device camps and have started to make some small plays in the merged world of device and media already. If you have a Sony networked TV then you can already get on a "buy on demand" basis access to movies made by Sony Entertainment. I am sure it will not take them long to move in to the subscription model if they see growing demand for such services, although they may have to wait a few years in the UK until we have a broadband network capable of supporting such a model.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Apple
I very much doubt Apple will pull Sky Go from the store. Having Sky viewable on iOS devices increases the value of owning one which in turn drives sales. Look at how many companies push the fact you can watch iPlayer as a selling point and they make nothing from the Beeb.
Its already been officially confirmed its coming to Droid in the next few months.
As to Amazon not allowing the app on their store, I doubt many folk will care. The Fire appears to be so crippled in so many other ways one more thing missing won't make much difference.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:38 GMT Tim Parker
Why would you care ?
"So long as your no-name phone, tablet or PC can play the stuff you want to watch, and the EPG works, why would you care?"
Personally, I wouldn't have Sky on any device - so that's why I would care. This stems from a long history of them screwing people over, and a number of years spent in part of an company with very close ties with Mr. Murdoch. This is obviously a very personal position, and i'm aware that the industry is not exactly packed full of saints, but as you asked....
Speaking of people that aren't saints either - Virgin Media also has their Media Player which is available on iPhone, Android and viewable (supported) on a number of platforms/browsers. That can stream Sky content as well, should you have a subscription. Requires their XL TV package - unsure of the relative merits of the two (Sky and Virgin) financially or otherwise, but i'm just pointing out it's not a one horse race.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 14:44 GMT Platelet
What Sky has done is make the hardware as invisible as possible. - Unless it runs Android
it played along nicely with whatever hardware people want to use: Unless they run Android
So long as your no-name phone ... can play the stuff you want to watch... why would you care? - Because my no name phone runs Android ... it can't... that's why
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 15:02 GMT .stu
My wide and I tried watching a program on Sky Go recently and it was piss poor. Quality was less than standard definition and it was really jerky. A quick check of their forums confirmed that I was not the only one suffering these problems. Yet my PC has more than enough clout to run full HD video (we use it daily to watch/record Freesat HD) and iPlayer never has any problems.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 15:22 GMT Chris McEwam
Apple TV lacks everything
Apple TV here in the UK is only usefull for streaming from your Itunes or IOS device. The rental is a rip off, its also limited. In the states the have netflix.
As an Ipad one owner i cant watch SKY n my Ipad and on the apple TV. But ipad 2 customers can and Apple will be missing out on all those potential rentals that SKY are now giving away for free* (if you are a sky subscriber)
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 15:22 GMT Fuzz
Lost my custom months back
"Where it couldn’t do this, it played along nicely with whatever hardware people want to use: laptops, phones or tablets."
I used to subscribe to sky player, the forerunner to the sky go service. One nice thing about sky player was that it was integrated into Windows Media Centre. When sky go launched the media centre plugin was withdrawn. I cancelled my subscription. So I guess it's any hardware you want as long as it's on the list of hardware sky want to support.
-
Tuesday 29th November 2011 17:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Good idea, implementation lacking
I really really wanted Sky Go to be good, however, when the web service requires silverlight and you have to wait for Sky to come out with an app for the mobile device of your choosing then that already limits the number of people that can use the service in the first place.
If it were HTML5 based I'd reconsider it.
-