Sky recruiting to fill Sky+ customisation gap

HHD Size

The major problem with Sky+ currently, is the miniscule HDD it's provided with... something like 20GB.... which isn't really enough if you want to keep shows like BSG, or any films you might be saving for later!

it's a bit pants, especially since these days it's actually difficult to get HDD's that small!

Sky Anytime

Sky Anytime isn't only available on PCs - a watered-down "pick of the week's TV" version has recently become available on Sky HD boxen.

It's a bit annoying, actually - the HD box has a 300GB disk but you're only allowed to use 160GB for your own stuff. The other 140GB is reserved for Sky Anytime, which would be OK if Sky Anytime included anything I wanted to watch. Doctor Who should be included in the "pick of the week's TV", surely :-)

Bah.

20gb Hard Disc

This may have been true for the very early boxes but the SD Sky+ boxes I've seen around for quite some time have "160" emblazoned across the top of the case.

That's enough for 50+ hours of SD content which is not bad at all.

(I'm another Tivo owner nursing a hacked, 240gb Tivo which i still consider irreplaceable)

TiVo - still setting the standard 6 years later!

I'm really glad to hear someone in the UK mentioning TiVo outside the TiVo community forum. I've been nursing my geriatric (but heavily upgraded) TiVo along for a long time now, and even compared to my Sky+HD, it's superior in many respects.

One thing I'd really like to see Sky focus on is basic usability and reliability. I hate series links that self-delete on a semi-random basis, or if an episode is cancelled. Programmes occasionally fail to record for no reason whatsoever - even when I was in the room at the time and SAW IT RECORDING, it's sometimes still gone afterwards.

Such annoying messages as "You must exit Live TV Pause in order to use the TV Guide" just make me grind my teeth. On TiVo, you can pause live TV, go and set up a recording, watch another one, check your wishlists, go to the loo, then come back and carry on, as long as it's within the live TV buffer length.

If only there was a UK TiVo with Sky HD capability. Something similar exists in the States, but with TiVo's lack of partners and interest in the UK market, plus Sky's lack of competition or cooperation with potential partners, it's never likely to happen.

Another great technology never fulfilling its potential.

DRM stuff, doesn't allow to transfer recorded video streams to archive them...

..this is they main issue with these PVRs, they don't allow to save whatever you record on your PC and then on DVD/BD/HD-DVD media and so on.

Due to copyright crazyness the simplest archiving use of the modern heir of VCRs, the PVR, can't be used in the same way. Soon DRM stuff will be put inside every manufacturer PVRs and not just Sky OEM-customized models.

Whatevery producers concerns about copyright, people want to archive stuff anyway, so if they want to sell blank media in larger numbers and sell more PVRs they just need to let customers do it and not put locks here and there every single time.

I'll save Sky some money... implement these ideas :)

I've always had a stack of ideas for Sky's digibox and if they implemented just some of them it would greatly increase the functionality of the box and also probably their market share. Unfortunately this will only work if they open up their software a little, which is unlikely ever to happen…

For starters their EPG is probably the best I've ever used but as previously mentioned reliability must be greatly improved.

Sky should use the new Sky+ box planned for 2008 to make a killer application. This must include at a minimum the following:

1) Media Extender technology to allow Ethernet streaming of content from PC’s to HDTV, i.e. Apple TV, etc

2) Streaming of content from Digibox to multiple PC’s (local or Internet based), i.e. TiVo

3) Learning of users viewing habits with automatic record, i.e. TiVo (already mentioned)

4) Remote control API access so you can easily record programs, change channel with confirmation, etc. This feature has been missing for far too long…

5) Built in media server with full playback functionality for all common formats with easy file upload from PC, MP3 player, etc via USB or Ethernet

6) eSATA support so the internal HDD space can be easily upgraded (I think the HD box has this already?)

7) Minimum of three tuners

8) Built in HD Freeview support (probably never happen but Sky is currently a shareholder in Freeview) – This would be a forth tuner. Some channels are free on Freeview but not on Sky, etc

9) ADSL router functionality so you can surf the net via your PC

10) Proper VoD via ADSL2+ (already mentioned)

11) Web surfing via HDTV screen with optional Bluetooth mouse and keyboard

12) Built in DVD-RW functionality to backup your programs to playable DVD's (plus easy DVD playback). Make it HD-DVD and BluRay compatible for extra wow factor ;)

The list goes on… This of course would require a more powerful CPU and additional memory, which in turn would speed up the Interactive services. These are just far too slow to load at the moment. Sky please please fully cache these programs locally on the box when you have more memory available!

James

PS: Of course none of this will happen as Sky won't ever have the balls to upset Hollywood and its love of DRM!

About time too

Been harping on about the poor functionality of sky+ for a while, having owned a TiVo which sadly died not long ago, I very much miss the functionality it offered.

More specifically:

-Series links that work beyond the end of the week, F1, World Rally Championship, etc... can't be series linked since they don't run weekly... what's the point then dare I ask...

-An EPG which is downloaded onto the hard drive and updated regularly, I can't believe that scrolling past 24 hours takes such a long time for the listings to show, worse, if you are recording two programmes at the same time... you can't get the listings at all !

-Being able to view being able to view programme synopsis while recording two programmes (similar to above).

-An EPG which shows all the programmes for a single channel at the time, I hate the cropped programme names and the fact that you can't easily see what's on say BBC2 in the next four hours easily.

-An A-Z which covers more than the next 24 hours, and properly searchable too, a single letter is nowhere near sufficient.

.....

Have TiVo trademarked/patented any of the functionality ? This may explain why SKY can't just copy it ?

Rant over, at least looks like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally, do I get the job ?

Of course what's REALLY missing is ...

... an OPEN interface !

There's some good stuff for anything but Sky for the simple reason that there's an open interface (Analog TV and more recently DVB-T) which has allowed a number of companies to come along with new offerings. As already mentioned, there are a few Freeview PVRs and each one lives or dies by how good it is instead of whether it if forced on punters by a monopoly supplier.

If the government had any clue and any balls they'd :

- Make the transmission business of Sky a separate unit, allowed only to make modest profits required to cover it's OWN costs and investments. It would have to offer channel space on non-disciminatory terms to anyone with a channel to broadcast.

- Make them use an open interface/open up their own so that anyone can make compatible receivers, and so allow consumers to choose a box that suits them instead of what suits Sky.

If this happened then we'd see less whinging about what's wrong with Sky boxes because where there's a market, someone will step up with a product to fill it.

At the moment, Sky can charge what they want to stuff any old shit boxes under peoples tellies because they have a monopoly on supply of compatible boxes, and thanks to some "questionable business tactics" a "very dominant position" in the market.

Sky+ is great (I used to have NTL!)

I agree with the above, particularly:

1. Caching the TV guide and making the synopsis availble when recording two programs.

2. Making the series link work for programmes which are not on every week (would also be good if a new series was starting and the box knew you watch the last series several months ago so set it up again).

3. Being able to upgrade the hard drive or add a second hard drive.

A small (but really nice) improvement would also be to change the colour of programmes which are ready set up to record in the TV guide.

Anyway, after all that I love Sky+. I used to have NTL and the program information/tv guide was rarely available and every time you pressed the red button the whole box crashed (without exception) and needed a reboot. If you tried phoning customer services you were left on hold for anything up to an hour and then they would just say - unplug the box and then plug it back in.