NOW TV

The phone line requirement for multi-room was to confirm all the boxes were at the same address, as in all other ways the secondary boxes for Sky SD and Sky HD were fully standalone receivers with dish connections and viewing cards. Without the phone line check it would have been possible to move your second / third etc. receivers to other addresses and sell on your Sky sub at a profit (as the multiroom surcharge was a lot less than a second Sky sub...)

The Sky Q multiroom system is implemented differently - with only the main Sky Q box having a dish connection, and the multiroom Mini receivers have to connect to the main Sky Q box over WiFi (or other local network connections) and aren't standalone receivers that would work with a dish at a secondary location.

If protecting the Premier League’s rights was the main interest, surely the Premier League would then not sell its rights to Amazon (where there is no to-premises locking of subs, and casting is allowed) or indeed allow Now TV to carry games (again, no to-premises locking and casting allowed). It’s purely about protecting the Sky Multroom fee in my view. The Premier League are well able to and do take their own measures to protect their rights.

One issue with the new Fire TV app, it appears it's the same as the Sony Bravia app as there's a red button option for search & options.

Easy way to prevent that is for the Chromecast to be registered as a device itself - pretty sure that's what Foxtel in Australia does with allowing multiroom and Foxtel Now (IPTV version of Foxtel) users casting abilities

NOW TV already allocates an individual Chromecast as a device.

Interesting that a possible NOW TV 4K service has surfaced again in conversations.

I'm still highly sceptical of this but I could see it having a place on the platform.

I presume the sting of having BT, Disney+ and now Prime Video all in various flavours of 4K HDR Dolby etc on a Sky owned platform, whereas the native Sky product isn't, might be having an effect on the management and could be changing minds towards offering this.

Of course there have been rumoured tests already, so could 2021 see something appear without too much leadtime.

Wouldn't this veer very close to a Sky X-type service? The dishless-Sky announcements for the UK seem to have gone a bit cold - with no major developments announced, after the initial stuff.

I understand the need to keep Now TV "second fiddle" to the main Sky Q product - it will always be second fiddle. But I've had a feeling for a while now since none of last year's Black Friday deals appeared again this year, they're not entirely sure what to do with the service. The sticks are still out of stock on the website for one thing, no sign that they're coming back in any time soon (they are available on Amazon and elsewhere but that's beside the point).

The sticks are a great gadget in their own right, which slightly confuses the picture further. But yes, there is a definitely the potential for Now TV and Sky's traditional offering to become rival services rather than complimentary offerings capturing different parts of the market.

Ultimately, the need for a physical dish is a big barrier to entry, so even if pricing (or contracts) wasn't an issue the simplicity of Now TV will always give it the edge for people who just want something different to watch.

Even if Now TV offered a limited 4K service, it still wouldn't have the breadth of choice, nor the huge recording facility of the Sky Q box.

You can still target the NOW TV demo with 4K content and still be a more basic complementary service to Sky. The customer base for NOW TV is still those who want to dip in and out of passes without having to have Sky or Virgin installed on long term contracts.

Yes the NOW TV Smart Stick is a great bit of kit, made even better with the recently added apps, it's got all the major ones now such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All5, My5, UKTV Play, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, Spotify, BBC Sounds, Pluto TV, BT Sport etc. I'm not sure, but it might actually have a better range than Sky Q!

I believe Sky Q had most of that already. Netflix, Disney (and later Prime) were added later. All that's missing is the other big names like YouTube, Pluto, Sound and whatever else (BT Sport you can tack onto your subscription separately, you don't need an app for that) - however if you have a UHD capable TV it will almost certainly be smart, and you can get the missing services so they don't need to be on Q.

But of course the other selling point of Now is that it works on a wider range of devices. Q you have the box(es) and that's it, outside of Sky Go. Now TV works in web browsers, consoles, some smart TVs (not all of them) and now Amazon devices and whatever else, so its more flexible. Q I would not be surprised in the slightest if the major selling main points for Q become access to six million channels, UHD content and Sky+.