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Sky 3D to close

Going "fully on demand" (April 2015)

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LL
London Lite Founding member
There is not really a need for Sky2 with the On Demand service.

As I said before the reason Sky2 and Living It exists is purely to make money out of archive.

There's also a number of customers (not sure how many, but could be quite a lot) who will still have older set top boxes which don't have broadband connections, and therefore don't have access to on demand.


Nor have fast enough broadband connections to stream on demand in the first place.

How slow would that have to be? My connection averages around 4Mbps and I never have to wait more than a few seconds for SD content to buffer.


Even with a sub-2Mbps connection the user would be able to download content to play later.


Going by the bitrates used by NOW TV. 2.5MB to 2.7MB for live SD, 3.1MB for catch-up and back catalogue, up to 720p HD.
IN
Interceptor
There is not really a need for Sky2 with the On Demand service.

As I said before the reason Sky2 and Living It exists is purely to make money out of archive.

There's also a number of customers (not sure how many, but could be quite a lot) who will still have older set top boxes which don't have broadband connections, and therefore don't have access to on demand.


Nor have fast enough broadband connections to stream on demand in the first place.

How slow would that have to be? My connection averages around 4Mbps and I never have to wait more than a few seconds for SD content to buffer.


Even with a sub-2Mbps connection the user would be able to download content to play later.


Going by the bitrates used by NOW TV. 2.5MB to 2.7MB for live SD, 3.1MB for catch-up and back catalogue, up to 720p HD.
I think you're mixing MB and Mb up (Mb[ps] being 8x less than MB[ps]).

Sky don't use live broadband streams for any of their STB services, and as Neil says there is no real minimum speed; any broadband service will work, it'll just take much longer to become available to play.
LL
London Lite Founding member
There is not really a need for Sky2 with the On Demand service.

As I said before the reason Sky2 and Living It exists is purely to make money out of archive.

There's also a number of customers (not sure how many, but could be quite a lot) who will still have older set top boxes which don't have broadband connections, and therefore don't have access to on demand.


Nor have fast enough broadband connections to stream on demand in the first place.

How slow would that have to be? My connection averages around 4Mbps and I never have to wait more than a few seconds for SD content to buffer.


Even with a sub-2Mbps connection the user would be able to download content to play later.


Going by the bitrates used by NOW TV. 2.5MB to 2.7MB for live SD, 3.1MB for catch-up and back catalogue, up to 720p HD.
I think you're mixing MB and Mb up (Mb[ps] being 8x less than MB[ps]).

Sky don't use live broadband streams for any of their STB services, and as Neil says there is no real minimum speed; any broadband service will work, it'll just take much longer to become available to play.


Extremely longer if you have poor broadband in a rural area.
IN
Interceptor
Yeah, but that's the thing - even if it does take 2 hours to download, you would then have that content available to play without any breaks for 'buffering' or whatever that other services would.
NG
noggin Founding member
Yep - it's surprising how many people don't realise that the Sky + HD Catch Up and On Demand stuff isn't streamed, but is downloaded. Now TV is streamed.

The quality difference is huge. Now TV is mushy progressive and nasty (with everything 25p but shown at 60Hz with judder). Some of the Sky + HD downloaded stuff is stunningly good quality (50i native with Dolby 5.1 sound). In fact some of the SD downloaded stuff is better than off-air SD quality.

However the bitrates are quite high. I believe the Sky+ HD iPlayer HD stuff is around 8Mbs (So if you have a 1Mbs connection a 30 minute show would take 4 hours to download, and wouldn't be playable until it had almost fully downloaded. If you have a 50Mbs connection then it would take around 5 minutes to download and would become available almost instantly).

I think the SD stuff is H264 and around 2Mbs - so with a >2Mbs connection it should become available quite quickly too. (Shows become available when there is enough downloaded that the rest will have downloaded before you get to the end of the programme at play speed)
Stuart and bilky asko gave kudos
LL
London Lite Founding member


The quality difference is huge. Now TV is mushy progressive and nasty (with everything 25p but shown at 60Hz with judder).


LG's NOW TV app outputs at 50Hz, but I get you point as most of the external devices are cheap and nasty.
NG
noggin Founding member


The quality difference is huge. Now TV is mushy progressive and nasty (with everything 25p but shown at 60Hz with judder).


LG's NOW TV app outputs at 50Hz, but I get you point as most of the external devices are cheap and nasty.


Including the Sky Now TV box - which is how a lot of people access Now TV I suspect. And it's still 25p converting 50i content - and low quality.
LL
London Lite Founding member
Sky Arts will have it's own VOD service.

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2015/04/30/sky-arts-becomes-single-channel-builds-vod/
JF
JetixFann450

Isn't there already a catch-up section on On Demand with Sky 1, Atlantic and Living?
IN
Interceptor
Yes: http://go.sky.com/vod/content/TV_Box_Sets/Channels/Sky_Arts/content/default/promoPage.do

(Although not everything available on the Sky box is available on Sky Go, including all the Challenge content.)
ST
Stuart
I wouldn't be surprised if Sky Living It shuts too.

I think more likely to close is it's sister channel Sky Living It.

I think that's what he said . . . Laughing
NG
noggin Founding member

Isn't there already a catch-up section on On Demand with Sky 1, Atlantic and Living?


Yes - I suspect they will separate out Arts programming into its own section to make it more prominent. Sky are very keen for people to know that they do Arts and News - particularly MPs...
UKnews and London Lite gave kudos

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