Sky -+?

If their internal menus do work, then the chances of an iPlayer client based off the Virgin On Demand service actually working are, according to these comments, very slim.

My VOD hasn't worked for months.

My interactive and OD service on VM have locked up for years - since we had digital. It would lock within 2-3 minutes.

Tried a few times to get it fixed but they ended up replacing the box and the problem remained.

Last week networks got involved and found a problem in their cabinet.

Whatever they did speeded up the OD menus 3-4 times and not had a lock up since.

Speaking of the new HD EPG, Sky staff are now testing it on their home boxes, someone has posted some pictures over on Digital Spy. Looks great, all sorts of interesting features.

if i can drift onto epg, it frustrates me that when you search programmes a-z, you get each and every occurance listed. it would be much better IMHO, for one entry per programme, ie 1 entry for teleshopping; if you select that, you then get each occurance listed.

would tidy the list up no end!

That's one of the improvements in the new EPG for HD boxes coming in June. The search fuction will now be over 7 days and will allow you to type up to 10 characters in the search, and if there are several episodes of the same programme on the same channel, it'll collapse them down into one entry, which you can then open up and see all the screenings of. So for example you won't see all the many episodes of the Simpsons during the week, there will just be 5 (for Sky One, Sky One HD, C4, C4+1 and C4HD),

The same thing will happen in the planner as well, if you have several episodes of a series recorded, they'll be collapsed into a single planner entry.

So... finally catching up in these areas to where TiVo was ten years ago then

In case anyone hasn't seen it yet:

http://images.digitalspy.co.uk/08/17/skynewhdepg0408.jpg

Because the listings are now cached on the hard drive, the channel you're watching continues in the top right corner. It also means synopsis info for other channels can now be seen on the i button on the search & scan banner.

OK so something just went through my mind, I now want noggin to shoot me down and explain why its not possible.

BBC iPlayer (and 4od etc) on Sky. A Sky box needs to be plugged into the phone line, so why can't they have a system along these lines.

Customer requests doctor who
sky box sends request and that box's GUID to Sky HQ where a download is queued on a bank of transponders. Once download is ready, sky box downloads the movie (as a compressed MPEG file) and pops up a box to tell customer its ready.

More of a 4OD on the computer style download system than instant access like virgin claim to be (although they spend last week broken across tayside, tsk) but surely it would work.

No particular reason why that shouldn't work, but they'd need to tie it to their own ISP, or download the file over satellite (not really feasible because of the bandwidth required for unicast traffic).

It's one thing offering a free VOD service over the web, quite another to offer a commercial product going to millions of boxes.

The other ISPs would stamp on the traffic faster than you can blink. PR Disaster ensues.

No technical reason at all, it just comes down to the cost of getting the data to you.

BT charge for all the data that travels between an ISP and their customers over the ADSL network. So even if the data is directly from the ISP to customer then BT still bill the ISP for carring the data over their ADSL network to the end user. This is why most ISPs have the hump over iPlayer. It is causing them to get larger bills from BT which they then have to pass on to the end customer.

There is another way of getting ADSL known as a Local Loop Unbundled connection. Without going into too much details it allows an ISP to put their own equipment in the phone exchange and bypass BT in delivering the data to the end user. This means the costs are lower and TV over ADSL becomes cost effective. It is no coincidence that Sky broadband gives you an unbundled connection where possible.

I think it will be likely that Sky will offer broadband TV services in the future like the one you describe - but only to Sky Broadband customers who have an unbundled line. As this how the existing ADSL TV services like Homechoice/Tiscali are able to provide their services.

sorry I should have been more clear. My idea ran on the concept of the download being sent over satellite rather than over the net. The box only uses the internet connection to queue a slot for itself on the on demand transponders which then "broadcast" the show as a download.

The encryption would be tied to the box's own mac / serial / guid so only it received it.

Think of the box sending down a video file rather than pure video. Is this possible or would it require a half hour show to get a half hour slot.

I mean my idea runs on the concept that not everyone requests the show at the same time therefore there should be enough space/time to send out the files.

That make more sense? I'm aware them using their own IP wouldn't really work due to the whinging the iPlayer is causing. How much control over astra 2 do sky have out of interest?

What about for programmes on BBC One, which are listed on each and every BBC One region. Surely it could be limited to only show whichever region you have on 101.