Sky's catch-up service & EPG software updates

The service says it's available to 'non Sky TV subscribers' on their website today. However, nothing from BBC iPlayer will stream live, so it requires the Sky+ subscription at the very least for anyone with a Sky+HD STB to be able to download it.

FreesatFromSky customers can buy a 'Sky+ only' sub for about £10 per month. That obviously doesn't count as a 'Sky TV subscription'.

Quite sneaky, perhaps, although none of the other major providers give away a PVR for nothing!

Forget that. Back to the Xbox360 I go then...

I'm sure the problem with the Sky boxes will be sorted out. Hopefully it is just teething problems rather than dirty tricks by Sky. The BBC can't have Sky making money on their license fee funded programmes. Although, of course, if the BBC remove iPlayer while Sky sort out the issue then many people would see them as the bad guys and you can guarantee that Sky wouldn't rush to fix it in that situation.

My own presumption is that it won't play live, but my STB has PVR facility, so it will automatically download anything from the 'On Demand' menu.

Perhaps BBC iPlayer does stream under other circumstances.

It's just incredibly badly worded if it is the case. But hey, we'll see eventually, I guess.

It's not a teething problem. Unlike other providers who are just a portal to the BBC's servers, Sky are using progressive download from their own servers and are delivering BBC HD in the same quality as it's broadcast, not the on-line 'lite' version. To do this, the programmes are being recorded to the HDD and are not being streamed.

This must be costing Sky a fortune and although they're giving their subscribers a better service than other providers, I can't see how they're making money on it.

Seems quite stocked to me and very close to what's in the online version. I'm impressed.

I've tried to download a few episodes of programmes today. The downloads have worked perfectly (though it took until 85% before it would allow me to start watching the download), though the episodes of programmes have been a couple of weeks old, rather than the most recent.

That sounds very unusual. I've been able to view after a few seconds when it's just 1%. Also I thought no live streaming on iPlayer was a bad idea but this way works better for it and the other players. No buffering and plays all the way through.

That's something I've experienced shortly after Anytime+ launched, but not recently.

I downloaded the Top Gear special from earlier this week yesterday and could watch it from 2%. Very good service already!

Similar to me. My actual BB speed is around 2.6mb. A half hour HD programme on Sky's catch-up is around 1gb, that's equivalent to 5.5mb internet speed. So to make sure I don't catch up, there needs to be a substantial percentage on the HDD before playing is enabled.

Anyone with a speed of say 6mb or more, should get it pretty quickly.

An SD programme is around 450mb for 30 minutes, equivalent to a BB speed of 2.5mb this is much nearer my actual speed and it will be available at about 20% or four or five minutes.