Re: The future of television
 

So Sky Glass is just a TV with an integrated satellite tuner? They could have done this decades ago … :confused:

Re: The future of television
 

It's not even - it's linear channels (I know, how quaint!) and streaming over IPTV. No dish.

Needs 10 meg broadband (or 25 for 4K).

Re: The future of television
 

The more I think about it, Sky have played an absolute blinder with Sky Glass. The product itself may/may not be a pup in the long run, but the important thing for Sky is it allows them insights into customer experiences that other services don’t have in the IPTV/streaming market without cannibalising their own Sky Q customer base in the meantime.

The obvious next step is a STB based on IPTV - but that has to be proven reliable in the long run in use by millions of subscribers simultaneously. I suspect we aren’t there yet, but the Glass product will give them insights into the challenges in the meantime.

Re: The future of television
 

How is it different to Amazon Prime, or Netflix, or other streaming services, which seem pretty reliable ?

Re: The future of television
 

It’s not to say they’re unreliable, but as Sky are punting £90 a month subscriptions and not £9 a month reducing the PQ to reduce bandwidth for customers used to HD and 4K via satellite because an ISP somewhere starts throttling in peak times isn’t an optimal outcome.

During lockdown 1 Netflix and others reduced bandwidth because of the amount of traffic on the internet. I think it works well because not everyone is trying to use it at once - others are watching broadcast channels on cable, satellite and terrestrial or recordings.

Re: The future of television
 

You are in denial, jfman. Conventional linear TV and streamers are working side by side during this beginning of the transition to streaming only.

It’s obvious to most, but it won’t be proved until it happens. And that’s still over a decade away.

Re: The future of television
 

Is there any actual evidence of this?

You still erroneously seem to portray two sides - linear TV and streamers - as if it’s two entirely separate markets. The vast majority of television in this country, by viewership or revenue, is consumed by viewers who utilise both from companies who operate both.

Until you demonstrate clear cost savings - which you have not to date - the idea that companies will turn off sources of revenue are fanciful.

Re: The future of television
 

No, it’s not! Sky Glass has already demonstrated, surely, that the age of multiple pay-tv channels is disappearing. There are only 140 channels on Sky Glass.

If you can find all your programming when you want to see it on the apps, why endure a waiting time and advertisements on the live TV channels? The key, as I keep saying, is to integrate the content from the apps so there is one central index, appropriately categorised, from which shows can be selected. Content can also be showcased in snippets if preferred.

Inevitably, as the benefits of on demand viewing start to get appreciated even by the stick-in-the-muds, there will be too few viewers left to be bothered with scheduling everything to a live platform. When the numbers get low enough, the advertising won’t be sufficient to sustain it and it simply won’t be worth the effort any more.

I am well aware of how things work now, jfman, but now is not the future.

Re: The future of television
 

And unless your name is Nostradamus or Cassandra, you cannot tell the future, but you act as if you can...

Re: The future of television
 

Well no, it’s a rights issue Sky don’t have the automatic right to retransmit all the free to air channels on Astra 2.

The same reasons anyone has since Sky+/TiVo launched I presume.

Yet here Sky have developed a TV that gives you what you want AND it has linear channels. And you are completely underwhelmed.

Yet you’ve never fully quantified this tiny figure, and whether it falls below those who can’t get/don’t want a suitable and necessary broadband package.

Indeed, but streaming doesn’t provide the smoking gun step change in consumption of content that would be required for your vision. If it’s about skipping ads that’s been here for almost two decades. If it’s content on demand the cable operators have been doing that since the early days of digital. Yet still, people tend to watch BBC1 live.

Re: The future of television
 

I can tell the future, but I don’t want to scare you.

Re: The future of television
 

I knew you were going to say that…

"The future has not been written. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

Re: The future of television
 

Very expensive if you need 4 of them (1 Living room, 3 Bedrooms).


Still cheaper to have a STB in most circumstances

Re: The future of television
 

Or you can just use common sense.

Re: The future of television
 

The challenge with "common sense" is that it often isn’t "common" or "sense", just someone using the phrase to give validation to their viewpoint.

Mark Twain famously once said,