OMG Sky+ has to be the best thing ever invented!
Yesterday at 8am (yes it was a Sunday!) I had a Sky installer on my doorstep ready to upgrade my standard Sky equipment to the wonders of Sky+. It’s something that I have wanted for ages but have refused to pay Sky £10 a month just for the privilege of PVR functionality (like they don’t have enough money already!). Thankfully in July Sky dropped their Sky+ subscription fee to free! yeah…
For those of you who don’t know Sky+ is a hard-disk based recording system designed to record Sky Satellite channels. The great thing is that you can record two, yes that’s two programmes at the same time even while watching a third show that you have recorded earlier! whooo…
But the thing that really makes me go WOW is pausing live TV… and then rewinding it… At any stage during a programme, should the phone ring you can just hit the pause button and live TV will just freeze.. come back when you are ready and hit play and the show will continue…. If you didn’t have time to hit pause all you have to do is press the rewind button and you can watch what you missed… OMFG! (pretty much summed up my first time with Sky+)
I haven’t had a VCR for about 5 years - it was just too much faffing around for my liking to set the video recorder and make sure that Sky was on the right channel. This meant that if I was out then I’d miss regular programmes I liked. This happened far to many times in shows like Lost & Heroes, and I’d find that once I missed one episode I’d start to miss more and more.. Now with Sky+ and Series Link I shouldn’t miss a single one.
Of course there may be shows that I haven’t seen advertised as being on TV that I discover when I’m out and about and wish I was able to watch them - now I can with the wonders of Sky Remote Record. Just when you think that Sky+ really can’t get any better they give you a mobile application to remotely programme your Sky+ box!
This is the amazing Remote Record application running on my Nokia N95. Use it as you would use your normal Sky TV Guide to find the show that you want, then hit the Record button. Doing so will send a message to your Sky+ recorder to record the particular show. It’s just so, so simple! Sky have also added a great search facility to the mobile app, so if you don’t know what channel a particular show is on, just hit * and the Programme Search screen is displayed:
I have to say that I was absolutely blown away by the simplicity of Sky+ and Remote Record for Mobile. I just love it when mobile technology and devices like Sky+ can interact with each other to bring you first class services like this.
Amazing, just amazing!
5 Comments, Comment or Ping
James
Hang on. Let me get this straight. I can upgrade to Sky for just the cost of the box, no upgrade needed for the sub?
Sep 10th, 2007
James
Sorry, I got ahead of myself there for a moment . . . I thought you meant Sky HD! Oh well, it’s still a good deal for Sky .
Sep 10th, 2007
Neil
I looked into SKY HD but for the cost of the HD box (£200-300) AND a monthly subscription (£10) just to watch only a handful of channels in HD, I really couldn’t justify it. I’ll wait a few more years before I jump on that bandwagon..
Sep 11th, 2007
James
I recently watch a couple of film in HD on the Xbox 360, it was glorious! However, like you I’m not really prepared to pay £120 per year to watch a handful of channels.
Sep 11th, 2007
johnny-p-
i have to disagree with you on that james! what alot of peopel don’t seem torealise is that SKY are not trying to rip people off with a £10 PM subs chatge it’s that, 1) it costs a fortune to broadcast an upgraded channel and 2) it’s not that thwy want to intentionally charge it, it’s that most of the other cahnnels in HD that are not owned by sky charge them a fortune so that’s why they charge it. but to be fair if you have got a HD ready TV no matter how good it is 1080p or not my friend there is no picture quality improvement until there is a HD receiver ( SKY HD BOX) in place!
Mar 21st, 2008
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