Sky to launch Sky Q without dish by Xmas based on Xfinity X1 box

[tarbat]

The transcript of the investors call is now available, and does confirm that XiOne is destined for the UK.

Brian L. Roberts - Comcast Corporation - Chairman & CEO

So let's start with the device. So we have a gigabit gateway in your house. Today, we're actually announcing XiOne, which is a global box. So it works in Italy and works in the U.S., works in the U.K.

We're going to have the same -- we may have slightly different form factors for the markets, but it will work on a television or it will just be a streaming-only device for WiFi. And that's part of this design it once, deploy it everywhere. It's the first box we've done that for in the world.

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[Plektrum]

Some more apparent leaks...

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2021/09/skys-broadband-ip-tv-service-to-launch-as-part-of-buil...

Sources have now informed ISPreview.co.uk that the product being launched is to be called Sky Glass, which appears to be a sophisticated QLED Smart TV (leaked pictured above) – available in sizes including 43″, 55″ and 65″ – that will come with an integrated Dolby Atmossoundbar and the new SoIP service (as well as the usual 4K and HDR video support).

As we understand it, customers can have a maximum of 3 Sky Glass systems and 6 Pucks in one home, all with the capability to run concurrently and with 4K and HDR support. 

[Joe-Bow]

This looks neat however it's not really a product I'm interest in due to my investment I have already in AV kit and Sky.  What I'd like to see is continuted investment in things such as the Apple TV Q app in the UK, extended out to the Fire TV devices, plus Sky Go in the Amazon Echo Show devices.

New and shiny is great, but not at the detriment of your existing user base who have no need to upgrade to this, however know the limitations of the existing service and how it could be extended/improved in current how setups.

[bemak187]

There is no way this will be their mass market plan.  This will be more of a public beta in all but name as very few people are going to pay for a new TV to get Sky.  Either the final product will be these pucks that are mentioned or it will be an app based on the interface.  Wonder if the TVs have a hard drive built in or if its cloud recording.

[Joe-Bow]

@bemak187 I seem to recall it was cloud recording mentioned, but can't remember where I saw that.

[bemak187]

I was thinking it might be a rights thing and they had to still have a hard drive built in at the moment until thats resolved.  But why a full TV, why not a box.  If it is cloud then it is a very strange approach rather than just a small box.  Sky breaking into the TV market would have zero chance of working and Sky making people buy a TV from them would be commercially a very poor choice.  Which makes me think its almost going to be treated like a beta.

[Joe-Bow]

Cloud based storage makes a lot of sense.  

One copy of a programme stored in the cloud and just pointers to the recording held locally,  or even in the cloud, used to tell the box where to go in the cloud to find the recording, and distributed cloud storage like Amazon or Google, or maybe even Sky themselves, hosting the storage for the programmes, or even pointers off the third party storage for programmes from the BBC or ITV, for example.  

Saves on Sky box hardware costs and replacement boxes for failed hardware, and if the user profiles are held in the cloud too recordings and series links could be restored easily in the event of a hardware failure.  

I can see a lot of potential here even to be adopted into Q, but this tied in TV you need to run the pucks is a big no-no for me.

[bemak187]

I think Sky have already launched an IP service in Germany and Italy.  I dont think these can record or do UHD.  This leaked service from Sky UK seems to be something different.

[LGUser]

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@Joe-Bow wrote:

Cloud based storage makes a lot of sense.  

One copy of a programme stored in the cloud and just pointers to the recording held locally,  or even in the cloud, used to tell the box where to go in the cloud to find the recording, and distributed cloud storage like Amazon or Google, or maybe even Sky themselves, hosting the storage for the programmes, or even pointers off the third party storage for programmes from the BBC or ITV, for example.  

Saves on Sky box hardware costs and replacement boxes for failed hardware, and if the user profiles are held in the cloud too recordings and series links could be restored easily in the event of a hardware failure.  

I can see a lot of potential here even to be adopted into Q, but this tied in TV you need to run the pucks is a big no-no for me.

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There is a major issue with cloud based storage. As it is now, programs on Catch-Up eventually expire. Programs that get downloaded may or may not expire on the same time or at all.. So some programs can be downloaded near the expiry date and you would still have time to watch. In the cloud, when a program is set to expire, it will expire. So when you fnd a program you want to watch and you won't have time to watch before it expires, it will expire. No chance of getting more time.

Now if you could install an external hard drive to be able to download, that would be good because another problem is that if your Internet connection is down, you'll have nothing to watch.

[Joe-Bow]

@LGUser I get that however that usually comes down to the rights holders as is the same as now. 

There would certainly be work needed and discussion to be done around retention and how that works, however this will be the way to go for the industry, just look at Netflix and Prime adding and removing series at will and BBC on iPlayer to a certain extent.

Let's not forget that the Sky box will start deleting older recordings anyway if there is nothing in the deleted bucket to remove first so the potential for them to be deleted is already there unless the Keep option is used (and I can't even remember if it's on Q now as I never use it), 

The cheaper and less components Sky can put in a box, the less to go wrong and support, and that's a massive financial win for them.

On the plus side it should make watching your recordings available anywhere (where rights holders allow it) possible as all should be stored in the cloud, but this shift won't be ideal for many.

RIghtly or wrongly Sky are seemingly moving towards the habits orfthe streaming generation and the way they consume content, so it could be that long stored content is no longer in the roadmap going forward.

[Plektrum]

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@LGUser wrote:

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@Joe-Bow wrote:

Cloud based storage makes a lot of sense.  

One copy of a programme stored in the cloud and just pointers to the recording held locally,  or even in the cloud, used to tell the box where to go in the cloud to find the recording, and distributed cloud storage like Amazon or Google, or maybe even Sky themselves, hosting the storage for the programmes, or even pointers off the third party storage for programmes from the BBC or ITV, for example.  

Saves on Sky box hardware costs and replacement boxes for failed hardware, and if the user profiles are held in the cloud too recordings and series links could be restored easily in the event of a hardware failure.  

I can see a lot of potential here even to be adopted into Q, but this tied in TV you need to run the pucks is a big no-no for me.

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There is a major issue with cloud based storage. As it is now, programs on Catch-Up eventually expire. Programs that get downloaded may or may not expire on the same time or at all.. So some programs can be downloaded near the expiry date and you would still have time to watch. In the cloud, when a program is set to expire, it will expire. So when you fnd a program you want to watch and you won't have time to watch before it expires, it will expire. No chance of getting more time.

Now if you could install an external hard drive to be able to download, that would be good because another problem is that if your Internet connection is down, you'll have nothing to watch.

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That is a reality for all internet video - you'd have the same issues with Netflix or Amazon if your broadband is down - if anything I suspect the customers who take an IP based service will be entirely aware of that risk much as if they were subscribed to a streaming service..

And I guess expiry dates for catch up is again no different to shows on ITV Hub or All4... when it expires, it expires much as some programming automatically expires from the Sky planner but given that more and more shows on Sky's pay channels are now more likely to move from catch up to SVOD/box sets immediately (or have longer catch up windows like on IPlayer) those expiry dates should become less of an issue over time. 

[Joe-Bow]

@Plektrum I agree and just said almost exactly the same thing just above too. 👍

[Plektrum]

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@Joe-Bow wrote:

@Plektrum I agree and just said almost exactly the same thing just above too. 👍

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Yep and something to bear in mind is that Sky have in the last year alone agreed new deals with the BBC, ITV and Channel 4... so you would easily imagine cloud recording would be a component of those deals as you quite frankly cannot imagine an IP based service without the PSBs on board... and this is me speculating but I would not be surprised that those agreements may have been a reason for the time it's taken to get to this point. 

[Joe-Bow]

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@Plektrum wrote:

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@Joe-Bow wrote:

@Plektrum I agree and just said almost exactly the same thing just above too. 👍

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Yep and something to bear in mind is that Sky have in the last year alone agreed new deals with the BBC, ITV and Channel 4... so you would easily imagine cloud recording would be a component of those deals as you quite frankly cannot imagine an IP based service without the PSBs on board... and this is me speculating but I would not be surprised that those agreements may have been a reason for the time it's taken to get to this point. 

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@Plektrum Absolutely.  The individual cost for storage for these environments will be expensive, so it's far better to join forces and split the storage costs and share an infrastructure between them.  Something like this would make it so much better for Sky to create cloud based, multi provider planners, with the added potential of additional revenue streams by then integrating Sky into systems like FireTv who have also started to get interested in content aggregation like this and providing upsell opportunities for Sky.

[LGUser]

One change Sky would have to make to prevent a big fail is to have the expiry dates show like Sky does with Sky+HD. We would need to know more then a month ahead how long we'd have to watch something.

When I was binging Grey's Anatomy, I have a lotof seasons to get through. If it wasn't that it didn't get deleted when the show expired from On Demand/Box Sets I would not have been able to watch all of it.