Sky/Comcast Single UI Incoming.

[Plektrum]

The distinctions between Sky and Comcast have lessened over the last few years so moving to a single UI/platform was inevitable especially if there is ambition to scale it globally outside of their traditional footprints - that was fairly clear when they formally launched the 'XIOne' box

On top of that Q integrated X1's voice platform while Peacock was built off the back of Now TV - also the Apple TV app was the first app apparently "built using a common set of development tools and resources through Comcast’s global technology platform, enabling content providers to design, develop and rapidly deploy apps that can reach 50+ million devices including Xfinity X1, Xfinity Flex, XClass TV, Sky Q, Sky Glass"

I am more inclined to think that it's the Glass/Stream UI that's going to be the one that scaled globally given it's the first product thats seemingly built from the ground up on the 'Global Tech Platform' and the one thats got the nice new fancy 'Entertainment OS' name.

Also not forgetting that Foxtel and Multichoice are launching Glass in their territories and Comcast & Charter have their Xumo JV in the USA - which I suspect will have a more distinctive look/feel to X1 - so (and happy to be wrong here as well) it reads to me that you're going to see the Comcast products resemble Glass/Stream on the surface more than X1.

[tarbat]

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I am more inclined to think that it's the Glass/Stream UI that's going to be the one that scaled globally given it's the first product thats seemingly built from the ground up on the 'Global Tech Platform' and the one thats got the nice new fancy 'Entertainment OS' name.

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Although it's significant that on the earnings call Comcast said that every entertainment customer around the world will get the same Emmy Award-winning experience.  Sky Glass/Stream has never won an Emmy Award, whereas X1 has. albeit quite a while ago!

[TimmyBGood]

@tarbat 

And the Emmy Award for creation of bogus Emmy award categories goes to the Emmy Awards...

[Anonymous]

Would it be bogus if Sky won 🏆 🤔

[Jporch316]

Let's face it despite the current shortcomings the sky UI is fresher , shinier and more

modern that the Comcast equivalent. Once they ve finished testing it on us they will roll it out to the rest of the world and the emmys will inevitably follow 

[TimmyBGood]

@Jporch316 

And it's largely functionality/reliability (or lack of it) which generates complaints, not the UI.  Changing UI is too often a distraction, whether intentional or not.

[CardiffMan1992]

@TimmyBGood 

Very true Crunchyroll is a good example of this on Apple TV there UI is very out of date but it works really well with fastforwarding playing etc.

[Plektrum]

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@tarbat wrote:

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I am more inclined to think that it's the Glass/Stream UI that's going to be the one that scaled globally given it's the first product thats seemingly built from the ground up on the 'Global Tech Platform' and the one thats got the nice new fancy 'Entertainment OS' name.

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Although it's significant that on the earnings call Comcast said that every entertainment customer around the world will get the same Emmy Award-winning experience.  Sky Glass/Stream has never won an Emmy Award, whereas X1 has. albeit quite a while ago!

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I don't know how much I would hang on the fact that Sky Glass doesnt have an Emmy though it's probably worth noting that Comcast subsequently won a further Emmy for their voice remote technology is already deployed across all of Comcast's products including Sky's... to be honest it seems like  'Entertainment OS' is pretty much the unholy child of X1 anyway ... in fact it's been said as much in this article about the XClass TV which also pretty much confirms Sky Glass is part of the X1 family so said Emmy award winner is pretty much here in a different set of clothes anyway! 

I think more relevant are the comments when Stream launched last year...

Fraser Stirling, the global chief product officer for Sky and Comcast, explained that the platform behind the new Sky Stream service and Sky Glass - called Entertainment OS - will be used on streaming devices heading over the Atlantic too: "Next year in the States, we'll see all the great stuff we're doing here on Sky Glass combined with the amazing platform that we have," he said. "We're using the same technology, whether it's a set of devices, embedded software, cloud services and an entire UI / UX, that we'll ship globally. We'll see that bleed into the US as well.

Personally I think that's probably a better indicator that we're going to likely see the same feature set, app tools and back-end deployed across all of Comcast's STB/TVs... I don't doubt there is going to be some surface level personalisation depending on provider (I'm sure Foxtel have their own ideas about colours and branding) but I suspect ultimately the devices will all pretty much do the same thing in terms of functions.

[Chrisee]

My take is very similar to @Plektrum 's that this annoucement by Brian Roberts is simply the next stage of what was announced at launch.

The underlying technology of the  Entertainment OS is solidly from Comcast - use of RDK etc - and the system streams from a single global platform operated by Comcast. The harware in the Stream Puck and the Xione appear to be identical etc etc

There will have to be localisation of the interface for each market to meet regulatory and language variations but these skins should not alter what is running underneath.