or the point, not entirely sure which.
To what do I refer? Well the Sky Player of course, an online live streaming and on-demand service that Sky have recently had introduced to the Xbox 360 and will be bringing to the Windows Media Centre later in the year.
To me it sounded like a great opportunity for Sky to provide an alternative to less than legal means of watching premium TV shows, sporting events and movies, unfortunately the way in which Sky want to deliver the service and the pricing involved is unlikely to convert many illegal viewers.
Sky are treating subscription to their online services pretty much exactly like they treat their TV subscriptions, you buy "packs". The minimum pack is £15, the "Entertainment Pack" which contains precisely zero channels I'd find all that entertaining, and curiously doesn't include Sky's flagship channel Sky1, that'd be the one with all the decent programmes on it. To your £15 "Entertainment Pack" you can add Sports (£34) Movies (£32) or both (£42). For some bizarre reason you MUST have the "Entertainment Pack", you cannot just have the Sports and/or Movies Packs. Ok, it's not that bizarre, it's about money, the idea is to artificially inflate the perceived value of the product by packing the good stuff with shit and charging more for it. It's the classic paid-TV butt-fuck "Way-hey, *insert insane number* channels for £30 a month!" But you'll probably only watch a handful of the channels you're actually paying for, so the actual value is poor although may be perceived initially as good because of the sheer number of channels at your disposal.
To cut through the bullshit it's an outdated concept. When it comes to streaming media what is needed is a free choice of programmes to watch exactly when we want to watch them. Live TV streaming is only relevant if the actual programming is live - Sporting events, concerts, live news broadcasts etc. If the pirate community has anything to teach Industry then it's that on-demand is key. Yeah, Sky is providing On-demand streaming for "selected" programs from your subscribed channel packs but it's an aside rather than the focus when it should be the focus.
What I want, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is on-demand access to a massive library of programmes and movies with the option of watching live events if I so desire and crucially only to pay for what I actually watch and what I actually want to watch. When I first heard the Sky player was coming to Xbox and Windows what I hoped was a) That I'd be able to choose a specific set of channels to subscribe to rather than a pre-defined "pack" full of crap with on-demand access to certain programs or b) I would have on-demand access to anything (be it TV shows, sports, live events or movies) - but only a set limited number of hours of streaming in a given month.
I would quite happily pay Sky £15 a month for 40 hours of streaming under the terms of b) (with the option to purchase more hours if required) but Sky wants to give me 24 hour a day streaming to stuff I don't actually want to watch. Where's the fucking sense in that?
Sky missed the boat on this one, or did they? The truth is there is no one else offering this kind of service in the UK, there's little competition in the streaming domain right now which means they can pretty much do what they like right now. Now all we as consumers can do is hope another service comes along which offers what we want. There were rumours not so long ago that Hulu would begin operating in the UK, if they were to begin offering on-demand streaming of popular shows that tend to get pirated it may kick start a bit of competition between providers to offer the consumer real choice and good value.
freedoms_stain, skyless, out.
To what do I refer? Well the Sky Player of course, an online live streaming and on-demand service that Sky have recently had introduced to the Xbox 360 and will be bringing to the Windows Media Centre later in the year.
To me it sounded like a great opportunity for Sky to provide an alternative to less than legal means of watching premium TV shows, sporting events and movies, unfortunately the way in which Sky want to deliver the service and the pricing involved is unlikely to convert many illegal viewers.
Sky are treating subscription to their online services pretty much exactly like they treat their TV subscriptions, you buy "packs". The minimum pack is £15, the "Entertainment Pack" which contains precisely zero channels I'd find all that entertaining, and curiously doesn't include Sky's flagship channel Sky1, that'd be the one with all the decent programmes on it. To your £15 "Entertainment Pack" you can add Sports (£34) Movies (£32) or both (£42). For some bizarre reason you MUST have the "Entertainment Pack", you cannot just have the Sports and/or Movies Packs. Ok, it's not that bizarre, it's about money, the idea is to artificially inflate the perceived value of the product by packing the good stuff with shit and charging more for it. It's the classic paid-TV butt-fuck "Way-hey, *insert insane number* channels for £30 a month!" But you'll probably only watch a handful of the channels you're actually paying for, so the actual value is poor although may be perceived initially as good because of the sheer number of channels at your disposal.
To cut through the bullshit it's an outdated concept. When it comes to streaming media what is needed is a free choice of programmes to watch exactly when we want to watch them. Live TV streaming is only relevant if the actual programming is live - Sporting events, concerts, live news broadcasts etc. If the pirate community has anything to teach Industry then it's that on-demand is key. Yeah, Sky is providing On-demand streaming for "selected" programs from your subscribed channel packs but it's an aside rather than the focus when it should be the focus.
What I want, and I'm sure I'm not alone, is on-demand access to a massive library of programmes and movies with the option of watching live events if I so desire and crucially only to pay for what I actually watch and what I actually want to watch. When I first heard the Sky player was coming to Xbox and Windows what I hoped was a) That I'd be able to choose a specific set of channels to subscribe to rather than a pre-defined "pack" full of crap with on-demand access to certain programs or b) I would have on-demand access to anything (be it TV shows, sports, live events or movies) - but only a set limited number of hours of streaming in a given month.
I would quite happily pay Sky £15 a month for 40 hours of streaming under the terms of b) (with the option to purchase more hours if required) but Sky wants to give me 24 hour a day streaming to stuff I don't actually want to watch. Where's the fucking sense in that?
Sky missed the boat on this one, or did they? The truth is there is no one else offering this kind of service in the UK, there's little competition in the streaming domain right now which means they can pretty much do what they like right now. Now all we as consumers can do is hope another service comes along which offers what we want. There were rumours not so long ago that Hulu would begin operating in the UK, if they were to begin offering on-demand streaming of popular shows that tend to get pirated it may kick start a bit of competition between providers to offer the consumer real choice and good value.
freedoms_stain, skyless, out.
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