Sky TV Launches On Xbox 360 Comments

Nevermind Sky, i think it would be far more useful if BBC, ITV and Channel4's content could be served up via Media Centre or the 360, but then i guess there is no money to be made by that deal.

It's not following the launch of the service on WIndows 7... that isn't available yet. Still says "coming soon".

these two options means I can finally watch sky - haven't in the past due to the satellite dish devaluing the house as it is quite old.

So I can't just get xbox live gold sub & then pay-per-view for on-demand sky stuff? (i.e. I *have* also to pay a minimum £180 per year subs to sky). I thought sky were touting the pay-per-view model was the way forward? Obviously not. Bah - I was looking forward to this as well.

Rubbish - I'll stick with Freeview/Freesat/iPlayer/4oD/Tversity etc etc

Hmm.. I'm usually a bright guy but I struggled to follow that pricing matrix.

Help me out here-
-I'm a sky customer with a full subscription to every channel.
-I'm also an Xbox360 user but with no Gold membership (I spend loads of cash on on-demand HD movies and Arcarde titles so presumable Bronze or Silver).

Can I watch SKY through my Xbox? Or do I have to shell out more cash?

It would be great if I can, as I already own VirginMediaHD+ for those (all to frequent) days when the Sky box or dish just don't want to work. So this would give me options.

Thanks...

I have Sky Player, not via X box, but via a desktop app. The live content is not entirely live but delayed by 2 minutes which frustrates the hell out of me and currently I'm battling with Sky to have it rectified. Sky's rationale for the two minute delay is because the "way sky encode the picture and send it via the server and deliver it via the Kontiki software". All very well but technically it is not live.

So expect to celebrate that important goal two minutes later from Sky satellite subscribers!

so complicated microsoft have removed the sky player tab from the dashboard at the moment until they can actually get it to work.

Its already saved Sky one customer. I was planning on leaving Sky BB in the new year after their claims of improving my BB in Sept resulted in a minimal speed increase and daily dropouts. Looks like I will just keep on moaning at them in vain, dam them.

@ snoop_7

A 2 minute delay really isn't that bad, honest! If you've ever tried to watch live sport via Sopcast or tvants etc then a 2 minute delay would seem like nirvana. On those applications you have to allow for buffering time if you want anything close to acceptable video quality.

I actually set my buffer to 15 minutes manually, and there are still occasional breaks in the stream.

How does the video quality on the Sky player compare to the BBCs iPlayer live coverage of Formula 1? I've been impressed with that, and that's actually not significantly delayed, now I think about it. Hmm.

@Andrew: Sky Player's been available via Desktop PCs for a while (although probably not the ideal set up for some people I admit).

@Dan: Yes, from what I gather, you'll need an Xbox Live Gold Membership subscription too.

@snoop_7: I think I'd be OK with two minutes...

Meanwhile, I don't have an X360, but am waiting patiently for the BBC to sort out their Wii iPlayer channel... taking forever (note: it used to work through the internet channel before, but the latest update broke it and there's an 'in construction' page).

they've now re-added the sky player tab to the dashboard, with a message underneath saying 'coming later today', when you click on it you get a little sky sports news advert...why can't they actually sort these things out before they release them?

@Simon: BBC, ITV, in fact almost all on demand services can be had on Windows Media Center using an add-on called TunerFreeMCE (sadly iPlayer and any flash based services won't work on extenders due to no flash streaming support on extenders)

I'm also dissapointed at there being no PPV pricing/availability mentioned as I was really looking forward to that. We left Sky when we switched to Windows Media Center & Freeview and have no desire to get back into a monthly fee (even if it is only on a per month basis). Sky have only a few shows I want that aren't all on at the same time so a PPV model is far more cost effective.

@ Tim Sutton

My internet connection is 7mb so I rarely have buffering problems. I understand where you're coming from as compared to illegitimate players such as Sopcast the quality is great but still when you're paying £34 pm for a sports package you expect no delays. I've had it for nearly a year so slowly accepting it. However, I am sure Sky can resolve this if enough people nag away at them.

The BBC iPlayer also carries live stream and the delay I've noticed with their website and the actual channel is 3 seconds or thereabouts so technically it is possible to resolve.