There’s a Sky event taking place on October 7th and there’s plenty of speculation that the British broadcaster is about to launch its own 4K TV.
ISPreview have come across leaks pertaining to Sky’s ‘magical’ event this week, and it would appear that following on from the Financial Times article in September, that Sky is indeed about to launch its own 4K TV.
It’s thought to be called Sky Glass and use QLED display technology, with support for 4K and HDR, as well as feature an integrated built-in Dolby Atmos soundbar.
It’s not entirely a radical proposition, given Roku has launched TVs with Hisense and TCL in the UK, but then again, Sky has massive infrastructure behind it.
There’s still a number of questions, mainly about price, but it seems as if they’ll be three sizes (43-, 55- and 65-inch), with the smallest size rumoured to cost £650.
The significance of this product is that it potentially does away with needing a satellite dish altogether. A dish is currently the only way to get Sky in the UK, and funnelling Sky’s content over IP (or as it’s supposedly been labelled SoIP – Sky over Internet Protocol) would open Sky up to more customers, using the same technology that features in the XiOne streaming box made by Comcast, who own Sky.
The Sky Glass TV is also thought to come with a device called a ‘Puck’, which is not thought to be a controller but a TV streaming device that adopts the same user interface as the Sky Glass TV. A household could have up to a maximum of three Glass systems and six pucks that could all run concurrently 4K and HDR content.
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The scope of this would suggest an entirely new system that’s a part of Sky’s TV offering, integrating its broadband and TV service into one. We had a ponder about how a Sky TV would work and there are still some details that require clarification such as subscriptions and who the target market is: existing subscribers looking to upgrade or new customers who can’t a dish in their area?
Still, the rumoured appearance of a Sky TV is an interesting one, and alongside speculation that Sky is also testing a box that works over internet rather than dish, it looks like the British broadcaster is investing in a future that’s heavy on internet streaming.
We’ll find out on October 7th just what Sky has in store for its customers.
A sign of where TV is going?
Sky have often been the first to think outside the box, and this would be an unexpected change in approach in a market where the fight has always been to be the box beneath your TV, not the TV itself.
But there are still hurdles to jump over, including price, subscriptions and what kind of appeal this TV will have. It’s likely a Sky TV will lock you into the experience Sky wants you to have and given the competitive nature of the UK TV market, how courageous will Sky be? We’ll find out soon enough.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
