Christopher Woods wrote:
Here's a thought... On Sky, and on cable too (right?) there's no channels at each hundred's -00 (100, 200, 300 etc). Why not do some interactive service which shows realtime mosaics, just like like CanalSatellite and Astra do in Europe? That'd be smashing. I've emailed Sky about that in the past and like hell did they take any notice :D but I think that'd be a genuinely useful feature, far simple than flicking through an EPG - just skimread the screen to see if you recognise anything on, or if you see something you might find interesting? arrow button across to it and there we go. The buttons are already there on the Sky remotes (and most if not all Freeview remotes, too).
There's some tricky architectural and copyright issues associated with that idea - it's a bit trickier than having the buttons available on the remotes. Sky don't necessarily have access to the channels that form part of their platform other than by pointing a dish at the satellite constellation and decoding them like a consumer, which wouldn't necessarily be reliable enough for broadcast critical use. There might well be issues related to rights-clearing the service for rebroadcasting each channel in miniature, too, especially if it gave people access to picture from channels they weren't subscribed to. And then there's the requirement for satellite space to carry the service, which wouldn't necessarily be suitable for conventional advertising.
Anyway, back to my original thought - does anybody think that Sky will EVER offer the + functionality for free or a one-off payment? It'd kill me to finally get Sky in my own place and not have Sky+, especially as I had to put up with my Dad's resistance against getting Sky+ in our house when I was younger (he still doesn't have it, says installation and box makes it too expensive). Grr.
No idea on this one, but I'm sure there are lots of people in the same situation as you. You might want to consider a subscription-free Freesat PVR, when they launch.
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