Sky XBox 360 player - brilliant!

[HereBeMonsters]

I've been living in the same flat for over 5 years now, and twice I have tried to get a dish installed, and twice been told it could not be done (despite everyone on the other side of the building having one..). I got a new fking massive TV yesterday, and also an email from Microsoft telling me I can now watch Sky through my Xbox.
Didn't think it would actually work, but it's really good. I've signed up for the Entertainment Package and Sky Sports 1 for £16/month (adding Sky Sports 2 would cost another £15!). You get a Programme Guide that looks like the real thing, changing channels takes about 10 seconds while it buffers, but other than that, it looks really good.

I am on an "unlimited" broadband plan with Demon, so assume I will be hitting their 100GB fair usage limit at some point, but now I can watch the cricket, got some good documentary channels, and Cartoon Network too!

What with this on the Xbox, iPlayer on Wii and PS3, and the new telly hooked up to my PC, I think I'm pretty much set. All I need now is HD to be broadcast on a non-Satellite feed and I'll be happy.

[HereBeMonsters]

IL_JDM said:

HereBeMonsters said:

I've been living in the same flat for over 5 years now, and twice I have tried to get a dish installed, and twice been told it could not be done (despite everyone on the other side of the building having one..). I got a new fking massive TV yesterday, and also an email from Microsoft telling me I can now watch Sky through my Xbox.
Didn't think it would actually work, but it's really good. I've signed up for the Entertainment Package and Sky Sports 1 for £16/month (adding Sky Sports 2 would cost another £15!). You get a Programme Guide that looks like the real thing, changing channels takes about 10 seconds while it buffers, but other than that, it looks really good.

I am on an "unlimited" broadband plan with Demon, so assume I will be hitting their 100GB fair usage limit at some point, but now I can watch the cricket, got some good documentary channels, and Cartoon Network too!

What with this on the Xbox, iPlayer on Wii and PS3, and the new telly hooked up to my PC, I think I'm pretty much set. All I need now is HD to be broadcast on a non-Satellite feed and I'll be happy.

Been sitting on the fence with this one to be honest, will look at more feedback and then maybe take up the option.

What's the contract you've signed, 12 months? I assume it goes with the xBox and not the address (due to being over internet)? Streaming quality good?

Quality is great. I'm not sure if it's tied to one Xbox, I assume so or I could just give my details to friends to use.
No contract, done on a month by month basis. Signed up for 3 months initially though so I get the 3 months for the price of 2 offer from Microsoft.

[HereBeMonsters]

Here is the link from MS with the offer: http://www.xbox.com/en-gb/skyplayer

Code is: XBOX3FOR2

You have to be an Xbox Gold member I believe. (Hehe-snigger. Goldmember. *Guffaw*)

[HereBeMonsters]

Hmmm... the choice of "Entertainment" channels appears to be somewhat limited. No Sky 1 etc.

[fivesixseven8]

HereBeMonsters said:

What with this on the Xbox, iPlayer on Wii and PS3, and the new telly hooked up to my PC, I think I'm pretty much set. All I need now is HD to be broadcast on a non-Satellite feed and I'll be happy.

HD over freeview will be coming in the new year. Will require new hardware though.

Glad to see the iPlayer on Wii is appreciated as I had some involvement with that. Try it on the PS3 though, the playback quality is much higher (1500kbps vs 700kbps)

[gjc10212]

What's the best deal on Gold membership at the moment?

[HereBeMonsters]

fivesixseven8 said:

Glad to see the iPlayer on Wii is appreciated as I had some involvement with that. Try it on the PS3 though, the playback quality is much higher (1500kbps vs 700kbps)

Quality is better, but it crashes far more frequently. In fact I have never been able to watch more than one programme on it, after it finishes it just locks up and won't respond. I can navigate the PS3 menus, but the iPlayer app is just hung.
No such problems on Wii - only seems to crash if it loses wi-fi signal (which it does as I have a dodgy router).

[fivesixseven8]

HereBeMonsters said:

fivesixseven8 said:

Glad to see the iPlayer on Wii is appreciated as I had some involvement with that. Try it on the PS3 though, the playback quality is much higher (1500kbps vs 700kbps)

Quality is better, but it crashes far more frequently. In fact I have never been able to watch more than one programme on it, after it finishes it just locks up and won't respond. I can navigate the PS3 menus, but the iPlayer app is just hung.
No such problems on Wii - only seems to crash if it loses wi-fi signal (which it does as I have a dodgy router).

You're seeing the PS3 version crash? Surprised to hear that tbh. Can you go into a bit more detail?

[cs02rm0]

Sky player on XBox seemed like good quality - my internet connection isn't always at it's flat out 2Mb ("up to 8Mb") max speed though so I don't fancy paying a subscription just yet. If they'd offered the England autumn internationals via on demand I'd have quite happily paid a good chunk to watch them though. Suspect I'll sign up to it after I've moved closer to an exchange.

[HereBeMonsters]

fivesixseven8 said:

HereBeMonsters said:

fivesixseven8 said:

Glad to see the iPlayer on Wii is appreciated as I had some involvement with that. Try it on the PS3 though, the playback quality is much higher (1500kbps vs 700kbps)

Quality is better, but it crashes far more frequently. In fact I have never been able to watch more than one programme on it, after it finishes it just locks up and won't respond. I can navigate the PS3 menus, but the iPlayer app is just hung.
No such problems on Wii - only seems to crash if it loses wi-fi signal (which it does as I have a dodgy router).

You're seeing the PS3 version crash? Surprised to hear that tbh. Can you go into a bit more detail?

Basically once you've watched something and it's finished (sometimes even before watching it) the cursor gets stuck on the video window. It just sits in the middle of the pane, will not go up, down, left or right, clicking anything other than the "PS" button (to get the PS3 menu up) does nothing. Tried it with a gamepad as well as the Blu-Ray remote, and get the same thing.

Also, in an unrelated issue, sometimes the video will just not load, sits at the little dots whirling around and around for ages.

Oh, and after 20 minutes it dims the screen. I appreciate that there is probably some setting I can change to stop this happening, but surely it's clever enough to realise I am watching a video rather than just left it idle?

[968]

Just tried it. It's great. Works really really well!

I've also just downloaded lastfm which also works well. I'm looking to get my original xbox modded to use as a media player so can get another room streaming media!

[russ_a]

Sky Player is also available as part of Windows Media Centre within Windows 7. Normal subscription charges or £3 a movie.

[968]

russ_a said:

Sky Player is also available as part of Windows Media Centre within Windows 7. Normal subscription charges or £3 a movie.

hmmmm can you use your existing sky subscription?

[HereBeMonsters]

HereBeMonsters said:

fivesixseven8 said:

HereBeMonsters said:

fivesixseven8 said:

Glad to see the iPlayer on Wii is appreciated as I had some involvement with that. Try it on the PS3 though, the playback quality is much higher (1500kbps vs 700kbps)

Quality is better, but it crashes far more frequently. In fact I have never been able to watch more than one programme on it, after it finishes it just locks up and won't respond. I can navigate the PS3 menus, but the iPlayer app is just hung.
No such problems on Wii - only seems to crash if it loses wi-fi signal (which it does as I have a dodgy router).

You're seeing the PS3 version crash? Surprised to hear that tbh. Can you go into a bit more detail?

Basically once you've watched something and it's finished (sometimes even before watching it) the cursor gets stuck on the video window. It just sits in the middle of the pane, will not go up, down, left or right, clicking anything other than the "PS" button (to get the PS3 menu up) does nothing. Tried it with a gamepad as well as the Blu-Ray remote, and get the same thing.

Also, in an unrelated issue, sometimes the video will just not load, sits at the little dots whirling around and around for ages.

Oh, and after 20 minutes it dims the screen. I appreciate that there is probably some setting I can change to stop this happening, but surely it's clever enough to realise I am watching a video rather than just left it idle?

I think I've worked out one of the issues. Under the "most popular" headings, it shows programmes that are no longer available. If you select one of these shows it doesn't let you play it, and instead suggests something else in the video window, which you can't click on. For some reason the Wii version doesn't have this issue, and of course because you can point at the screen with the Wiimote it's much easier to use. I'll stick with the Wii for the time being.