I know there are a lot of very satisfied users of Sky+ on this forum, so I have a question for you all: Apparently, the Sky+ box has built into it the ability to have 'fast forward' disabled when in an advert break. Sky have not implemented this yet and say they have no plans to do so. But what would you do if they did implement it? Suppose you could no longer spool through the adverts on Sky+. Would you cancel your subscription? Would you go over to a Freeview PVR, where no such restrictions exist? Or would you just put up with having to watch adverts again? Answers please... Thanks, Spok.
I think I'd get rid of it, I've forgotten what adverts look like now and don't want to go back to seeing them. Can they really do that ??? Rich.
The NDS hardware has the ability to block ad skipping when the facility is supported by the broadcasters and implemented by the service provider. SKY+ due to it's design being based on the NDS product it too has the same ability and at launch SKY were asked about this and they did say it would not be implemented. Personally I can not see any intelligent reason it will ever be. But for the sake of the thread......... SKY+ would be totally pointless to me. I would then laugh as SKY were slaughtered in the press and it's advertisers slaughtered by the press for forcing this onto the British public. The BBC would p**s themselves laughing and be delighted that their existence as an advertising free service would be even more valuable and any moves by it's rivals to negate the BBC by offering more varied programming would have been a waste of time and effort. I wouldn't be to sure about any HD based recording unit that is integrated with an EPG or similar system, bitrate recording which leaves the data stream intact could hide many things which have not been included in any spec sheet
Ads are such an important part of my life. How would I know where to shop, what to buy, even what to wipe my butt on? I think shopping channels are best, I can cook my dinner super fast, slice & serve beautifully, vacume seal the leftovers, whilst twidling my gemstone globe, before sleeping like a baby on my inflatable bed. This + FF, I see glimpses of utopia at 30 x the speed. Implement the change, go on, please, pretty please, see how long my subscription lasts!
Price drop & Bid up - Oh - I forgot to mention my beautifuly patterned fingernails split end free hair, toned abdomen, & silky smooth depilated body !!!!! More ads More ads More!
Gosh they're all coming out of that roomy (what with my space saving hangers & vacume stored bedding) closet now !!
I'd cancel too - I subscribed to SKY+ SPECIFICALLY to FF through ads - Now I enjoy watching SG1 uninterupted in 45min and Friends in 20min I save at least 30 min a day by FF through ads.
Usually end up watching programming from the previous night and its a joy to not have to watch the adverts. Also no red dot trouble which is another bonus. Greg
Thanks for the answers. Starburst, I think that economics would be the decision maker here. Eventually everybody who subscribes to Sky will have Sky+, and advertisers will not be pleased if everybody is skipping their ads. The advertisers will then stop advertising on Sky channels and go elsewhere. Sky will then have to weigh up the loss of subscriptions (not everybody would cancel) against the loss of advertising revenue. The FF block would be implemented if economically necessary (why would it be built into the hardware if there was never any intention of using it?). Sky do not care about what their millions of customers think, they care only about making money. A while back, long before Sky+, when Sky discovered that viewers were switching channels when the ads came on, started to transmit advertising breaks at the same times on all channels, so if you swithed to another channel you still got hit with adverts. This was also an economic decision. Spok.
Firstly, you don't need Sky+ to skip adverts. Avoid channels that have them, I can't even remember which decade ago I last watched ITV. Although the talk of getting rid of the licence fee and having the BBC run adverts horrifies me; with no CBeebies, StooMonster Jnr would have to endure endless adverts encouraging consumption of food manufactured to make the little tyke obese and horrid plastic products designed to stifle imagination. If one must watch stations that carry advertising, immediately start channel surfing the second that advertising breaks start; in no time at all one will naturally know how long three minutes break is without looking at a watch or clock and flick back just in time to see next segment. I perfected this skill years ago, but it does annoy Mrs StooMonster. Unfortunately, Sky is wise to this behaviour and to discourage it channels work together to run all their adverts at the same time; even the old faithful, guaranteed avoid the advert, of surfing to a music channel is now met with adverts for ambulance chasers or greater debt opportunities for the poor. Since getting Sky+ I watch more television than before, but never watch commercial stations live anymore to save my surfing and waste less time watching television; favourite shows can be watched in much less time. Secondly, disabling FF is a ridiculous solution, and the work around is easy! At the start of the adverts press backup button, select time index of 3 minutes later than current and press play. Couple of key presses and simple arithmetic by passes. In fact, its probably even possible to program a remote control Macro to do this. Finally, it's all about the money Advertising revenues aside, the performance measure that Sky use is Average subscription revenue per customer. The new CEO James Murdoch is charged with raising this within a year from £366pa (2003) to £400pa and customers from 7.2m (2003) to 8m generating some £3.2bn in subscription revenues alone for 2004. I understand their longer term targets are 12m customers with ASR/C of £500 or some £6bn pa. Therefore I believe Skys solution will probably be to charge more for FF in adverts service. StooMonster
SKY+ users.........250,000 SKY subscribers..7,200,000 Yes I have no doubt SKY would want all new subscribers to choose SKY+ as the basic hardware but it's going to be a long time before they will convert all subscribers to a PVR based STB You are quite correct that the future of advert driven television is uncertain and advertisers are not going to spend money when they know that the vast majority of reported viewers will see their adverts. However, SKY is a subscription service with adverts & sponsership accounting for less than 15% of their income, this fact makes a huge difference to how broadcasters on this any PAY platform will deal with loss of ad revenues. I would contend the loss of advertising revenue could be easily absorbed by SKY own channels especially now they are making a profit and it would also improve their reputation and could infact increase subscribers from those who do see SKY as "cheap" telly, not in price but you know what I mean The NDS design that SKY+ is based on was made for the American market where the political and economic considerations are far different to the UK and advertising in itself has been the cornerstone of US TV since it's inception. I hate to admit it but the BBC and it's funding method has at least curbed the rampant over the top US style of advertising in our TV market. I would suspect that it would far cheaper to take the basic PVR design and just tweak it to run the middleware and software required for SKY D. The hardware would be still capable of all it's designed functions but they just wouldn't be accessible. SKY do not have any control of third party channels and the time they decide to put their ad breaks on, that's simple paranoia Yes I agree that for those that still view TV live and they channel surf during an ad break do see other channels also in ad breaks, no surprise though since the UKTV brand covers many channels, Discovery have many channels and Viacom have a family of channels as well and they probably will sych their programming. There are a few third party channels that sell their advertising time using SKY's own marketing division, it's cheaper and gives them access to more clients which is why you see a lot of the same adverts on groups of channels.
By Sky I meant digital television channels rather than BSkyB itself. Striping of schedules and starting all shows on the hour or half hour has (perhaps accidentally) resulted in advert breaks being simultaneous on many channels -- even from different networks. Since I have Sky+ though, care? I just FF them all. StooMonster
To try to cram my 30 hrs of viewing a day in, I've also taken to watching Programs on FFwd. I can finish Coronation Street in about 5 minutes, depending on how much dialogue I want to hear. Less riviting stuff is over in a flash! I'll be marketing a system of 'speed viewing' shortly. Gunpowder Treason & Plot, we all know is the condensed story of Guy Fawkes. Speed viewing similarly cramms Hrs into small bitesize chunks. My 30 hrs is done in less than 7 leaving me more time to surf tinternet.
Id get rid! My brother has Replay TV in the states and the commercial advance is fantastic, automatically deleted the adverts from the recording! Bliss! also the 30 second skip button is great, and the program it over the web thingy, sharing your files over broadband, sharing between boxes on your home network. Hey, Sky plus aint so great!! But I couldnt live without it! ARRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH Adeyb
Hey adeyb, all those features you list are available on a TiVo (series 2). Oh wait a minute, ReplayTV does work with TiVo, so it must be TiVo. And guess what? Yep, TiVo is available in this country and was before Sky+ ever saw the light of day . Even though we only have a series 1 TiVo, it can still do many of the things you say you would like. Mark.
Very interesting article about TIVO over here. While it is of course only one guys opinion it would reflect the experience of TIVO in the UK, being the first on the market doesn't always mean success in the long run when the big boys flex their muscles and start offering alternatives.