[CUP OF TEAAA!]

Ok, so basically I have a Sky+HD box with FSFS and sky+ sub, but I do not subscribe to any sky channels.

However, I am getting a few programmes under the anytime tab. Is this meant to happen, seeing as I don't really subscribe to sky? There is a list of 5-6 programmes, a few from sky news and a few from some other sub channels. Also, it doesn't look like the anytime+ I have seen on tutorials etc. I don't have ITV player, and no categories such as 'channels'.

So can someone explain what might be going on? Would I be charged for watching any of the programmes.

Also what is the difference between Anytime and Anytime+? Might this have something to do with it?

Thanks guys.

[davemurgatroyd]

If the tab says Anytime then that is what it is and nothing to do with Anytime+ which is the VOD service downloaded from the internet. Anytime are the push downloads to your box and unless they say Box Office or Sky Store as the channel they are not chargeable.

[KesterK]

Try watch one and see what happens. Most probably a message will pop up saying you need to upgrade your subscription.

[CUP OF TEAAA!]

Originally Posted by KesterK

Try watch one and see what happens. Most probably a message will pop up saying you need to upgrade your subscription.

I watched the sky news one and it let me watch it. I tried to watch some sub programmes and it didn't let me.

[CUP OF TEAAA!]

Originally Posted by davemurgatroyd

If the tab says Anytime then that is what it is and nothing to do with Anytime+ which is the VOD service downloaded from the internet. Anytime are the push downloads to your box and unless they say Box Office or Sky Store as the channel they are not chargeable.

So what you're saying is that it's Anytime and not Anytime+? So is Anytime good? There aren't many shows on there. Gosh I feel stupid! Thanks for the replies!

[Andrue]

Originally Posted by CUP OF TEAAA!

So what you're saying is that it's Anytime and not Anytime+? So is Anytime good? There aren't many shows on there. Gosh I feel stupid! Thanks for the replies!

Anytime is where Sky push random programming to your box overnight. Well..it's probably not random really but only Sky now the criteria for picking things. The idea behind it I think is to showcase stuff that you might have missed.

Anytime+ is a service where an even larger collection of programming can be downloaded and watched much as you would with iPlayer. At present it's only a small subset of programming but apparently sometime soon it's going to be almost everything that was broadcast recently - ie;'iplayer for Sky'.

I wouldn't think you'd have access to Anytime+ but it would make sense for Sky to push you some stuff on Anytime in the hope that it would wet your appetite and persuade you to subscribe.

As for whether they are any good - it depends who you ask

My personal view is:
Anytime - turned off. I don't need Sky to showcase stuff for me and it just wastes power keeping my HDD going half the night. Frankly I wish I could reclaim the disk space that the box insists on reserving for Anytime

Anytime+ - useless at the moment. Last I checked it didn't seem to include anything I wanted and virtually no HD material. If/when it finally becomes more complete in HD it might occasionally be a useful safety net for the rare occasion when a recording fails or I miss something on the EPG.

[StuartPlymouth]

Originally Posted by Andrue

Anytime+ - useless at the moment. Last I checked it didn't seem to include anything I wanted and virtually no HD material. If/when it finally becomes more complete in HD it might occasionally be a useful safety net for the rare occasion when a recording fails or I miss something on the EPG.

You'll probably find it more useful once the full ITV Player and BBC iPlayer is available.

Sky are also adding a full 7-day catch-up for programmes on their own branded channels.

[kmusgrave]

Originally Posted by Andrue

Anytime+ - useless at the moment. Last I checked it didn't seem to include anything I wanted and virtually no HD material. If/when it finally becomes more complete in HD it might occasionally be a useful safety net for the rare occasion when a recording fails or I miss something on the EPG.

It has 100s of HD movies - If you subscribe to the movies - not much use if you don't

[big_hard_lad]

Originally Posted by StuartPlymouth

You'll probably find it more useful once the full ITV Player and BBC iPlayer is available.

Sky are also adding a full 7-day catch-up for programmes on their own branded channels.

Looking forward to it myself.

Wonder what will happen to those FSFS customers who don't pay anything to Sky (i.e. those who don't subscribe to the Sky+ features) will get regarding the iPlayer? I'd have thought the BBC would insist that it be available to all.

[Dave-H]

Originally Posted by big_hard_lad

Wonder what will happen to those FSFS customers who don't pay anything to Sky (i.e. those who don't subscribe to the Sky+ features) will get regarding the iPlayer? I'd have thought the BBC would insist that it be available to all.

They may be able to stream iPlayer content "live", but not save it to the HDD permanently. Live streaming uses the HDD for buffering of course, but as FSFS viewers have not paid for any PVR facilitates I guess they might only be able to watch it as it's being downloaded, not afterwards.
The BBC's policy quite rightly is that all of their output should be available free to all licence payers on all platforms, which is why it was only a matter of time before iPlayer became available through Sky boxes.

[big_hard_lad]

Originally Posted by Dave-H

They may be able to stream iPlayer content "live", but not save it to the HDD permanently. Live streaming uses the HDD for buffering of course, but as FSFS viewers have not paid for any PVR facilitates I guess they might only be able to watch it as it's being downloaded, not afterwards.
The BBC's policy quite rightly is that all of their output should be available free to all licence payers on all platforms, which is why it was only a matter of time before iPlayer became available through Sky boxes.

Yeah, I think that's the most interesting part of...how they implement it. It definitely is the BBC's policy to be as "platform neutral" as possible, so it'll have to be available to FSFS users. But how, is the question....your solution may be the most feasible.

Either that, or you can only use the HDD for iPlayer content and nothing else. After all, the box still has a HDD in it and those on much poorer broadband packages may struggle if they can only watch "live" so to speak.

[Andrue]

Originally Posted by StuartPlymouth

You'll probably find it more useful once the full ITV Player and BBC iPlayer is available.

Sky are also adding a full 7-day catch-up for programmes on their own branded channels.

Originally Posted by kmusgrave

It has 100s of HD movies - If you subscribe to the movies - not much use if you don't

Most of my viewing (prolly nigh-on three-quraters) comes from The Knowledge Pack..and no I don't subscribe to Movies. My viewing is also almost entirely (>95% I'd say) HD.

Bearing that in mind at what point do you think Anytime+ will become a reliable catch-up service for me? If the new update is only for branded channels then I'm guessing it does nothing much for me. There's a few things on Sky Living and Sky One I watch but it'd have to be in HD for me to be interested. Even then it's probably less than a quarter of what I watch.

iPlayer isn't of much interest because:

a)My Freesat PVR already has iPlayer and ITV Player.
b)I really am talking about a fall-back option here. If I fail to spot a new programme on the EPG. If the recording fails. If I can't find a later repeat. Then I might use a catch-up service. I think I used one twice last year

Hmm. I think I'll just add that I'm not trying to 'attack' Anytime+ here. It's free and unlike Anytime it doesn't steal any box resources even when not in use. I'm just wondering if/when it might carry something of interest

[big_hard_lad]

Originally Posted by Andrue

Most of my viewing (prolly nigh-on three-quraters) comes from The Knowledge Pack..and no I don't subscribe to Movies. My viewing is also almost entirely (>95% I'd say) HD.

Bearing that in mind at what point do you think Anytime+ will become a reliable catch-up service for me? If the new update is only for branded channels then I'm guessing it does nothing much for me. There's a few things on Sky Living and Sky One I watch but it'd have to be in HD for me to be interested. Even then it's probably less than a quarter of what I watch.

iPlayer isn't of much interest because:

a)My Freesat PVR already has iPlayer and ITV Player.
b)I really am talking about a fall-back option here. If I fail to spot a new programme on the EPG. If the recording fails. If I can't find a later repeat. Then I might use a catch-up service. I think I used one twice last year

Hmm. I think I'll just add that I'm not trying to 'attack' Anytime+ here. It's free and unlike Anytime it doesn't steal any box resources even when not in use. I'm just wondering if/when it might carry something of interest

I guess it's down to the individual broadcasters what content they want to include. I'm sure if Discovery and National Geographic, etc., wanted to have full 7 day catch ups of their shows then I'm sure Sky would be happy for them to do so. So really, I guess your query can only be answered by the individual broadcasters, rather than Sky themselves. I guess it's also a rights issue...but it shouldn't really be for shows produced by the broadcaster themselves.

As for the iPlayer, i get what you're saying...but I also find some programmes on there that I never would have seen otherwise. I don't religiously check what's on every BBC outlet, every day, in case I want to record something. Yeah, I'll look on BBC1 and generally 2 to see if there's anything of interest, but I will miss stuff and occasionally there's something on BBC3 or 4 that I have interest in that I've missed. Or sometimes you just don't think a show sounds that good, until you hear someone else talking about it. An example of that would be last year (? Maybe earlier this year) when there was a show about the London Underground. I never watched the first couple of episodes cause I thought it sounded a bit crap, but someone in work mentioned that it was good so I caught the first 2 episodes on iPlayer and recorded the rest. I'm quite looking forward to it coming to Anytime+...not that I'll use it that much, but as you say, it doesn't cost more or use any more resources, so we may as well have it.

[arras]

Could someone please clear up for me what Sky's Catch-Up Service will involve?

[KesterK]

Originally Posted by arras

Could someone please clear up for me what Sky's Catch-Up Service will involve?

Nobody really knows I don't think yet. I can't imagine it staying in the same format as anytime+ is now when they launch a full 7 day catch up. It will most likely still be part of anytime+, hopefully with an easier to use user interface.

[StuartPlymouth]

Originally Posted by KesterK

Nobody really knows I don't think yet. I can't imagine it staying in the same format as anytime+ is now when they launch a full 7 day catch up. It will most likely still be part of anytime+, hopefully with an easier to use user interface.

Both BBC iPlayer and ITV Player seem to use the same interface of allowing you to scroll through a 'past' schedule, rather than just looking for individual programmes through a search process.

Hopefully Sky will use a similar UI for their 7 day catch-up service. It would seem to be the most sensible option.

A nice solution might be to simply be able to scroll backwards through the normal Guide, but have different colours for the display, to show that you are going to be downloading from a catch-up service. Just a thought!

[big_hard_lad]

Originally Posted by StuartPlymouth

Both BBC iPlayer and ITV Player seem to use the same interface of allowing you to scroll through a 'past' schedule, rather than just looking for individual programmes through a search process.

Hopefully Sky will use a similar UI for their 7 day catch-up service. It would seem to be the most sensible option.

A nice solution might be to simply be able to scroll backwards through the normal Guide, but have different colours for the display, to show that you are going to be downloading from a catch-up service. Just a thought!

Is that not how TiVo handles it in addition to having 'apps'? I agree...would be a good way to do it.