New Sky search to be introduced
Sky have announced a new search facility for Sky+ HD boxes, and about time too!
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/124056-sky-enhances-search-features-for-sky-hd-boxes
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/124056-sky-enhances-search-features-for-sky-hd-boxes
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It will be rolling out the new features to customers over the "coming months" and asks that they ensure their devices are connected to the internet so the update can be applied.
It then says at the bottom they are doing this to convince more people to connect their boxes up to the internet (surely on demand is a good enough reason to connect up, not getting updates, which the boxes can get just fine through the dish - surely the average joe won't care how it comes through).
Just as almost all of the "On Demand" content vanishes without a network connection.
Almost certainly as it'll probably rely on an external search server.
Yea, it won't be that the update won't install without an Internet connection, but the box will need an Internet connection for the new search features to work.
Then either Pocket Lint have got the story wrong, or someone at Sky has told them wrong, as the story certainly doesn't read like that.
The net effect is the same - those with no network connection probably won't even see the new search!
But then, boxes like a Tivo have always been permantly connected to the network, for this sort of search to work on a Sky box, it would either have to have a hell of a lot of data downloaded to it from the dish, or be connected to the servers, it doesn't work by magic you know :rolleyes:
At this point it is NOT in the DR stream so a forced update would not bring it through.
I assume it's the same search engine that's on the Sky+ Android app, Needs to be on line to work.
For what it's worth: The TiVo boxes don't need an internet connection for this type of search to work. The ancient Series 1 TiVo's had this capability as well.
Finally, we're getting a decent search function on our boxes. It's not the best thing since sliced bread but a huge step forward.
Cable boxes can have a return path back through the incoming TV cable, whereas Sky can't do that.
I'm going to stick with the Android app because it's much quicker to type text in for a search plus there's the clash management.
Seems quite good but it appears to use flexible keyword searching - very like Google where it starts trying to offer matches as each letter gets typed - rather than what I think Tivo does in searching by defined categories.
TiVo does the same
I was not certain that mine was doing much more than searching its internal programme listings (and not actors names etc as on the Pocketlint article) - so perhaps full functionality is not yet enabled!