Finally: Xbox 360 Sky Player hands-on and first screen shots

Over a week since an embarrassing and very public launch failure, Sky TV and Microsoft appear eventually to have uncrossed their wires to provide the Sky Player to Xbox 360 users in the UK. After seven days of less-than-patient anticipation, earlier this evening the Sky Player software was finally available to download from the Xbox 360 dashboard – we were there, camera in hand, to show you what it looks like step by step.

Xbox 360 Sky Player Installation and Set Up

Figure 1. Sky Player on Xbox 360 Dashboard

Telly-hungry gamers have been facing cautious and somewhat unspecific statements on the Sky website suggesting a gradual roll-out of the service since last week, but only now are they beginning to be sated as the option to download the elusive Sky Player software onto their Xbox becomes available (figure 1).

Figure 2. Downloading Sky Player Software

Simply selecting this gives you the option to download the ‘app’ (figure 2).

After starting the application, you’ll need to sign-in before you can watch any Sky content (figure 3). The credential you supply is your Sky Player login (the login you’d normally use for the Sky TV website and where, presumably, you’ll have signed-up for Sky Player – if not then visit the Sky Player Sign-Up page) – figure 4.

Figure 3. Accounts & Settings Menu

Figure 4. Entering Sky Player Account Details

If your sign-in is successful, some Sky magic will happen and your Xbox 360 will now be registered with your Sky Player account (figure 5) to ensure that only one Xbox 360 can be used to view Sky programming. Darn it, those Sky dudes think of everything.

Figure 5. Xbox is registered with your Sky Player account

If you get this far, then you’re pretty much good to go and can begin exploring the Sky Television content that’s available to you, depending upon your subscription with Sky. If you have a standard single set-top box Sky subscription then you’ll be able to watch on-demand content from channels within your subscribed channel package and also live Sky News. However, if you’re already subscribed to one of Sky’s multiroom or unlimited broadband packages then you’ll able to watch live telly, but only a subset of Sky’s normal gazillion channel line-up (24 at the time of writing).

Xbox 360 Sky Player in Use

The Sky Player is, unsurprisingly, a dream to use given the Xbox treatment. Microsoft have fine-tuned the 360’s user interface to a tee and, wisely the Sky Player mostly sticks to its design and navigation principles (figure 6).

Figure 6. Sky Player Navigation

However, one area where Sky’s similarly class-leading UI does make an appearance is the TV Guide EPG when navigating live television channels (figure 7).

Figure 7. Sky Player TV Guide

When attempting to watch a programme that is outside of your subscription pack, Sky don’t miss a trick and will offer you the chance to upgrade or perhaps even the opportunity to rent the programme – most notably at prices that don’t seem particularly unreasonable (figure 8).

Figure 8. Upgrade Package or Rent a Programme

Sky Player Gripes

Overall, the service is smooth – there’s a minimal amount of pre-view buffering (no more than 5 seconds for the programmes I watched through an 8Mb broadband connection), and the adverts are kept short and sweet (at the moment, of course this may/inevitably will change).

However, I was disappointed with Sky Player on a couple of fronts:

The picture quality was generally pretty poor. Aside from all of the Sky Player content being delivered in standard definition at the moment, the compression applied to the video is particularly lossy and even fairly static scenes displayed with significant blockiness. Scene with quick cuts faired even worse. Perhaps picture quality has been a concession amongst the capacity issues which forced the service offline hours after its initial launch.

Some of the on-demand content seemed less-than-current. For example, whilst Sky News offered daily updates going back nearly a week, a look at the sports channels offered quite a different view (figure 9) where there appeared to be about a six week lag – quite why anyone would want to watch Burnley v Sunderland live is almost beyond my comprehension, but watching it nearly two months after the event suggests devotion beyond sanity.

Figure 9. On demand sports late to the plate

Conclusions

As an existing Sky subscriber making extensive use of the Sky+ set top box and its legendary PVR, I’m struggling to recall the last time I actually watched anything live on TV apart from sport: live TV is so 20th century. With this in mind, the live streaming feature of Sky Player on Xbox 360 doesn’t interest me in the slightest, particularly given the reduction in picture quality, and even less so as I’d have to pay extra to receive it. The only possible application of this as an existing Sky subscriber might be in a genuine multiroom setup, or when using the ‘watch with friends’ party feature – this last feature does sound like it could be a lot of fun, but again is probably best suited to sharing verbal abuse when watching live sport.

However, access to the on-demand programming is much more compelling and surely is the real killer application of Sky Player: whilst not yet as comprehensive as other on-demand offerings such as BBC iPlayer, it still gives the welcome opportunity to browse programmes that you missed watching when live or didn’t record on the PVR.

One trick that Sky perhaps has missed is the integration Sky’s standard TV Guide EPG (see figure 7 above) with the access to on-demand content – a single timeline could provide the ability to go back in time with the EPG as well as forward, showing which programmes are available on-demand as well as live or to watch later.

That being said, unless there’s a particular programme that I know I’ve missed and want to watch on-demand, the bottom line is that I simply can’t see myself preferring to watch telly on my Xbox over my Sky box, but then perhaps this Sky Player platform isn’t for me: for many without existing Sky subscriptions who won’t or can’t have a satellite dish but would still like access to Sky’s programming it does present an interesting option, but perhaps one I’d like to trial for a month before signing up to a 12 month contract.

Alternatively, if you happen to have an Xbox but no Sky TV but you do have a friend/parent who does subscribe to Sky, there may be opportunities for a (cough) reciprocal arrangement to get your Sky on the cheap(er) – ideal for son/daughter in digs at University without Sky dish but with internet. I’ll leave you to figure it out the details, but remember: you didn’t get the idea from me.