Free movie downloads for Sky Digital customers

crube

rammell wrote:

Call me naive, but I've got a very simple question..... why?

A Sky customer has paid for a premium subscription service so that they can watch a digital broadcast on a (presumably) quality television set. Why would they want to download the same broadcasts and watch them on a computer monitor, with all the hassles that have just been described by those who have recently tried the service? I assume they can't be copied and/or forwarded to other people. I'm obviously missing something here.... or maybe I'm just a technophobe but I don't understand why anyone would want to use this service.

Cheers!!

For me there are 2 reasons - firstly we don't have SKY or a video upstairs so being able to download them enables us to be able to chill out upstairs and watch them. Secondly, being able to download them and watch them at our convenience means we don't have to watch them at the times SKY dictates, which can sometimes be ridiculously late and/or at a time that clashes with other things. Also, in terms of shows like Soccer AM that I usually miss, it's great to be able to download highlights etc of it the day after. As for the quality, well via Win DVD I have no complaints whatsoever. Obviously it isn't quite DVD quality, but it's pretty darned good.

mudfeet

really struggling with Sky customer service with this one, when you register on Sky.Com I cannot change the password, rung them a few times bit nothing has happened as they said they would get back to me

cownet

The reason they are doing this is simple.

Sky are playing with DRM and VOD service to;

A, gage response / service take up

B, test their service, you are a guine pig.

VOD (video on demand) is the next big thing for sky and all the major players.

Using peer to peer is good for them, as they do not need to pay for huge multiple access servers.

Oh and 10 days to download a 1 gig file :eek: I would not be looking at the BB connection I would be looking at the computer for malware and a virus!!!!

keithwales

Is it possible to burn these films on to disc?

crube

keithwales wrote:

Is it possible to burn these films on to disc?

Not as far as I know.

simonwien_2

There is another problem with this service, in that if you have already registered and don't have the premium channels then upgrade which I did you still can't get SBB. I called them up after pressing this button that button etc the first person I spoke to had never heard of skybybraodband, then when I did speak to someone who knew about it they said because I have just upgraded I can't get SBB yet as they don't know how to change it and they will e mail me when they figure it out. Well done SKY

crube

simonwien wrote:

There is another problem with this service, in that if you have already registered and don't have the premium channels then upgrade which I did you still can't get SBB. I called them up after pressing this button that button etc the first person I spoke to had never heard of skybybraodband, then when I did speak to someone who knew about it they said because I have just upgraded I can't get SBB yet as they don't know how to change it and they will e mail me when they figure it out. Well done SKY

Maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt as it's in it's infancy, but so far SBB sounds like it certainly needs some improvements.

crube

I think I'm gonna stop those 2 services from running at startup, it's ridiculous to have 60MB of RAM being used for basically nothing unless I am actually using SBB.

Sencerd

I would strongly suggest that noone use this service as it is at the moment to send a clear message to sky, the kservice that it installs is itself a form of spyware, it runs on your computer all the time, regardless of whether you have SBB running and will use a set amount of your total bandwidth to upload. Aside from the obvious problems this causes with users who have a cap, it is also a very questionable way of operating the service, and as to calling it 'free', well thats just a joke, youre paying with bandwidth.

Now you may be thinking that calling it spyware is a bit harsh, but the final insult is, the kservice is NOT uninstalled with SBB, so even after you remove SBB from your computer, the files youve downloaded will remain on your computer and kservice will continue using your bandwidth to upload them until you manually remove it.

crube

Sencerd wrote:

I would strongly suggest that noone use this service as it is at the moment to send a clear message to sky, the kservice that it installs is itself a form of spyware, it runs on your computer all the time, regardless of whether you have SBB running and will use a set amount of your total bandwidth to upload. Aside from the obvious problems this causes with users who have a cap, it is also a very questionable way of operating the service, and as to calling it 'free', well thats just a joke, youre paying with bandwidth.

Now you may be thinking that calling it spyware is a bit harsh, but the final insult is, the kservice is NOT uninstalled with SBB, so even after you remove SBB from your computer, the files youve downloaded will remain on your computer and kservice will continue using your bandwidth to upload them until you manually remove it.

What could be an excellent service is a real disappointment cos of all of this. I'm probably gonna get rid of it soon.