Sky Anytime plus questions please

happyhero

Hi I have Sky plus and my daughter has Sky HD which has Anytime plus. I have not been that keen to upgrade to HD as I find the difference in picture quality not always that noticeable and so begrudge paying £10 for a bit of picture improvement. I know they are doing offers and you need the right TV to get the best out of HD etc.

Anyway I have a few questions if anyone can help please.

I have the full package except the sport as we are a bit odd that way, sorry.

I noticed on my Sky plus that I have far more selection of films on my Anytime than my daughter does on her Sky HD Anytime (she does not have broadband and thus no router connected). The other day we checked and I had about 20 movies whereas she had about 3 and about 3 more that you have to pay for (Store I think it said) so why is that, shouldn't the superior package have more choice?

I am wondering how the Anytime plus works with your Sky package ie if I didn't have movies in my Sky package could I still access movies through the router route on Anytime Plus or does the router route restrict you somehow to match your package, i.e. no movies in your package, no movies on your router, obviously otherwise everyone could get a small package and do everything through the router?

Is there anywhere that you can get a list of what is available on Anytime Plus via the router, not just a general list but a list of all the channels etc that are available so I can see how tempting it is etc?

Lastly when you watch something via the router router is it like when you watch something online, i.e. downloads while you watch and falters sometimes or does it download first? I am thinking it wont be great if the connection is not fast enough and I would rather something is downloaded first before I watch it to keep it smooth. Can somebody enlighten me on this part please as to what goes on here?

Sorry another lastly, my router is far away from my Sky box and my wireless is weak in this area so I am thinking to get one of those wireless homeplugs to extend my wireless signal which would be great for our mobiles interneting too. And if they are like routers and have a socket too, I could possibly have the sky box connected via wire at the same time. Does that all sound right or am I getting it wrong somewhere?

Any help on these questions would be greatly appreciated.:)

spadoosh

happyhero wrote: »

Hi I have Sky plus and my daughter has Sky HD which has Anytime plus. I have not been that keen to upgrade to HD as I find the difference in picture quality not always that noticeable and so begrudge paying £10 for a bit of picture improvement. I know they are doing offers and you need the right TV to get the best out of HD etc.

Anyway I have a few questions if anyone can help please.

I have the full package except the sport as we are a bit odd that way, sorry. Very odd!!

I noticed on my Sky plus that I have far more selection of films on my Anytime than my daughter does on her Sky HD Anytime (she does not have broadband and thus no router connected). The other day we checked and I had about 20 movies whereas she had about 3 and about 3 more that you have to pay for (Store I think it said) so why is that, shouldn't the superior package have more choice? I think this is because she should potentially have access to anytime plus (connected to router) and therefore limits what it puts on normal anytime. Could also be something to do with the models of box.

I am wondering how the Anytime plus works with your Sky package ie if I didn't have movies in my Sky package could I still access movies through the router route on Anytime Plus or does the router route restrict you somehow to match your package, i.e. no movies in your package, no movies on your router, obviously otherwise everyone could get a small package and do everything through the router? It restricts what you can watch to match your package.

Is there anywhere that you can get a list of what is available on Anytime Plus via the router, not just a general list but a list of all the channels etc that are available so I can see how tempting it is etc? Again i think here. but my engineer told me that its slowly putting everything that has been shown on sky on their. therefore it should (eventually) have everything on their database (again this will be restricted to your package)

Lastly when you watch something via the router router is it like when you watch something online, i.e. downloads while you watch and falters sometimes or does it download first? I am thinking it wont be great if the connection is not fast enough and I would rather something is downloaded first before I watch it to keep it smooth. Can somebody enlighten me on this part please as to what goes on here? You can do both options. If you find a programme you would like to see you can record it (downloads to your planner) or you can stream it (press play) when ive done this i havent suffered from bad lag, not perfect picture quality but definately watchable. My download is normally at the low 2mb range and a ping of about 120 so far from perfect.
To add, when i stream though my xbox, the live channels are normally fine but anything that is on anytime is laggy as, rebuffers every 30 seconds or so

Any help on these questions would be greatly appreciated.:)

Answers in red, though think theres a few sky bods on here who could help out more/be more specific/correct any of my inaccuracies!

lesalanos

Hi,

Can you not get anytime + on your sky + box? IIRC you have to sign up for anythime + and get it activated. If you cant then ring up sky and threaten to cancel as you cannot get these services. They may send you a free hd box which allows you some free hd channels (bbc, itv, C4, 5).

If your daughter does not have a router connected then I dont think that she has anytime+, probably just anythime.

You get access to the same products as your package, ie you would get everything except sports.

It downloads it to your box and you can then watch it. I cannot remember if you can start watching before it fully downloads.

You will either need to wire your sky box to your router or add a wireless receiver to your sky box. Can you move your router nearer to the sky box? It only needs an extension cable from the phone socket.

I have probably missed something somewhere. IMHO anytime + is great, get it, it costs nothing

Heinz

Anytime+ has now bene renamed On Demand.

[Deleted User]

spadoosh wrote: »

. but my engineer told me that its slowly putting everything that has been shown on sky on their. therefore it should (eventually) have everything on their database (again this will be restricted to your package)

It's only ever going to be a selection of programmes that Sky currently have the broadcast rights for. It won't ever be a library of "everything" ever shown-as rights to these shows lapse on a regular basis.
Eventually, the service will expand to include a full range of "catch up" TV from the last seven days with the BBC's iPlayer and 4oD set to join before the end of the year.

The picture and sound will never reach broadcast quality unless you are using a wired connection and have fast broadband.

[Deleted User]

Heinz wrote: »

Anytime+ has now bene renamed On Demand.

But it's still being rolled out as such. Currently, only the latest Amstrad Sky+HD and 1TB boxes have had the update.
Anytime+ will be on most boxes for a few months yet.

[Deleted User]

lesalanos wrote: »

It downloads it to your box and you can then watch it. I cannot remember if you can start watching before it fully downloads.

It actually starts downloading and then becomes "available to view" once enough has downloaded to prevent buffering. Faster internet connections work better with this feature, of course.

spadoosh

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

It's only ever going to be a selection of programmes that Sky currently have the broadcast rights for. It won't ever be a library of "everything" ever shown-as rights to these shows lapse on a regular basis.
Eventually, the service will expand to include a full range of "catch up" TV from the last seven days with the BBC's iPlayer and 4oD set to join before the end of the year.

The picture and sound will never reach broadcast quality unless you are using a wired connection and have fast broadband.

He probably meant programmes created for/by sky then (e.g. 'an idiot abroad'. Remeber thinking at the time that it would be one hell of a server that holds all that!

[Deleted User]

spadoosh wrote: »

He probably meant programmes created for/by sky then

Even Sky's "in house" programming will have broadcast rights attached , so they won't appear forever either.

Heinz

Moneyineptitude wrote: »

It actually starts downloading and then becomes "available to view" once enough has downloaded to prevent buffering. Faster internet connections work better with this feature, of course.

Yes, I was able to start watching a programme last night when only 2% had downloaded.

happyhero

Cheers everyone for the answers, for the record, my daughters Sky HD does say Anytime+ even though she has no router.

I was never persuaded to get HD before as I begrudged paying £10 extra per month for a better picture that I could hardly tell the difference on friends Full HD TV's although the menu system etc was a bit better but now that they include Anytime plus which allows access to much more content I am tempted to go for the HD.

So one more question if that's ok, I am tempted to get one of those Homeplugs, the TP-Link ones on Amazon seem popular for quality etc, I don't really want to move my router as I fiddle with it sometimes and find it handy to be beside the PC etc. If I ordered Sky HD to get the Anytime plus, would I get a Sky box that I can just connect to or would I require an adaptor ie for instance if I chose to do it wirelessly, would I require a wireless adaptor to make the Sky box wireless or are newer boxes wireless built in?

Also mentioned above, is it possible to get Sky Anytime plus without upgrading to HD and if so is there reasons not to do this, ie inferior box or system etc?

Thats even more tempting if they are going to add things like BBC ipayer 4oD access through the Sky box.