In the biggest upgrade in ten years, Sky are boldly going where nobody has gone before and are calling it Sky Q.
Why? It has to. With the likes of Netflix and Virgin Media reinventing the way we watch our favourite TV shows, Sky have had to up their game, and from the looks of it, they have.
We were given the first look at the ‘next generation of TV’ earlier this week.
‘Why is it called Q? Was it nicked from Bond?’ asked a guest at the unveiling presentation in London. The Sky representative noted it down and replied ‘we’ll get back to you on that one.’
Although we do want to know why the letter ‘Q’ has been chosen, let’s get down to the more important features:
What is Sky Q?
If you’re lucky enough to have five screens in your house (we all have a flat screen in our loft, right?), the good news is that you can now watch them all at once.
When you’ve started watching Narcos in your front room and want to make a brew and a sandwich, the 2TB set-top box means you can pick it up in the kitchen exactly where you left off. Or if you fall asleep and want to watch it on your phone or tablet on the train on the way to work in the morning, you can. It’s what Sky Q are calling ‘fluid viewing’. That is handy.
How does it look?
We all know our way around the current Sky box and remote but it’s changing. It’s slimmer and slicker and even if the remote is more likely to get lost down the sofa, there’s a ‘find’ button on the box that will send a signal to a sound alarm to the remote. Wonder if they’ll stick one on philandering partners and pets too?
Multiple recordings, multi-device viewings:
The box is fitted with 12 tuners and comes with a ‘plug and play’ box meaning you can watch and record programmes across all devices. So when Match of The Day is recording, you can also record Peep Show and Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom showing on the movies. (#firstworldproblems)
Then, connecting wirelessly to the main box, Sky Q “mini” boxes will connect TVs in other parts of the house, without interfering with the main box.
It will make your Wi-Fi better:
Sky says The Sky Q hub, a new broadband router, will “supercharge” your Wi-Fi. Okay, we’re listening…
They say it can connect to boxes using your home’s electric wiring. This will enable a better signal than Wi-Fi and can turn Sky Q boxes into a hotspot to boost connections in parts of the house away from routers.
Music:
On top of its content, Sky is promising us our favourite dramas and more footy – UHD sports in fact – than ever thanks to its investment in sports rights, they’re also thinking of our ears.
Sky Q have teamed up with Vevo so we can watch the latest videos from our favourite artists, but more importantly we can link our own music to it, like Spotify or YouTube.
How much will it cost?
That we don’t know yet, many guests asked at the presentation but it’s yet to be announced. Of course we all want Sky Q when it launches in early 2016, it’s awesome, but there’s the million dollar question…
How much would you be willing to pay? Email us.
