Does encoding the stream mean that there is a huge delay in the 'live' pictures? Will my friends watching on Sky+ HD know the team has scored before I do?
Sky's Adrian Pilkington: "There is a 15-20 second delay. We'll never eliminate latency altogether but we are work on reducing it. As the codec improves then the picture will get better and better… but we are both on that curve. It's an evolution."
What channels/content will be on the service?
"There are currently 24 streaming live channels but you should expect that to grow," says Sky Director of On Demand Griff Parry.
The basic entertainment pack brings: G.O.L.D., Sky Real Lives, Sky Arts 1, MTV ONE, Sky Sports News, British Eurosport ESPN Classic, Sky News, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild, History, Eden, Cartoon Network, Boomerang, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Nick Jr.
The sports channels include Sky Sports 1, Sky Sports 2, Sky Sports 3, Sky Sports Xtra, and the movie channels are Sky Movies Screen 1 and Sky Movies Screen 2.
The Movie VOD includes every major studio apart from Sony ("You can imagine why that is," comments Griff Parry). Although Sky is confident of adding Sony Pictures to their roster for Xbox as well.
Will all of Sky's channels eventually be on Sky Player on Xbox?
"I don't expect so," says Parry. "There are about 600 channels, but of those we only retail 120 or 130 or so and even within that group many are plus one or catch-up channels which you don't need with on demand.
"The channel range will grow and we will take a view on how much we want it to grow."
I don't want an Xbox – will the service be arriving on the Sky+ HD boxes soon?
Sky's Stephen Nuttall: "We firmly believe in the power of HD. If you want to do HD movies and sports, which are very high bandwidth channels, then satellite will be the best delivery system for a long time. The plan with the DTH platform is to have this hybrid of broadcast and broadband delivery and local storage in the box. We think the combination of those three things will be very strong in the future."
Yes – Sky's networked home is moving ever closer.
When can we expect streaming HD pictures?
"We're always committed to increasing picture quality," explains Griff Parry. "But we are currently focused on providing a good SD service. We will do HD at some point, but not until we can provide a proper HD service to most of the people, most of the time."
