A new take on the Sky Player
Marie Kemplay returns for another look at the Sky Player
A few months ago I wrote that Sky was introducing an online viewing platform, Sky Player. Well it’s here and I’m impressed to say it’s definitely exceeded expectations.
When I first read about the service it wasn’t at all clear what Sky actually be showing on Sky Player, all they were able to confirm was that it would show content from Sky Sports, which to be frank left me feeling it was all a bit half baked. But I was wrong, if you go to the website -https://skyplayer.sky.com/vod/page/home.do - you can watch content from 25 channels, as well as Sky Sports you can watch Sky and BBC news, National Geographic and History Channels to expand your mind, Sky One and Box Office for entertainment and Nickelodeon and Disney Channel for the ‘kids’.
Not bad at all, especially when as well as offering you content on demand you can also stream live programmes this is unique for an internet viewing platform. If you’re not bothered about watching on a massive screen you can forego the whole installation of a digibox business and still watch live Sky programmes!
Sky Player has also impressed me with how affordable it is, again when I first wrote about Sky Player prices had not yet been decided, leaving the impression that they could charge almost anything for the service.
But despite my fears it’s perfectly reasonable, usually £1 per programme, £5 per month for a sports highlights package and for existing Sky customers it’s completely free!
Honestly, it’s not quite what you might describe as DVD quality viewing but neither is it Youtube, to say its being transmitted over the internet it’s excellent. The only real issue I can see with Sky Player is that you can only install it on one computer per subscription, not such an issue for non-sky customers but say you live in a household which already subscribes to Sky with multiple computers and several techo-sevvy people, there’s going to be fisticuffs at dawn over who gets to watch it free on their laptop.
Actually the BBC’s iPlayer also streams live and downloads, and I have it on all my pcs. The quality is far better than skyplayer as well.