We’ve had Sky for years, but there’s a gert big tree (I think it’s an ash) behind our house that’s getting progressively more and more in the way of the signal, especially in summer when it’s fully in leaf. No TV aerial.

I could get someone in to lop a load off the tree, but that seems a shame. We do watch quite a bit of Sky Atlantic stuff, plus she likes her cheesey American boxsets (Blacklist, Blindspot, that kinda nonsense) so I was thinking instead of getting NowTV so all our telly comes via the Information Superhighway.

Anyone have it as there only TV source? Any good? I assume it’s live telly + streaming, but there’s no ability to record?

Have a look at the Roku boxes.. They have nowtv on them and a bunch of other stuff too.

We have Now TV + Amazon Prime (on a FireTV) + Netflix.

Although we do have FreeSat Sky it very rarely gets used. I don’t think NowTv does Live TV but I watch so little myself I’m not 100% sure. You’re right about having no record.

Many boxsets are available (my Mrs burns through them at a frightening rate) and stuff like Game Of Thrones episodes were available almost immediately after Live broadcast, quality in general has been fine BUT the interface itself is a bit poo, finding something you know should be on there can be a bit trial and error.

For our usage the availability of stuff + the massively reduced cost from Sky are a big thumbs up.

I’m going to get rid of our Virgin TV – it’s only in one room now and we just don’t use it. They are bumping up prices too, so telling them to go screw themselves for that £5 a month will be enjoyable.

More often than not, we’re watching iPlayer, Netflix or Now TV. Otherwise, just freeview.

Occasionally there’s something on Amazon worth watching too (Vikings).

So many folk I know use IPTV, 40 quid for a year, everything you can handle. I’ve so far relented, but can see the attraction.

Hooky as ****, obviously, hey ho.

telly + streaming, but there’s no ability to record?

Yeah that’s one thing you have to get your head around, you don’t need to record, you stream on demand.

In answer to your question – no, I use it a lot and tried to go full streaming but it’s too fragmented, some devices will allow some apps, but not others etc.

In fairness whilst the UI is poor, NowTV works very well, stream live with ads, or wait and stream without, the time you need to wait varies from the moment it ends live, to 24 hours and oddly with some discovery stuff a week. This can be great, Game of Thrones for example aired at 1am on the morning of the release so I could stream it ad-free from 2am. Sky viewers could record it of course and ff the ads.

No what did was us was it proved to be impossible to get a decent freeview signal, iPlayer is great, but 4od is horrible, ITV player worse. So I’ve ended up with Virgin’s most basic TV package, plus NowTV (and Netflix).

you don’t need to record, you stream on demand

Unless the thing you want to stream is no longer available (we sometimes have TV series sitting on the box for a number of months before they’re watched, ditto films).

Also, recording is handy if you want to watch stuff a bit after it’s started. The Tour is a good example, we’ll often sit down to watch it about half seven, watching the first bit of the recording whilst the rest is, er, recording.

My major problem with NowTV (aside form the whole not-giving-money-to-Murdoch thing), is;

“A Sky spokeswoman exclusively told Pocket-lint that, after years of customer requests, the service is trialling 1080p video for both its live and on demand content: “Later this year we will be introducing the option of streaming Now TV both live and on demand in Full HD, with content from the likes of Sky Atlantic, Sky One and Sky Sports,” she said.”

In a world where the competitors have for years been offering 1080p at the absolute low end, all the way up to 4K HDR for a lot of content, that’s inexcusably piss-poor.

In a world where the competitors have for years been offering 1080p at the absolute low end, all the way up to 4K HDR for a lot of content, that’s inexcusably piss-poor.

Sky don’t want to cannibalise their own business. The end of dish-based tv is coming though, so they need to migrate / capture users without taking too much of a financial hit. It’s going to be interesting to see how/if they pull it off.

Hang on, so NowTV isn’t full HD? What the actual?

it looks HD enough to me. Watched Gomorrah last night on a our new crassly big OLED thing, NowTV via Chromecast, and instead of seeing low-level Neapolitan gangsters scuttling menacingly round alleyways, it now looks like a bunch of actors standing around and not always convincingly trying to look tough. Going to have to work on this suspension of disbelief thing.

Hang on, so NowTV isn’t full HD? What the actual?

Neither’s my TV. Curse you Panasonic and your unexpectedly reliable range of 2008 plasma sets!

Sky don’t want to cannibalise their own business. The end of dish-based tv is coming though, so they need to migrate / capture users without taking too much of a financial hit. It’s going to be interesting to see how/if they pull it off.

I understand their motives but they need to be realistic about who their competition is.

Taking a couple of *ahem* completely hypothetical situations;

a) Want to watch an occasional football match / F1 race on SkySports?;
1) NowTV – 720p at 25 fps, £9 for a day pass (Jesus, was £6 last time I looked!), Is morally dubious
2) IPTV – 1080p at 50 fps, ~£50 a year (for seemingly every channel on earth), Is morally dubious

b) Want to watch eg. Game of Thrones
1) NowTV – 720p, £8 for a month pass, Is morally dubious
2) Torrent – 1080p, free, Is morally dubious

Both options are morally dubious so might as well take the higher-quality, cheaper/free option.

Neither’s my TV. Curse you Panasonic and your unexpectedly reliable range of 2008 plasma sets!

Bloody hell my early 2000 Panasonic Plasma was even HD. It would still be going too I gave it to my younger  brother. He got rid of it as he’s smart metre revealed just how much juice they use.

Hang on, so NowTV isn’t full HD? What the actual?

I was one of the few on the trial, I think mine is still 1080, Sky for whatever reason (they cite the lack of decent bandwidth but that’s nonsense as it already scales) peg it at 720p, they had planned to upgrade to 1080 in 2018.

(it’s worth noting that Sky HD is only 1080i unless you have SkyQ which is only marginally better than 720p.)

Rumour has it that Sky will soon be changing it’s offerings across the board. They’re already trailing dish-less SkyQ as it’s more practical to transmit via the web.

It’s only a rumour but NowTV and Sky will be merging in some way/shape/form. It makes sense, all the money in Sky is the hardware and sat time, the stripped down Roko boxes sky put out for NowTV are £30 or so and are 4k capable (they just don’t use it) if they can get their Sky UI to work on it (or something a bit beefier) and integrate terrestrial channels and 4k for a fee somewhere between the two, I’d be a very happy customer.

it looks HD enough to me

specsavers…

maybe your OLED TV has a wonderful upscaler.

If the original material was made at a higher res then sometimes this makes the lower def broadcast material seem better/makes it easier for the upscaler to produce good results.

For instance some of the recent stuff on netflix and amazon is natively 4k but the 1080p feed seems really good and look good enough, with very little banding, on my VT65 plasma to reduce the need to ‘updrade’ to something with worse motion…

I had a quick trial of NowTV before the last season of GoT to see if it was acceptable, but it wasn’t.

specsavers…

fair

Bloody hell my early 2000 Panasonic Plasma was even HD

Mine’s 720p, so technically “HD” by the standards of the day. I don’t think they did 1080 in a 37″ panel.

It would still be going too I gave it to my younger brother. He got rid of it as he’s smart metre revealed just how much juice they use.

Nah, he just wanted a new TV. Until fairly recently there was only a trivial difference in real-world power consumption of plasma vs LED. It would take years to fund a new LED set from the power savings over the old plasma, and he’d probably have changed sets again before it paid off.

NowTV still needs an aerial in order to watch live tv. Otherwise you can only stream about 13 of the Sky channels (no BBC / ITV etc)

NowTV still needs an aerial in order to watch live tv. Otherwise you can only stream about 13 of the Sky channels (no BBC / ITV etc)

yeah but you stream those for free from iplayer, itv player, all4 etc etc. Jut a row of apps on the phone, or now on the bottom of the smart tv screen. We’ve not had an aerial for years and barely use the minimum cable package we do have.

Watched Gomorrah last night on a our new crassly big OLED thing

Pfft you stumped up for a big OLED TV but not for Sky Q so you could have watched Gomorrah in UHD? :p

I’m a bit concerned about what’s going to happen with all these new subscription services, Sky Q + Netflix is already more than I really want to pay (I have Prime to but that sort of pays for itself from shopping use). But soon we’ll have Apple’s and Disney’s channels as well? Gah. I’m discounting the BritBox thing as to me that’s pointless.

I can’t see them all being viable long-term but they all have massive funding so it could be a while before some fail and consumers benefit from merged services.

I can’t see them all being viable long-term but they all have massive funding so it could be a while before some fail and consumers benefit from merged services

Or reduced competition pushes the prices up

with streaming services the bitrate is far more important than the actual resolution anyway – most of the difference you see in bumping up between 1080p and 4k is due to the higher quality of encoding rather than actually driving each pixel individually. That said, 720p is pretty piss-poor these days

I use now tv, had enough of paying poor vfm for virgin media. Used too watch live TV but only stream non BBC channels. So don’t a license and don’t need broadband, as use 4g (three network) and tether to my monitor via chromecast. Which is OK, most of the time.