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I have managed to get my hands on the new Xbox 360 Sky player, the UK’s version of Netflix but with the additional bonus of live TV. I know many of you have a lot of question’s about this new service and with this article i hope to answer most of them.

The Costs

First you will need an Xbox Live Gold Subscription, Sky TV subscription and either Sky Multi room or a Sky Broadband Unlimited package. If you don’t have any of these you will sadly have to pay a small fee of £9.75. The price is a bit steep but if you really want to watch movies and live TV in your bedroom without getting another Sky TV box the tenner seems kind of worth it.

Live Movies and On Demand movies are free as long as you have the movie subscription on your existing Sky TV package. On the other hand i found that most of the big TV shows cost £0.98 to rent and cannot be viewed for free even when you have all the entertainment packages Sky offer. This is a bit of a disappointment to me but i guess this is how they are going to keep the service running or they cannot allow the TV shows to be shown for free outside the actual TV network due to licencing reasons.

The Interface

As you would expect the Sky Player uses the same interface as the rest of the Xbox 360 dashboard which means anyone who is familiar with navigating the Xbox Live marketplace will find navigating the Sky Players sections very easy to use. The onscreen menus and TV guide look very familiar to the set top box interface which i think is a a nice little touch for especially for the older people out there who are not at one with all this new tech, like my parents.

Live TV

There are 38 channels including two movie channels, Sky Sports 1,2 and 3 and even MTV. The real draw to the new service is the fact that 24 of the 38 channels support live streaming which means you can watch the big match live in your bedroom without the need for another Sky box.

When i ran the TV feature last night i encountered no lag whatsoever and the picture quality was very good,even when i viewed it on my HDTV. HD buffs will not be that happy with the video quality but for a SD streaming service i would say the quality was really good. As i said earlier there is a onscreen TV guide included with the Sky player and this works as well as it does on a Sky TV box. All you have to do to bring up the guide is hit the up button on the Xbox 360 controller d-pad. The menu itself is really simple to use as well the navigation is as easy as flicking the Xbox controllers analogue stick left or right to see whats coming on next or what you may have missed that day

Overall the selection of live TV stations and quality of streaming really impressed me but i have a little waring for people thinking this will be the exact same as watching it on TV. I noticed that some programmes were not available on Sky player, most of these were MTV shows so i guess there are still licencing deals to be made for these programmes but with the other stuff on offer i can safely say you wont miss stuff because of licencing issues.

On Demand

This will probably be Sky Players most popular feature. This allows you to watch a huge amount of movies and tv shows at anytime you so please. The movie library currently at around 400 movies with more probably being added in due time. The list of movies on offer range from new movies like Tropic Thunder and classic movies like The Running Man. As for TV shows, they consist of shows from Sky 1, Sky News,The History Channel and others. You can even watch stuff on demand from Sky Sports and ESPN.

The quality of the streams in the on demand section seem pretty similar to the Live TV section with each movie/TV show only buffering for a few second at the beginning of the TV show/Movie.

Xbox Live Integration

This is another great aspect of the new Sky Player. This allows you and a few friends to watch practically anything together in a specially designed home cinema room. You can set it so you can see the Xbox Live avatars enjoying the movie you and your friends are watching or have it set to a full screen mode with you and your friends able to talk to each other using the Xbox 360 headset.

As with the Netflix feature in America you and your friends will all need to have Xbox Live gold accounts and valid Sky TV subscriptions. As far as i know there are no plans for guests with no Sky or Gold accounts to be allowed to watch stuff in the Sky Player. So that one of your friends without Sky is going to have a lonely night in COD 4 while you all watch that big derby match on Sky Sports.

My Verdict

Overall the Sky Player is a great addition to the Xbox Live network as long as you have the movie and sports packages on your Sky Subscription. If not it could be a bit more expensive than you hoped just to watch some movies or that football game in your bedroom. The paid TV shows are also a little bit of a downer but i am guessing that Sky have been forced to charge for these shows by the people that actually make them.

Along with my impressions you can see the Sky Player in action below.

Written By James

Fight and you may die. Run, and you'll live... at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!

1. Richard Bailey says:

   October 28, 2009 at 11:38 pm

   This look like a great addition to LIVE… Definately makes me jealous there isn’t something similar over here in the US

   Reply