Sky sees other platforms as experiments for new tech

A great way to test out new features before bringing them back to TV

Sky has told Pocket-lint that it loves putting its service on new devices like the Xbox 360 as it allows the company to experiment with what’s possible without upsetting its core TV customers.

“We aren’t precious about content, we are just precious about making sure that it’s going to an audience that want to view it. And we can make it a good Sky experience”, Brian Lenz, Sky’s director of TV products, explains to Pocket-lint.

“We are interested in moving on to other platforms for the opportunity to learn which things are actually going to turn into mass market opportunities, and which things we should be thinking about bringing on to the main TV experience”.

“If we experiment there, the consequences aren’t so severe. The audience is used to experimenting. When you come back to TV people are creatures of habit”.

Lenz uses the example of speed and how it can have a massive affect on people’s experience.

“When you turn on the TV, your expectations of how it performs, how quickly it loads, how quickly it changes channel, how quickly information is presented, is entirely different to how you perceive the web. Web performance is unacceptable for the TV for the average viewer”.

“If we allow channel change to exceed beyond half a second, customers go crazy. However, they are more than happy to think if a webpage is blazingly fast when it loads in 3 seconds, or wait 5 seconds for a video to start streaming”.

But let’s not forget that these platforms are great opportunities for reaching new customers or giving existing customers new ways of watching Sky on other devices in their home, says Lenz.

“We still believe the satellite platform that we have is where we need to stay focused, and because of that we are going to keep on bringing out new things and experimenting in new ways. We haven’t slowed down”.

Tags: Home Cinema Sky Xbox 360 Sky Player

Sky sees other platforms as experiments for new tech originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:55:00 +0000

KEY JDS UNIPHASE JDA SOFTWARE GROUP JACK HENRY and ASSOCIATES IXYS