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Posted By: MattLFC Sky Planning A Picnic - 4th Oct 2007 3:01pm
Originally Posted by Digital Spy
Sky has gone public with detailed plans of its proposed pay TV offering on digital terrestrial television.

The move comes shortly before Ofcom's planned public consultation on Sky's proposal to replace its free channels - including Sky News - on digital terrestrial with pay services.

The service, were it to be approved by Ofcom, would be called Picnic and would initially offer three MPEG-2 streams, which at different times of day would carry Sky Sports 1, Sky Movies, Sky One, a children's channel and a factual channel. Sky is also seeking Ofcom approval to move to the newer MPEG-4 compression standard; if approved, Sky would then offer a fourth channel broadcasting Sky News on a 24 hour basis.

Sky plans to work with multiple manufacturers - at launch, primarily Sagem - to offer Picnic boxes that would be capable of receiving both MPEG-4 and existing MPEG-2 channels.

FINALLY!! Someone in the DTT market HAS SENSE!! MPEG4 is deffo the way forward for DTT, upto now companies have been too scared to embrace the technology, but I think Sky would not only make it work, but also cause other broadcasters to follow suit.

I think Picnic would be great, and if it were cheap enough (say around £10 a month excluding the broadband) and they showed all the Premiership matched on SS1, id probably actually get it, instead of spending the £40 a month I currently do on Sky TV.

I only really have Sky now for Sky+ and the football, but with the advent of new resources like the BBC iPlayer and ITV.com alongside UK Nova, i think the Sky+ box has its days numbered in my household if this service shows all the Premiership games and I get to keep my Sky Broadband package.

smile

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