British broadcaster Sky launches Sky Q-- a new brand of "next-generation home entertainment system" covering multiple hardware devices promising "a whole new way of watching TV."
The Sky Q system is incompatible with previous Sky offerings (namely Sky+ and Now TV). All products feature wireless connectivity, viewing of live, recorded and on-demand content on TVs or tablets (an experience Sky calls "Fluid Viewing") and even connection to online video services such as YouTube and Vevo.
It features multiple devices, with the main being the Sky Q Silver-- an STB featuring a 2TB HDD and 12 tuners able to simultaneously record 4 channels. Connectivity comes through 2 F-connectors, 2 USBs, HDMI out, HDMI input (not enabled at launch), wifi and ethernet, and the STB supports streaming to 2 tablets and 2 Sky Q Mini STBs.
Also available is a regular Sky Q STB with 1TB of storage, 8 TV tuners and support for 1 tablet and 1 Sky Q Mini STB.
Customers wanting to access Sky Q in a second room without running cables from the satellite dish can get the Sky Q Mini-- a smaller client streaming live content from the main Silver STB together with access with recordings resident on the box.
Control for all the Sky Q boxes comes through a remote complete with touchscreen, Bluetooth connectivity and built-in microphone.
Sky also provides a networking solution with the Sky Q Hub, a router connecting to all Sky Q STBs in the home via Powerline and wifi. It also turns Sky Q STBs into wifi hotspots to provide customers with better signal coverage throughout the home. Meanwhile mobile device users get a Sky Q app for tablet access of Sky Q content.
The Sky Q system will be available in the UK and Ireland sometime in Q1 2016. It does not feature 4K/UHD compatibility on launch, but will be able to handle a Sky UHD service launching sometime later in 2016.