It looks like Sky and Microsoft have put the Media Center Sky Player service live. I noticed that the coming soon line on the Sky Player had gone and that I could install the application. As well as the TV addin there is also a Sky Movies icon in the Movies strip. You need to register to watch the content, if your a sky subscriber you get automatic access to lots of the content and if your not you can pay a monthly fee or purchase individual shows.
As I don’t pay for Sky and am not about to this is as far as I could test it, so here are a select of screen shots and if you are a subscriber give it a test and let me know how you get on with it
Back in the UK for this weeks show. Andrew was away ... 
Better late than never, a special show for you this ... 
Garry and Andrew are back and we talk over the ... 
This week Garry and Andrew were busy so Jason Coombes ... 
Giving it a go now, currently I can only watch on-demand content as I don’t have Sky broadband or multiroom which would enable the live tv options (although I can add sky player multiroom for £5 per month), so far I’m impressed with the quality of the user interface, very slick and feels like a part of Media Center.
Just started watching the film Twilight, didn’t appear to do much buffering before it started playing and the picture quality seems reasonable so far although it looks like I’m having a little minor stuttering which could be related to everyone installing and trying it (I have a 20MB cable connection so I expect it should be able to cope).
My only minor gripes so far is that to setup the HTPC as the main viewing device I had to do that on the Sky website and it automatically dropped out of MC and loaded the browser to do that, but I guess this isn’t a regular occurence.
The other minor issue is that it uses Silverlight as the video player which means you don’t get the standard MC playback controls but not a biggy as the remote works just fine, well play and pause do!
I should point out as well that I’m a long time MediaPortal user, haven’t used MediaCenter for about 3 years since MCE2005, with the release of Win7 and knowing that Sky Player was coming to the platform, well that made me want to come back and have another look.
Quiero Sky porque me gusta de el.
What’s the URL to download the Sky Player add-in? Anyone using a HTTP sniffer ?
Thanks
Gave this a go. Hmm strange audio stuttering , video plays fine , but the audio isnt working properly.
More fiddling needed, might be a silverlight issue….
Not sure whether there is a URL to download the add-in, it just appeared in the Movies and TV strip last night and when selected it I was able to install it.
It prompted me to update Silverlight when I installed, I think from 2 to version 3, this was on a fresh Win7 install.
I ended up watching the whole of Twilight last night, experience was pretty good, had one point where it stopped and said buffering but didn’t do anything, had to go back slightly in the stream and then it worked fine, but that did highlight that you can’t rewind/fast-forward or skip through the movie using the remote, you have to use the mouse to select your seek point in the info panel which is a pain.
I decided to give the Sky Player Multiroom a go as well as it’s only £5 per month and you pay for one month at a time meaning that I can cancel after the first month if I wish.
Live TV works surprisingly well, with channel changes being fairly quick, hit channel up on the remote and the current stream will stop, you’ll get a couple of messages saying ‘connecting’, ‘authorising’ etc. followed by buffering and then the stream will start, overall it probably takes 3-4 seconds to change channel (my perception anyway as I haven’t timed it) which is quite impressive.
Had a browse through some more of the on-demand content as well, was initially pleased with the selection of shows, such as most seasons of 24 but upon trying to watch I then realised it’s payed for content at £1.47 a show, which is a little annoying considering they repeat most of these on Sky1/2/3 on a regular basis and at that price I’m not likely to impulse buy when I have other options, 50-99p per episode would be my preferred price point.
Still impressed though and means I’ll be giving MediaCenter an extended run as my main HTPC app.
UPDATE :
The stuttering and clicks on the sky player are indeed a silverlight issue. However it seems tied to how silverlight works with the XONAR D2 card in my system.
For anyone suffering the same issue , have a peek at this :
http://www.overclock.net/sound-cards-computer-audio/487993-fix-asus-xonar-silverlight-stuttering-static.html
UPDATE:
The stuttering and clicking i had with the Sky Player was indeed a silverlight issue. It seems silverlight isnt fond of my XONAR D2 sound card.
This like has the solution for those with the same issue :
http://www.overclock.net/sound-cards-computer-audio/487993-fix-asus-xonar-silverlight-stuttering-static.html