Sky is to offer its newly branded bundled broadband, telephone and digital terrestrial television services through a new generation of digital set-top boxes.
The Picnic service will give customers a choice of services and is a step towards delivery of TV content onto PCs.
The new set-top boxes will help to lead future innovations on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform such as the adoption of MPEG-4 compression standards, which allow viewers to benefit from an increased choice of channels.
Customers will access the Picnic TV service through 3 MPEG-2 video streams but, subject to approval by Ofcom, Picnic aims to move to MPEG-4 and add a fourth channel dedicated to Sky News.
The Picnic compatible boxes will be produced by multiple manufacturers and sold by a variety of retailers.
Manufacturers will be responsible for the specification of their boxes and will decide which additional features to include, such as programme recording functionality or the ability to receive pay-TV services from other providers.
Post your comment
Send an email to the Computing editor at feedback@computing.co.uk
del.icio.us
digg this
reddit!
Onboard web service due to arrive in 2007 is behind schedule 21 Aug 2008
The British Computer Society will conduct an independent review of NHS IT policy 21 Aug 2008
Better public sector data sharing would provide all the necessary information, says think tank 21 Aug 2008
More news
Privacy fears over directive that will allow organisations to view emails, texts and web use 21 Aug 2008
Firms recognise need for IT – but staff must keep skills up to date 20 Aug 2008
Transport for London cuts its ties with the TranSys consortium and begins plans for its replacement 21 Aug 2008 More in depth
Advertising Marketplace
- Enterprise Accounting Solutions
- Business Intelligence Solutions
- Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
- Supply Chain Management
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Project Management Solutions
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Security Solutions
- Systems Management
- Networking and Communications Solutions
Featured jobs
More job opportunities