Gadgetory

sky has given its TV service a major revamp the latest addition is called Sky Q and right now we're going to take a look at the new interface so that you can see what you expect when you use a new service let's check it out so first let's take a look at the main TV Guide because this is really the bread and butter of the service this is what you guys be seeing the most so as you can see it's been given this iPad esque redesign so now instead of tabs across the top like old school sky you now get categories sorted into columns that stack over on the left side of the screen it looks a lot more modern and it feels very fresh let's take a look at the new remote so this home button here calls up that TV Guide you navigate using this touch sensitive pad here now this is quite clever because a quick directional swipe moves you one row down or up or left or right but if you slide and hold it'll keep moving on-screen so that makes it easier to quickly move a long way through menus basically everything has been given a fresh coat of paint sar only going to pick out a few new features but one is the new treatment of recordings so now you've got new ways to sort through the things that are actually stored and downloaded on the Sky box you can see your most recent downloads you can also sort by A to Z and a feature that I really like you can sort by size so if you're trying to clear a little bit of space on your box you can see which programs are hogging up all your capacity if I move down to sports another new feature I really like here is that you can organize by the actual sport you want to watch rather than by channel so if you're really interested in tennis you don't need to put up with all those other boring sports you can also see what's live so if all you're concerned with is watching some sport that's actually happening right now it's easier to get to that so I previously Sky hasn't been that big on personalization and recommendations but hopefully that's all going to change there's this new tab here called my cue if you tap into it it shows you things that you are halfway through watching so you can quickly get back to things do you are halfway through viewing this box also keeps track of all the programs that you've been watching and it will show you when next episodes of shows that you're interested in are ready to view on the recommendation side though what's really cool is this for you section now this basically shows you things that Sky reckons that you're going to like based on your viewing history there's a lot more internet infusion that there has been previously as well there's this whole new online video section which pulls in videos from YouTube has got this rather neat feel-good section which is essentially cat videos and there's more internet infusion as well in this new apps menu so if you press this button here on the remote you get this sidebar that slides in and it lets you do things like check sports results or the weather or the news one final nice to see is that if you're already watching live TV and you want to do a little bit of channel surfing to see what else is on you can now get this live picture in picture view of what's going on on other channels that's all for the interface tool for now but there's a lot more to see on sky cube so to check it out here to see Netcom