TV Streaming Options Are Good News For Customers
From the moment that Sky TV launched in the United Kingdom, the ability to choose from more channels than you could possibly need became ever-present in all of our lives.
In the years since, not only has Sky developed further and the likes of Virgin Media come along to offer a sense of rivalry, but streaming has become so ubiquitous that punters have a world of choice around what to watch and how to watch it.
Now, the companies that make the likes of streaming boxes are looking to push things even further to ensure that those that want to stay away from the likes of Sky television will be able to do so without missing out.
How Sky Changed the TV Landscape
You need to go back to 1990 to really find the origins of the modern world of television. At that point, there were just four channels on domestic television, with Channel 5 not coming into being until seven years later.
Sky Television launched in 1989, whilst British Satellite Broadcasting launched in the March of the following year, both encrypting their channels to mean that viewers had to buy decoding equipment and a subscription in order to watch what they were offering. They merged in the November of 1990 to create BSkyB, or British Sky Broadcasting Limited, really taking off after winning the rights to show Premier League matches.
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Sky Multichannels was launched in the September of 1993, initially offering 15 analogue channels before growing to 40 and essentially being the predecessor to what we think of today as Sky’s television offering. When Sky Digital was launched at the start of October 1998, it effectively put a nail in the coffin of analogue television and began the move towards how we watch television in the modern era.
The likes of Virgin Media, BT TV and EE have all since launched their own platforms, but it was Sky that started the ball rolling on the way to allowing us all to watch whatever we want whenever we want to be able to watch it.
Streamers
If there is one thing that has looked to threaten the dominance of Sky in recent years, it is the proliferation of the various streaming services. Whilst Netflix is obviously the biggest one, everything from Disney Plus to HBO Max via Paramount Plus and Amazon Prime has moved the dial further and further away from requiring a subscription to a service such as Sky.
In fact, the broadcaster has moved to include a Netflix subscription with its base-level offering, whilst a new deal will see Disney Plus, Hayu and HBO Max also join the list of things that viewers can choose to watch without having to take out an individual subscription for each of them.
If you want to watch things online, of course, you don’t need a Sky package to be able to do so. Whether you want to pick up an Amazon Firestick, an Apple TV 4K device or a Google TV Streamer 4K, there are a wealth of different options available to you that can all do essentially the same thing.
Even the Nvidia Shield TV Pro, which is now several years old, is an option and one that many consider to be the best of the bunch. Whatever it is you’re hoping to spend your time watching, you simply need to get whichever streaming device you can afford and then ensure that you have the necessary subscriptions to start streaming whenever you feel like it.
New Humax Box Could Be Best of Both Worlds
Those that have looked to take advantage of Freeview in the past will no doubt have heard of Humax, which is a company that has produced any number of different boxes that have aimed to rival Sky for those that can’t afford to pay for a subscription. They have now released a new box that not only allows you to watch channels via digital tuners, but also make use of Freely.
If you aren’t aware, Freely is a free-to-air IPTV service that allows you to watch the five main broadcasters in the UK in both an on-demand and a live television manner. The Humax Aura EZ 4K TV Recorder is a hybrid box that promises the best of both worlds.
As well as being able to stream things, you can also watch one Freeview channel whilst recording up to four others at the same time. The box comes with a 2TB hard drive, allowing you to store up to 1,000 hours of recording, as well as supporting HDR10+ and Dolby Audio.
You can pause and rewind TV through the digital TV broadcasters, or connect it to the big catch-up services to allow you to watch something from the beginning if you’ve come in halfway through. The only major downside is that it doesn’t seem to have any of the streaming apps available, but given the fact that you can get them via other means, it is unlikely to be a dealbreaker.