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Dual Recording - The Early Days
By Callum MacFarlane | 26th July 2003
Get ready for the "killer feature"... In the early days of Sky+, late 2001, the Killer Feature of Dual Recording was well recognised as being the key to future success of Sky+. Sky could have quite easily put together a working Dual Record system for Sky+ and released it to the "early adopters", perhaps giving a kick start to the fledgling Personal Video Recorder (PVR) market. The reason that Dual Recording didn't quickly hit the street, owes more to Sky's professionalism and user testing, than purely commercial considerations. As can be seen from the research Sky carried out back then, the options were not quite as straight forward as people imagine. An initial customer focus group highlighted different needs according to how Sky + is used - see slide below:
The needs of both parties are obviously being considered, how will they be catered for? We'll have to see when Dual Recording is released, speculatively this August. One hopes that people realise that any issues of live pause is in reality immaterial because the full recording of that programme will be in the planner. And it certainly won't affect the live pausing of a previously recorded programme. So what is likely to happen when Sky+ is scheduled to record 2 programmes at the same time and a person sits down to watch a 3rd programme unaware that 2 programmes are about to be recorded at the same time; Answer: a "3rd Channel Clash" warning prompt screen will appear, see example below:
The potential for family members to go around deleting whatever they want seems great, but may be you will be able to PIN protect the Dual Records so that children for example can't come along and override your Dual Recording. Interestingly, in this early example, you are given the choice of cancelling either tuner's scheduled recording, even if it's underway. The other occasion when you get "carried away" and add in a 3rd simultaneous programme to be recorded, has it's own warning screens, which at the time of the writing of the Sky+ Report Sky were looking at conventional and non conventional ways of dealing with an attempt to record a 3rd programme. See example below:
The first option looks better and seems to make more sense. And as evidenced by software upgrades to date, Sky do like to stick to consistent formats when upgrading Sky+. So dear Sky+ user, has that whetted your appetite for Dual Recording? Well there isn't long to wait now until you can use the new system for yourself. Just remember, these these screenshots and thinking behind them are not recent, and screen design and thought processes may have changed or been refined, but at least now you can see, for the first time, how a Dual Recording system on Sky+ might actually work and feasibly what it may look like. Enjoy Dual Recording when it comes - we at Plusworld believe it will have been well worth the wait. And of course you will be able to catch all the latest screen shots and news on Dual Recording when it's released HERE at the only dedicated Sky+ site on the web. Do you have any opinions on Dual Recording? Join in the discussion of Dual Recording on Sky+ at the Digital Spy forum here |
| Sky Box Office Movies On Demand | Credit Where Credit Is Due | ||
| Series Links don't link... | Lack of Dual Recording Causes Clashes |
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