Starting today Sky+HD boxes are going to see their third update of the year, adding some new functionality specifically to the Sky Movies channels.
After the BBC announced its iPlayer update with new Live Restart feature for its device applications, Sky has come in with its own Watch from Start. It's a simple little feature that gives you an instant download for a movie that's already playing on one of the Sky Movies channels.
Just click the green button to start the download when the prompt pops up and the box will do its downloading magic. You also get the choice of whether to download in SD or HD, depending on what's available.
The download will then start in the background, allowing you to keep channel surfing, then once there's enough of a buffer downloaded another prompt will appear offering to take you directly to the start of your film.
Obviously how long that takes will depend on your broadband connection.
It's arguably even more important for Sky Movies to have this feature - we've skipped over so many films we would otherwise have watched there and then, but for the fact we'd missed the first twenty minutes or so.
Sky is also introducing a personalised library function with the Watchlist.
When you're scrolling through the broad movie selection on your Sky+HD box you will now be able to highlight a film and click the green button on your remote to add it to your Watchlist.
No longer will you feel the sting of choice paralysis every time you want to settle down and watch a film as you can keep your own curated list up to date.
And, speaking of curation, Sky is also introducing a new More Like This feature recommending movie suggestions based on a single film you've got selected. These are based on the existing program tags Sky attaches to its content.
Not appearing in this update, but coming later in the year, Sky is also adding Rotten Tomatoes Audience Scores as star ratings for the wealth of films available on its movie channels.
"This is just the latest in a series of enhancements we're rolling out every few months to make sure Sky+ continues to make TV watching a brilliant experience in homes up and down the country," said Luke Bradley-Jones, Director of TV Products at Sky. "The pace at which we're developing for Sky+ has never been quicker - so customers can look forward to more updates later this year and into 2016."
At the moment these features are going to be added to Sky Movies on the Sky+HD boxes, with no plans as yet for them to make the move over to the channels on either Sky Go or NOW TV.
