SYDNEY: FOXTEL has set March 23 as launch day for its hotly anticipated iQ3 set-top box. As US rival Netflix gears up to launch its movie streaming service on March 31, in what’s shaping as a cut throat competitive market for paid entertainment content.
The new iQ3 set-top-box has been under development for some years and combines broadcast derived programs and media streamed from the internet into one seamless experience.
The iQ3 extends the current ‘start over’ capability, where a viewer can go back to the beginning of a TV show that’s already started and watch it from scratch.
A new ‘look back’ feature lets users scroll backward through the programming guide up to 24 hours in the past and watch any show they have missed. It’s an example of how Foxtel says it has combined the live broadcast experience with IP streaming. Users would automatically be swapped to a streamed version of the program.
Should they be watching the start of a program that is still broadcasting at a later point, and make a decision to skip forward again, the iQ3 can automatically dump the streamed internet version and swap back to the live broadcast to save bandwidth usage.
The iQ3 includes intelligent discovery features that let subscribers know what’s trending, and offers suggestions based on what household members have viewed in the past.
The new box has both Ethernet and WiFi connectivity. The iQ3 has the ability to store 345 hours of standard definition recordings.
And its revamped remote control connects by Bluetooth rather than infrared. Viewers therefore don’t need a direct line of sight to the iQ3 to operate it. Foxtel is set to release pricing and more details on Monday.
