Another step towards converged media and TV delivered to the PC

Sky is to offer its newly branded bundled broadband, telephone and digital terrestrial television services through a new generation of digital set-top boxes.

The Picnic service will give customers a choice of services and is a step towards delivery of TV content onto PCs.

The new set-top boxes will help to lead future innovations on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform such as the adoption of MPEG-4 compression standards, which allow viewers to benefit from an increased choice of channels.

Customers will access the Picnic TV service through 3 MPEG-2 video streams but, subject to approval by Ofcom, Picnic aims to move to MPEG-4 and add a fourth channel dedicated to Sky News.

The Picnic compatible boxes will be produced by multiple manufacturers and sold by a variety of retailers.

Manufacturers will be responsible for the specification of their boxes and will decide which additional features to include, such as programme recording functionality or the ability to receive pay-TV services from other providers.