So now that we’ve had Shaw BlueSky TV in our home for awhile, we’ve gotten used to – and spoiled – by the numerous features the system offers. There are so many great things about BlueSky TV but I managed to round up my top 10.
Auto-Extend
Raise your hand if you’ve recorded a live hockey, baseball, football or basketball game only to find out that the last five or 10 minutes have been cut off. With Auto-Extend, once you’ve set up your game to record, it automatically continues to record even when it’s past the scheduled end-time.
Voice Remote
You can ask the BlueSky voice remote a question (What’s Trending?), command it to your regular news show, ask it to take you to movies (or movies starring a particular movie star) and more with this unique feature. Just hold down the blue microphone button on the remote and tell the remote what you’re looking for.
Saved Menu
Everything you’ve saved during TV-watching sessions, including recorded shows, scheduled recordings, favourites and recommended content is neatly stored in one area. Think of it as a feature-rich upgrade to your list of your PVR recordings.
Rotten Tomatoes
Movies with built-in Rotten Tomatoes scores is kinda awesome. It saves us the extra step of going online to find out whether a movie’s worth watching or not.
Hot Keys
The Shaw BlueSky TV remote has four buttons (A, B, C and D) programmed as Hot Keys:
– A button opens the Help menu
– B button toggles a small screen displaying what you were watching in the guide
– C opens the Sports app
– D is the fast-delete button
[Found a show you like? Watch it from the very start!]
Restart Now
So you’ve found a movie or show to watch but it’s halfway through. No problem. This handy feature will restart a program already in progress by accessing the title on-demand. It’s worth noting that the Restart Now option only appears when a title is available in the on-demand store.
Next (On-demand or recorded series)
Another handy time-saver: skip right to the next episode of a series by pressing the down arrow during playback, then ‘Next’.
Multiple Guide View
You can set up BlueSky TV via the Preferences > General menu to show a default guide view format. Want to see another Guide view? Press “Guide” twice to see multiple guide options from Favourite channels, to Trending, to Sports or Kids.
While watching TV (whether live, recorded or on-demand), access the mini guide by clicking the right arrow on the remote. This allows you to see what’s going on or coming up while keeping an eye on your main content.
Sports App
As I mentioned in my last post, the sports app gives you access to live scores of games in progress, games coming up and coverage of games you’re not watching. Via the C button, the app opens up to reveal menus that open to show player stats and all kinds of info on your favourite teams.
Once you’ve built up a menu with your favourite sports teams, they’ll appear off to the side every time you press the C hot key. We really like the intuitive approach when selecting many of the functions across the board, however Sports App has the most features of them all!
Recommendations
You can ask the remote what to watch, what’s trending, what others have watched and view featured on-demand content. We’ve discovered (and scheduled) new shows to watch just playing around with the menus this way! Visit Shaw online for pricing and packages in your area.
This post produced in partnership with Shaw Communications Inc.