| About Sky |
Sky Digital is the brand name for British Sky Broadcasting's digital satellite television service, transmitted from SES Astra satellites located at 28.2°E (Astra 2A/2B/2C/2D) and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5°E.
With over 9 million subscribers, Sky delivers more than 200 channels of programming to homes and businesses that have digital satellite equipment supplied by Sky; this equipment includes a small satellite dish (minidish), a Sky box (a digital satellite receiver) and a remote control.
There are currently three types of receiver available from Sky, the basic digital receiver, Sky+, which will enable you to record and store programmes and Sky+HD, which will which is also a PVR and will allow you to view High Definition (HD) channels available on Sky.
Sky also offers packages that include broadband services, interactive content and has the largest HD offering in the UK and Ireland. |
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| For information and prices on the various Sky packages, visit Sky at www.sky.com. |
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| History of Sky Television |
Sky Digital was officially launched on 1 October 1998, although small-scale tests were carried out before then. For the first time, BSkyB used the newly-launched Astra 2 satellites, which have since come to broadcast exclusively to the United Kingdom and Ireland. At this time the use of the Sky Digital brand made an important distinction between the new service and Sky's analogue services. Key selling points were the improvement in picture and sound quality, increased number of channels and an interactive service branded Open..... Sky Digital competed with the ONdigital (later ITV Digital) terrestrial offering.
New Astra satellites joined the position in 2000, and the number of channels available to customers increased accordingly. This trend continued with the launch of Eurobird 1 in 2001.
Originally Sky Digital launched with a set top box known as the Sky digibox, however, in more recent years the Sky+ and Sky+ HD boxes have launched alongside the original box.
Sky+ is a digital video recorder with an internal hard drive which allows viewers to 'pause live television' (by switching from a live feed to a paused real-time recording that can be restarted at any point) and schedule programs to record in the future.
Sky launched HDTV services in May 2006. The first photos of a prototype Sky HD receiver began appearing in magazines in August 2005. All Sky+ HD receivers incorporate a version of Sky Plus using a 300GB hard drive (of which 160GB is available to the user) to accommodate the necessary extra data. |
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| The rest of the hard drive is now used by Sky set top boxes to store up to 30 hours of Anytime TV from the previous week. |
| Additionally, some channels occasionally receive new numbering — However, in early 2006, the majority of channels received new numbering, with some receiving single digit changes, whilst others received new numbers entirely. |
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| Technical Information |
| Sky Digital's standard definition broadcasts are in DVB-compliant MPEG-2, with the Sky Movies and Sky Box Office channels including optional Dolby Digital soundtracks for recent films, although these are only accessible with a Sky+ box. Sky+ HD material is broadcast using MPEG-4. Interactive services and 7-day EPG use the proprietary OpenTV system, with set-top boxes including modems for a return path. Sky News, amongst other channels, provides a pseudo-video on demand interactive service by broadcasting looping video streams. |
Provided a universal Ku band LNB (9.75/10.600GHz) is fitted at the end of the dish and pointed at the correct satellite constellation, most digital receivers will receive the free to air channels. Some broadcasts are free-to-air and unencrypted, some are encrypted but do not require a monthly subscription (known as free-to-view), some are encrypted and require a monthly subscription, and some are pay-per-view services.
To view the encrypted content a Videoguard UK equipped receiver (all of which are dedicated to the Sky Digital service, and cannot be used to decrypt other services) needs to be used.
Unofficial CAMs are now available to view the service, although use of them breaks the user's contract with Sky and invalidates the user's rights to use the card.
A Dragon CAM can be used with a Sky Card, however you still need to put it into a connected Sky receiver every few weeks, allowing the card to receive the 'keep alive' signals. Of all the non-Sky branded receivers, only the Dreambox (with the right software) can receive and action on these 'keep alive' signals. |
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| BSkyB has no veto over the presence of channels on their EPG, with open access being an enforced part of their operating licence from Ofcom. Any channel which can get carriage on a suitable beam of a satellite at 28 East is entitled to access to Sky's EPG for a fee, ranging from £15-100,000. Third-party channels which opt for encryption receive discounts ranging from reduced price to free EPG entries, free carriage on a Sky leased transponder, or actual payment for being carried. However, even in this case, Sky does not carry any control over the channel's content or carriage issues such as picture quality. Recent years have seen the launch of numerous low-budget channels, including foreign and shopping channels, often with very poor technical quality. |
Sky has stopped taking channel launch applications for its Electronic Programme Guide (EPG). Ofcom has said that this will give existing channels an unfair advantage and may force Sky to replace older set-top boxes for customers with the newer ones.
Due to either limited regional availability of certain channels, or conditions relating to their must-carry status, Sky operate four regional variations of their EPG for domestic customers. The four different EPGs transmitted are: Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England/Scotland. The Northern Irish EPG has the most listed channels, with the Republic of Ireland having the least, the difference is major as Five and BBC Radio are missing. Much of the missing content for Irish viewers is available through 'Other Channels' but Sky + viewers cannot record from 'Other Channels'. |
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These missing channels are a bone of contention for Irish viewers, who are often forced to seek out Grey market UK Sky cards if they want the missing channels. Each viewing card or smartcard provided by Sky is programmed with the customer's postcode, so when inserted into the user's set-top box it selects which EPG is used, as well as determining which regional variation is allotted to the BBC One, BBC Two and ITV channels for users of the England/Scotland EPG.
Following a disagreement with the BBC after the launch of Sky Digital, all regional variations of BBC One and BBC Two are available to all UK viewers on channels 971-992.
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| Sky+ |
Sky+, or Sky Plus, is a personal video recorder (PVR) service for Sky Digital, was invented by Hollie White. It is very similar - in principle - to the TiVo service. Launched in September 2001, Sky+ allows the user to record, pause and instantly rewind live TV. The system performs these functions using an internal hard drive inside the Sky+ set top box. Its chief competitors in the UK market are the Freeview+ PVR, BT Vision, and Virgin Media's V+, which has 3 tuners, a 160 GB hard drive and HDMI output. In the Republic of Ireland, Sky+ competes with UPC's Digital+ box which offers 160GB or 250GB of storage. As of 30 September 2009, there were 5.9 million customers with Sky+.
The £10 per month subscription fee was discontinued for subscribers from 1 July 2007, but will continue for Freesat from Sky use. |
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| In July 2006 Sky added remote recording functionality to Sky+ in the UK and Ireland. This enables customers to schedule recordings when they are away from home via a mobile telephone. Programmes can be added to the planner either by downloading an application to the mobile phone, called 'Sky By Mobile', or by sending as SMS with details of the programme name, time, date and channel. In February 2007, Sky added remote recording via the sky.com website, so customers can program their STB from any web browser (except Chrome) using an EPG similar to that found on the Sky+ system. |
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| Sky+ HD |
| Sky+ HD is the brand name of the HDTV service launched by BSkyB on 22 May 2006 in the United Kingdom and Ireland to enable high definition channels on Sky Digital to be viewed. For the first 2 years after launch, the service was branded Sky HD. The service requires the user to have a Sky+ HD Digibox and an HD ready TV. Customers who pre-ordered by paying a deposit before 6 April 2006 were the first to receive the service, with installations starting on 21 May 2006. On 23 October 2009, Sky announced that the total number of homes with Sky+HD currently stands at 1.6m. |
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A number of FTA HD channels are available which do not require a subscription, only an HD capable digibox such as the Sky+ HD box.
BBC HD and Luxe.tv HD are broadcast free to air, and Channel 4 HD broadcasts free to view, requiring only a viewing card but no subscription. ITV1 HD recently launched on 2 April 2010 in England and Wales, and can also be viewed without a HD subscription, although viewers in some regions may require a viewing card. (Viewers in Scotland and Ireland, or viewers without viewing cards, can manually tune in the channel via the 'Other Channels' function.) Five announced on 17 March 2010 that Five HD would be added to the Sky platform in July 2010. |
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