Sky+
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sky Plus, or Sky+ is a subscription personal video recorder (PVR) service for Sky Digital.
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. Launched in October 2001, Sky+ is the first and only PVR service on Sky Digital. However, similar services, such as Tivo, launched in mid-2000, in many other countries.
Its chief competitors in the UK market are the developing non-subscription PVR market, including Freeview Playback, and Virgin Media's V+, which has 3 tuners and a 160GB hard drive.
Critics have argued that it is too expensive and were unconvinced of the need for or reliability of the product. Indeed, take-up of the service was slow. However, as the price fell and awareness grew, the Sky+ roll-out accelerated. BSkyB spent upwards of £20 million advertising the new service. In 2004 Sky began to waive the service fee to customers who were subscribers of their premium sport and/or movie channels. Sky+ is also built into Sky HD digiboxes and PVR functionality comes free with a HD subscription.
As with the Tivo system, a number of hackers have attempted to improve the basic Sky+ unit, primarily through the installation of larger hard drives; instruction manuals and toolkits to do this are freely traded on Ebay. However, installing a larger hard drive in the unit is not harder than in a normal PC. Some users report problems with very large (360GB+) hard disks in operation of the Amstrad software; the most commonly reported issue is slowing of menu browsing.
Sky reported on 2nd January 2007 that over 2 million households now have a Sky+ box.[1]
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[edit] Technical information
- Combined digital satellite receiver/decorder and personal video recorder (PVR).
- Twin digital satellite tuners - Allows simultaneous recording/viewing or recording of 2 channels at once.
- The set-top box middleware is provided by OpenTV, but the EPG and all the software extensions that manage the PVR functions are produced by NDS under the name of XTV PVR.
- Sky+ has its own electronic programme guide (EPG) made by Sky. From here, users can see what programmes are on in the next seven days. The current EPG software version (as of November 2006) is Sky+ 4.20.a.
[edit] Versions
There are 3 versions of Sky+:
- Sky+ 40GB (Discontinued) - First Version of Sky+. An average of twenty hours recording time. Known internally at Sky as a PVR2
- Sky+ 80GB - Now officially and colloquially referred to as Sky+. Launched in September 2005 as standard Sky+ box, the box has an average of forty hours recording time. The drive has a 160GB hard drive installed, however half of this (80GB) is "reserved for use by BSkyB" - one such use is the forthcoming "sky anytime" service, which will download upto 40 hours of selected programmes automatically. Known internally at Sky as a PVR3 or Sky + 80/80.
- Sky+ 160GB (discontinued) - Sky+ 160 has an average of eighty hours recording time.[2] Sky+ 160 was manufactured by Thomson only.
Versions 1 and 2 were initially manufactured by Amstrad and Pace. Although both look similar, they have minor external differences (viewing card positions etc.) and significant internal differences. By December 2005, Sky+ 80GB boxes manufactured by Pace, Amstrad and Thomson were being installed. Many people have reported various problems with the different boxes. A persistent complaint is that early Amstrad 80GB models are noisy in operation. The Amstrad models also reportedly display a more jerky image when in 30x fast forward and rewind. According to many posters on DigitalSpy the Pace and Thomson variants are preferred. However, other posters maintain that the reliability of all makes is statistically similar and that there are good and bad boxes from all three manufacturers.
[edit] Sky+ remote
A typical Sky+ remote control is similar to a typical Sky Digital remote, but provides controls for the extra features, e.g. rewinding the programme, record, play or pause, fast forward and stopping playback of the programme. The Sky+ remote is silver coloured (like the set top box) rather than the dark blue of the normal Sky remote. The Sky+ remote uses entirely different codes to a standard Sky Digital remote control and so is, by default, incompatible with it. This is probably intentional, as some homes will have two subscriptions and would not want the risk of the controls operating the wrong equipment. However, the Sky+ handset can unofficially be programmed to control a digibox and indeed even Home A/V Centers and amplifiers.
[edit] Remote recording
In July 2006 Sky added remote recording functionality to Sky+ which 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 using an EPG similar to that found on the Sky+ system.
[edit] Sky Anytime TV service
On January 2, 2007, Sky announced plans to release a service, named Sky Anytime to Sky+ subscribers. The service will be a Push-Video on Demand (push-VoD) system similar to Top Up TV Anytime, where the Sky+ PVR automatically records programmes transmitted over-night.[3] The service, will be available to over 2 million Sky+ subscribers, using reserved space on the PVR's hard drive.
The service will work as a catch-up service for the best programmes of the week.[4] The service will launch some time in March 2007.[5]
[edit] References
- ^ "Sky+ Breaks Through 2 Million Mark" - Sky Press Release, 2nd January 2007
- ^ http://existing.sky.com/skyplus160.asp
- ^ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a42296/feature-sky-anytime-tv-preview.html
- ^ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds41231.html
- ^ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a42296/feature-sky-anytime-tv-preview.html
[edit] External links
- Sky.com
- Sky Plus Official Website
- How Sky+ works, animated feature
- Comprehensive list of sky remote control codes for tv's
- Instructions to fix the common Sky+ System fault
- Sky+ hard disk drive upgrade kits
- Everything Sky+ including how to upgrade the hard disk
- Free Copy+ software allowing you to copy your Sky+ hard disk to a new, upgraded one
- Sky+ Upgrade Guide
