Sky Digital (UK & Ireland)
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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/2D) and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5°E.
BSkyB's analogue broadcasts ceased in 2001, so the service is now more commonly marketed as just Sky.
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[edit] History
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 the Republic of 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 ON 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, in recent years the Sky Plus (Sky+) was launched. This digital video recorder with internal hard drive 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 SkyHD receiver began appearing in magazines in August 2005. All SkyHD 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. The rest of the hard drive is now used by Sky Digital 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.
[edit] 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.
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 channels 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.
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'. The missing channels is quite 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 customers postcode location so when inserted into the users set-top box it selects which EPG is used as well as determining which regional variation of is allotted to the BBC One, BBC Two and ITV1 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.
[edit] EPG
All channels are pay-tv channels on Sky's "Sky World" package, unless stated.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- sky.com
- UKSatelliteHelp: Sky satellite dish set up guides, tools and software
- Free channels on Sky Digital
- Digital Spy: Sky News & Discussion Forums
- Free to air channels on Sky
- Sky Digi Online
- Massive online database of SKY Remote Codes
- LyngSat: 28 East satellite/transponder/channel/encryption list
- Sky Digital & British TV & Radio Overseas
