Sky+

Sky+, or Sky Plus, is a personal video recorder (PVR) service for Sky Digital. 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 developing non-subscription PVR market, including Freeview Playback, and Virgin Media's V+, which has 3 tuners and a 160 GB hard drive. Sky reported on 2 January 2007 that over 2 million households now have a Sky+ box.

The £10 per month subscription fee was discontinued for subscribers from 1 July 2007, but will continue for Freesat from Sky use.

Technical information

• Combined digital satellite receiver/decoder 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 made by Sky. From here, users can see what programmes are on in the next seven days. The current EPG software version (as of May 2007) is Sky+ 5.02.f.

Versions

There are 3 versions of Sky+:

• Sky+ 40 GB (Discontinued) – First Version of Sky+. An average of twenty hours recording time. The first generation of boxes (referred to as a PVR1s within Sky) were manufactured exclusively by Pace for the UK Market. The second generation of 40 GB boxes (referred to as PVR2s), were manufactured by both Amstrad and Pace.
• Sky+ 160 GB (Discontinued) – Sky+ 160 has an average of eighty hours recording time. Sky+ 160 was manufactured by Thomson only for the UK market.
• Sky+ 80 GB – Now officially and colloquially referred to as Sky+, this third generation of box (PVR3) are manufactured by Altech UEC, Pace, Amstrad and Thomson. Launched in September 2005 as standard Sky+ box, the box has an average of forty hours recording time. The drive has a 160 GB hard drive installed, however half of this (80 GB) is "reserved for use by the Sky Anytime TV service". The box is known internally at Sky as a PVR3 or Sky + 80/80.

Although the different generations of Sky+ box look similar, they have minor external differences (viewing card positions etc.) and significant internal differences. By December 2005, Sky+ 80 GB 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 80 GB 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.

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. From July 2007, All Sky+ remotes (Version 10 onwards) will have blue buttons, rather than the standard green. Sky HD remotes can also be configured to work Sky+ boxes, though configuring then to control a TV set still requires HD code numbers.

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.

Sky Anytime TV service

Main article: Sky Anytime

On January 2, 2007, Sky announced plans to release a service, named Sky Anytime to Sky+ subscribers. The service is a Push-Video on Demand (push-VoD) system similar to Top Up TV Anytime, where the Sky+ PVR automatically records programmes transmitted over-night. The service, will be available to over 2 million Sky+ subscribers, using reserved space on the PVR's hard drive.

The service works as a catch-up service for the best programmes of the week. The service was to launch some time in March 2007, however it is currently only available to owners of Sky HD and some Sky+ boxes. The release date for the latest Sky+ boxes manufactured by Thompson was 2 June 2007.

Although many Sky+ and Sky HD boxes have half of their hard drive capacity saved for Anytime content, the service is only available on Sky HD and recent Sky+ boxes, meaning that some boxes with reserved hard drive space will be useless.

Other Countries

Altech UEC based in South Africa, are the exclusive manufacturers of the Sky+ box Sky Digital Plus in Latin America. Currently the Sky+ box is the second generation PVR with a 160GB HDD as a standard and proven to be a very stable PVR. The first generation (discontinued) had some minor problems that have been addressed and fixed on the second generation.

File:Pvr831la.jpg

Criticism

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.

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. Installing a larger hard drive in the unit is not harder than in a normal PC, but the Sky+ receiver is sensitive to the type of disk installed. Disks with low power requirements and fast spin up times are most likely to be compatible. Some users report problems with very large (360 GB+) hard disks in operation of the Amstrad software; the most commonly reported issue is slowing of menu browsing.

Software even exists to allow owners to copy recordings from their old disk to a new one. Copy+ is a freeware application for Windows XP and Windows Vista owners that will you to transfer and backup recordings. The software even works around a bug in the Sky software that can limit the disk capacity.

External links

• Sky Plus at sky.com

• Sky Brazil at sky.com.br
• Sky Mexico at sky.com.mx
• How Sky+ works, animated feature
• Everything Sky+ including how to upgrade the hard disk
• Free Copy+ software allowing you to copy your Sky hard disk (whether Sky+ or Sky HD to a new, upgraded one
• Sky+ & Sky HD Hard Drive Upgrade Kits
• Sky+ Upgrade Guide
• Altech UEC