Sky Digital Explored

Should I subscribe?

If you're thinking of signing up with Sky Digital, here's why now's a good idea:

1. TV, Broadband and Phone in one package - Sky is offering a package deal - Over 200 digital TV channels, Broadband Internet access (with a free Broadband router), plus free UK evening and weekend landline phone calls... all this for just £19 a month.
   
2. Basic service: Costs £16 a month for one of Sky's channel packages. You can also get a Sky+ box, or Sky HD
3. Free digibox: You get a free digibox and dish when ordered online. A one-off £30 installation fee applies.
4. Free Internet: Sky Digital is offering free Broadband to all subscribers.
5. Extras: You can optionally sign up for a Sky+ or Sky HD box, or Sky Multiroom

More on these offers at www.sky.com/skycom

Sky's offers

When subscribing to Sky, you need to select one or more 'Mix' packages - There are six of these in the lineup: Variety, Knowledge, Style/Culture, Music, News/Events and Kids - More . Here are details of Sky's current offers:

Offer 1: £16 subscription: Sky Digital subscription starts from £16 a month (for one of Sky's 'Mix' packages) and includes a free digibox. A one-off installation fee for the dish and box of £30 applies.

Offer 2: TV, Internet & Calls: Four 'mix' packages (over 200 digital TV channels), Broadband Internet access (with a free router) and free UK evening and weekend landline calls... for just £19 a month.

Details of both offers are available online at www.sky.com/skycom (or Sky Ireland)

Subscription-free? There is another option that you may want to consider if you don't fancy subscribing to Sky - You get the kit, free installation and 200 free-to-view channels - you don't get subscription channels such as Sky One, Paramount Comedy and UKTV Gold, but there's no monthly fee. Available for £75 from Dixons online. (OFFER: 10% off at Dixons when using code SKY10 at the checkout - May 2008 only!)

HD (Hi-definition) offers a higher quality picture with more vibrant colours, greater detail, crisp clarity and amazing sound quality. Sky is currently leading the field, offering a Hi Definition set-top box and subscription, and the strongest lineup of HD programming currently on offer in the UK.

At the time of writing, the following HD channels are available: BBC HD, Sky One HD, Channel 4 HD, National Geographic HD, Discovery HD, the History Channel HD, Luxe HD, 3 Sky Sports HD channels, three screens of Sky Movies HD, Sky Arts HD, plus pay-per-view Box Office movies in HD.

To get Sky's HD, you'll need a Sky HD Box (priced £199 or £249 depending on package), you'll need to sign up to the monthly HD subscription of £10, and to have an HD-Ready TV set. More at Sky's HD site

With Sky HD, you get a top-of-the-range Sky HD box that has Sky+ functionality and a huge hard disk.

If you're a Sky HD customer looking for news on new channels or programming coming to Sky, go to sky.com/hd/news.htm

Sky HD featured in our Podcast 02

You've probably heard the hype about Sky+. This is described as something that will change the way you watch TV. It's a combined satellite TV receiver and a digital TV recorder that automatically records TV onto a built-in hard-disk. This gives you a huge amount of control over how you watch TV. The Sky+ box lets you:

• Watch one Sky channel while recording another
• Pause and rewind live TV
• Record two different channels at the same time, while watching a recorded show
• Use the Electronic Programme Guide to set up seven days of TV viewing. You can also set up recordings remotely via text message
• Series Link - From the programme guide, press the Green button, and the box will record all future episodes of the selected show, avoiding repeats.
• Copy off recordings of programmes onto DVD or video

The Sky+ box costs between £99 and £149 depending on package. There is no ongoing subscription cost for using the Sky+ service.

More information on Sky+ at www.sky.com/skyplus

We've had a mail from one of our listeners who's having problems connecting her Sky box to her. Here are a few notes:

• The cable from the satellite dish needs to be connected carefully into the screw-thread terminal (or terminals if Sky+) at the rear of the Sky digibox
  
  
• The output of the Sky box should be connected to your TV via a SCART lead. You should connect a SCART lead from the 'TV SCART' socket on the Sky box, to a spare SCART socket on the TV.
  
  
• Then, set your TV to view the output of the Sky box - Your TV's remote should have an AV / Line In or Ext button to allow viewing of the external socket. The button may be labelled with an icon like the one to the right.

High-definition: If you have a Sky HD box and an HDTV, you can get high-definition TV by connecting between box and TV using an HDMI cable, and not a SCART cable.

More help? There's a lot more information on how to connect set-top boxes on Radio & Telly's Connection Help page, or ask in our Sky forum

If you want to watch Sky TV in more than one room, there are two main ways. One way is to send the output of your Sky box to the other TV set(s). There are two ways of doing this:

• Aerial lead: Connect an aerial (co-ax) cable from one of the Sky box RF output sockets, to the aerial input on the other TV in the house. You then need to tune the other TV set into the output of your Sky box. To check the channel number that your Sky box is transmitting on, Press 'Services' on the Sky remote, then type 4 0 1 and press 'Select'. Select Option 4 "RF outlets" (more). For co-ax connectors and extension leads, try maplin.co.uk
  
  
• Wireless: Get an AV sender - These connect to one of the SCART sockets on the Sky digibox and transmit the output wirelessly to a receiver that can be connected a SCART socket on a second TV. Wireless AV senders are available from Argos and Maplin.

With these options, you'll be limited to watching what's being shown on the Sky digibox. If you want to be able to watch different channels in different rooms, then you'll want Sky Multiroom. With this, you'll have a digibox for each room. Each box will be connected directly to your satellite dish. Each Sky dish can only cope with 4 feeds - so the maximum is four standard Sky boxes, or two Sky+ boxes. For more information about Sky Multiroom, or to order, go to packages.sky.com/see/EquipmentMultiroom.aspx

If you like the idea of getting extra digital TV channels via satellite, but don't fancy paying a monthly subscription to Sky, there are some other options. There are a number of subscription-free channels that can be received with a dish and decoder - See Sky's list of free-to-air channels.

Here are the ways of getting some satellite channels without a subscription:

• Pay-once, Watch-forever: Here's a cheap way to get around 200 free-to-air channels by satellite. For a one-off payment, you get a dish installed and a basic set-top box. No monthly fee. Available online for £75 only from John Lewis and Dixons. (OFFER: 10% off at Dixons when using code SKY10 at the checkout - May 2008 only!)
  
  
  
• DIY Satellite Kit: If you fancy installing your own dish and digibox, get this DIY kit. This includes satellite dish, digital TV receiver, and LNB. No subscription, no cards, no recurring fees - Available from Maplin from £99.99
  
  
• There's also a service called Freesat (the BBC and ITV), which launched in May 2008. See our Freesat page for more...

A lot of Sky's channels require a subscription though - see www.sky.com/skycom to find out which channels are on subscription, and which are not.

It's possible to connect the output from your Sky Digital or Sky+ box to your PC, so that you can view and record Sky TV on your PC (or a Windows Media Center PC).

To do this, you'll need a tv receiver for your TV. There are two types - a box that plugs into a spare USB port on your PC, or a card that slots into the casing of your PC (into a spare PCI card slot). PC TV receivers are available online from Maplin , PC World, Play.com or Dabs.com. PC TV products made by Hauppauge, AverMedia or V-Stream tend to be fairly common.

There are a few ways to connect from your Sky box to a PC TV card:

• Aerial: The most straightforward way is to take a feed from one of the Sky box RF output aerial feeds and use standard aerial co-ax cable to connect to the input of a TV card. Note that you'll need a TV card that supports an 'analogue' input, as this is what's sent from the Sky box aerial socket. Some PC TV receivers are digital (DVB-T) only, so won't work. Analogue cards are getting more rare, so consider looking for a dual digital and analogue card, such as one from the Hauppauge HVR range - we recommend either the Hauppauge HVR1100 (PCI card) or Win-TV HVR900 (USB).
  
  
• S-Video: If you're looking for slightly better quality than using the modulated output of a Sky box and aerial cable, then you can consider using S-video. Look for a TV card with an S-Video input. If you need S-Video cables, or a SCART-to-Svideo converter, we recommend TV Cables or Maplin Electronics. Note that an S-video connect only handles video, so you'll need to connect an audio feed too (from the phono outputs on your Sky box to your PC soundcard).
  
  
• Video sender: If you don't fancy the cable run, consider getting a video-sender to send output wirelessly. AV senders are available from Argos and Maplin. Note that these normally transmit to a SCART socket, so you may need a RF modulator to convert an AV Sender's output from SCART to co-ax aerial input.
  
  
• Network: If you want to view your Sky Digital box while away from home, you can - over the Internet. Consider a Slingbox

Note that in the solutions mentioned above - all you can do is watch the output of your cable TV box from a PC. As the Sky box is only capable of outputting one channel at a time, you can't watch one channel on your PC, while watching another channel on your main telly. Two workarounds: 1) Get Sky Multiroom, or 2) consider getting a Hybrid PC TV receiver and connect a TV aerial - Assuming you can get a Freeview signal, you'll be able to watch Freeview channels on your PC.

One other option exists - and that's to get a PC card that's got an onboard satellite decoder - with this, you take the feed direct from the dish into your PC card, bypassing the Sky box. the downside is that, as your PC doesn't have a subscription card slot, you can only view the free-to-view Sky channels.