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Sky Plus, or Sky+ is a subscription service which offers a personal video recorder fully integrated with a Sky Digital decoder. The system uses an internal hard drive. Sky+ allows the user to record, pause live television and instantly rewind. These features are the first in its kind for Sky Digital, but the service has already rolled out in countries such as America and Japan with Tivo. This service launched in mid-2000, across many of the western countries. Competitors in the UK pay-TV market are NTL with their Video on Demand service and Telewest's version with 160GB hard drive, which can store for up to eighty hours of programmes.
Overview Sky Plus was launched in October 2001. Critics of the system argued that it was 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 movie channels. Sky+ boxes have often been beset by bugs and software issues such as failed recordings, inability to playback recordings, inability to pause, slow navigation of the menu system. Software updates throughout the life of Sky+ have resolved the majority of these issues and the boxes are now considered to be predominantly stable. It is interesting to note that SkyHD - which contains the recording facilities of Sky+ - has recently been launched and is suffering from the same propensity towards bugs that was shown in the early Sky+ boxes. Sky guide 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 April 2006) is Sky+ 4.10.c. Technical information Versions Sky Plus comes in three versions: Manufactured by Pace (v1) and then, later, by Amstrad and Pace (v2) Sky+ 160 is manufactured by Thomson only. (discontinued) The other versions 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. however there have been many problems with Amstrad boxes following a software update (January 2006). The problems include freezing and hard drive problems. Amstrad and sky still are trying to find a solution, in the form of an update, to rectify the problem. The latest version of the Amstrad box (July 2006) is generally believed to be free from software bugs. Recordings and playback are robust although the operation is, compared to other manufacturers, sluggish. 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 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+ remote can be programmed to operate a standard Sky Digital digibox, and vice versa. You can find the latest Sky plus remote codeshere. 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. | ||||||||
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