Sky+ HD was the brand name of the
HDTV
High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...
service launched by
Sky plc on 22 May 2006 in the United Kingdom and Ireland to enable high definition channels on
Sky
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy, ...
to be viewed. For the first two years after launch, the service was branded Sky HD. The service requires the user to have a Sky+ HD
Digibox
The Digibox is a device marketed by Sky UK in the UK and Ireland to enable home users to receive digital satellite television broadcasts (satellite receiver) from the Astra satellites at 28.2° east. An Internet service was also availab ...
and an
HD ready
HD ready is a certification program introduced in 2005 by EICTA (European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations), now DIGITALEUROPE. HD ready minimum native resolution is 720 rows in widescreen rat ...
TV. A subscription to the original HD pack carries an extra fee of £10.25 (€15.00 in Ireland) a month in addition to the standard Sky subscription, allowing customers to view HD channels corresponding to the channel packs subscribed to. Additional Pay-Per-View events on Sky Box Office HD are not available to customers unless they subscribe to the Sky HD pack.
As of June 2014, subscription numbers for Sky+HD stood at over 5.2 million, an increase from 4.8 million the year before.
From October 2016, Sky+ HD is no longer being offered as it was replaced by
Sky Q
Sky Q is a subscription-based television and entertainment service operated by British satellite television provider Sky, as a part of its operations in Austria and Germany, Ireland, Italy and in the UK. The name also refers to the Sky Q set-t ...
. Existing customers can continue their subscription with Sky+ HD.
History
Launched in May 2006, Sky HD brought high-definition television to the consumer market, initially consisting of nine HD channels. Prices on launch were announced as £299 for a HD set-top box, with an additional £10 a month HD subscription on top of any existing packages.
Customers who
pre-order
A pre-order is an order placed for an item that has not yet been released. The idea for pre-orders came because people found it hard to get popular items in stores because of their popularity. Companies then had the idea to allow customers to r ...
ed by paying a
deposit before 6 April 2006 were the first to receive the service, with installations starting on 21 May 2006 following over 40,000 advance orders of the service; the number of Sky+HD pre-orders surpassed the total sales in the first year of Sky+.
The HD package launched with a one-year minimum subscription duration.
The launch line-up consisted of
Sky One HD,
Sky Arts HD
Sky Arts (originally launched as Artsworld) is a British free-to-air television channel offering 24 hours a day of programmes dedicated to highbrow arts, including theatrical performances, movies, documentaries and music (such as opera perfor ...
,
Sky Movies 9 HD,
Sky Movies 10 HD,
Sky Sports HD,
Discovery HD
Discovery HD is the international name of the high-definition television channels owned by Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
The international Discovery HD (later Discovery HD World in Asia-Pacific markets, n ...
,
National Geographic Channel HD,
Sky Box Office HD 1 and
Sky Box Office HD 2 (now Sky Movies Box Office).
In January 2010, customers started being offered the Sky+ HD box as standard, with the HD package being optional at the same subscription price. The Sky+ box was subsequently withdrawn, meaning the Sky+ HD became part of a standard installation. As of late 2013, the £10.25/month HD pack stopped being offered to new customers, instead suggesting customers subscribe to the Family package, then carrying a £5/month premium over the cost of the regular Variety package. Access to HD versions of Sky Sports and Sky Movies requires a separate HD pack subscription, priced at £5.25 per month.
Sky+
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In th ...
recording facilities are included as part of a standard Sky TV subscription package, yet entails a fee of £10.25/month if a customer does not subscribe to any Sky TV package. Viewers who do not take a subscription Sky TV package or the Sky+ service will still receive all free SD and HD channels, but cannot use the recording facilities. Uptakers of the subscription-free
Freesat from Sky
Freesat from Sky (FsfS) was a British satellite television service from Sky UK. It offered over 240 free-to-air (FTA) channels in its EPG. This is a greater number than its competitors, Freesat, which has 200+, and Freeview (UK), Freeview, whi ...
service are provided with a recorder-less box branded 'SkyHD' rather than Sky+ HD, given SkyHD boxes provided by Freesat from Sky do not contain hardware for recording.
As of November 2016, Sky offered over 50 HD channels, more than any competitor.
Numerous
FTA HD channels are available which do not require a subscription, only an HD capable digibox such as the Sky+ HD box, including
BBC One HD,
BBC Two HD
BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream a ...
and
Channel 4 HD.
On Demand
On 27 March 2007, Sky launched its ''Sky Anytime on TV'' Push-
Video on Demand
Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...
service for owners of Sky+ HD set top boxes. Programmes in high definition and standard definition are recorded overnight to a reserved 140GB of disk space, to give the effect of video on demand.
This has also been used to bring viewers high-definition programmes from channels that at the time didn't broadcast in HD. These have included
Sky News
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of Comcast. John Ryley is the hea ...
(''Technofile'', ''Diana: The Last Word''),
Disney Channel
Disney Channel, sometimes known as simply Disney, is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney General Entertainment Content division of The Walt Disney Compan ...
(''
High School Musical 2
''High School Musical 2'' is a 2007 American musical television film written by Peter Barsocchini and directed by Kenny Ortega. The 70th Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM), it is the sequel to ''High School Musical'' (2006) and the second inst ...
'') and
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...
(''
iCarly'').
Set top boxes
![Sky hd 001](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Sky_hd_001.jpg)
The first generation of Sky+ HD Digibox were produced by
Thomson Thomson may refer to:
Names
* Thomson (surname), a list of people with this name and a description of its origin
* Thomson baronets, four baronetcies created for persons with the surname Thomson
Businesses and organizations
* SGS-Thomson Mic ...
, with Sky subsequently adding Samsung, Pace and Amstrad as manufacturers afterwards. In 2009, a manufacturing fault led to a batch of up to 90,000 units manufactured by Pace requiring replacement; Sky offered customers 3 months free HD pack subscription for the inconvenience.
[
]
For connectivity with
HD ready
HD ready is a certification program introduced in 2005 by EICTA (European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations), now DIGITALEUROPE. HD ready minimum native resolution is 720 rows in widescreen rat ...
televisions, the box outputs via a
HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
connector (adapters to
Digital Visual Interface
Digital Visual Interface (DVI) is a video display interface developed by the Digital Display Working Group (DDWG). The digital interface is used to connect a video source, such as a video display controller, to a display device, such as a co ...
are available). The box is
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) is a form of digital copy protection developed by Intel Corporation to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across connections. Types of connections include DisplayPort ...
(HDCP) compliant. Sky boxes manufactured prior to January 2008 also had analogue component connections (
YPbPr
YPbPr or Y'PbPr, also written as , is a color space used in video electronics, in particular in reference to component video cables. YPBPR is gamma corrected YCBCR color space (it is not analog YUV that was used for analog TV, though component ...
), but as the HDCP copy protection cannot be applied to this type of output it is no longer included. Traditional standard-definition (SD) connections are available via
SCART
SCART (also known as or , especially in France, 21-pin EuroSCART in marketing by Sharp in Asia, Euroconector in Spain, EuroAV or EXT, or EIA Multiport in the United States, as an EIA interface) is a French-originated standard and associated 21- ...
and
S-Video
S-Video (also known as separate video, Y/C, and erroneously Super-Video ) is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video, typically at 525 lines or 625 lines. It encodes video luma and chrominance on two separate channe ...
. All programming is currently output from both HDMI and SD connections, although individual broadcasters have the option to require HDCP (and therefore HDMI) in the future.
All HD channels are broadcast in
1080i
1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the screen. ...
format (though the box can be set to scale this to
720p
720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...
if the user wishes), using the
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC compression standard, from
Astra 2A
Astra 2A is one of the Astra communications satellites owned by Société Européenne des Satellites. Launched in 1998 into the 28.2° East orbital position, half its expected end-of-life capacity of 28 transponders were pre-booked by BSkyB, w ...
,
Astra 2E
Astra 2E is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES S.A., launched to the Astra 28.2°E orbital position on 30 September 2013 after a 10-week delay caused by launcher problems. The satellite provides free-to-air ...
,
Astra 2F
Astra 2F is one of the Astra communications satellites owned and operated by SES S.A., launched in September 2012 to the Astra 28.2°E orbital position. The satellite provides free-to-air and encrypted direct-to-home (DTH) digital television ...
and
Eutelsat 28A
Eutelsat 133 West A (formerly Eurobird 1, Eutelsat 28A, and Eutelsat 33C) is a Eutelsat operated Eurobird satellite, used primarily for digital television. It was launched in March 2001, and after a short period testing at 33°E, joined Eutelsat ...
satellites at
28.2°E and 28.5°E in a new
DVB
Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of international open standards for digital television. DVB standards are maintained by the DVB Project, an international industry consortium, and are published by a Joint Technical Committee (JTC) o ...
transmission standard,
DVB-S2.
BBC HD
BBC HD was a 24-hour high-definition television channel provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 26 March 2013. It broadcast ...
was initially broadcast using
DVB-S but switched to DVB-S2 on 6 June 2011.
The Version 5 EPG (
electronic program guide
Electronic programming guides (EPGs) and interactive programming guides (IPGs) are menu-based systems that provide users of television, radio and other media applications with continuously updated menus that display scheduling information for ...
) is almost identical to the one found on Sky+, with the exception being that by pressing ''TV Guide'' and then number 2 on the
remote control
In electronics, a remote control (also known as a remote or clicker) is an electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operate devices such as ...
, listings for only the HD channels are shown. An update was sent to the HD boxes early on 20 March 2007, which also included code for Sky Anytime (now OnDemand).
Version 8 of the Sky Guide, dubbed the Sky+ HD guide, included a Mini TV, improved search functions and a refreshed interface.
![Sky DRX895w](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Sky_DRX895w.jpg)
On 1 October 2010, Sky began the process of downloading
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...
to Sky+ HD receivers. Unlike the majority of software upgrades made by Sky, the open source licences require Sky to notify customers that the download has taken place. Subscribers are notified with an on-screen message that refers them to a dedicated section of the Sky website. The website also includes a download of the open source components including the building environment. Sky says that it has found a number of Open Source Software developments that provide capabilities that benefit the software used in the Sky+ HD box.
Release history
Below is a list of boxes that have been manufactured for use with Sky+ HD.
All boxes are now discontinued and no newer models are expected, since the launch of Sky Q.
Sky also manufactured a standard Sky HD box without a hard drive, aimed primarily at customers subscribing to Sky Multiroom, as a cheaper alternative to receive HD channels if record and playback were not required.
Developments
Increase in HD channels
In over three years since launch, the number of HD channels available has increased significantly, thus Sky+ HD is the world's largest HD offering outside North America.
Sky brought an update to its Sky+ app, this features a similar looking design to the Sky+HD box bringing the services more in line with one another.
On 30 July 2009, Sky confirmed the launch of a "pull" video-on-demand (VOD) service for 2010, adding to the current Sky Anytime "push" VOD service.
The service, delivered by broadband internet, will utilise the Ethernet port of existing Sky+ HD boxes. Sky's Anytime+ will only be available to Sky broadband at launch but sky say it will be on all service providers in the near future. Although the service may be similar to
DirecTV
DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...
's VOD offering that also uses an operating system built by
NDS Group
Cisco Videoscape (formerly NDS Group and currently known as Synamedia) was a majority owned subsidiary of News Corp, which develops software for the pay TV industry (including cable, satellite and others). NDS Group was established in 1988 as an ...
. NDS Group was formally a
Permira
Permira is a global investment firm. Founded in 1985, the firm advises funds with assets under management of €60+ billion. The Permira funds have made approximately 300 private equity investments in four key sectors: Technology, Consumer, Ser ...
/
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
company, but currently part of
Cisco
Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...
. Sky have started the phased roll-out of the new guide software for this service.
On 29 April 2010, BSkyB revealed that their new video-on-demand service would be named
Sky Anytime+. "It will be a broad offering at launch with a large range of content across the range of content that we show," CEO Jeremy Darroch said. "
t will featureprogressive download using the broadband return pathway and the hard disc in a combined way. All of the boxes are VOD-ready, so we'll be able to roll it out to all of the box population." Sky Anytime+ began a staggered roll out from 26 October 2010. In March 2011 it was confirmed by Sky that the Thomson Sky HD boxes would not be suitable for the new Anytime+ service. Customers with Thomson boxes are being offered New boxes.
On 1 February 2011, BSkyB introduced a new EPG for Sky HD subscribers which switched the standard definition channels with the high definition simulcast. For example, Sky News HD, which was on channel 517, switched to channel 501. The same happened for other non-regional HD channels, including Syfy, Comedy Central, Sky Sports, E4 and Sky1.
3D
Following demonstrations in December 2008, Sky announced on 30 July 2009 its intention to launch a
3D channel during 2010, featuring a broad selection of 3D programming, which is expected to include movies, entertainment and sport.
Existing Sky+ HD receivers will automatically be compatible with the new 3D service, although customers will require a new 3D compatible HDTV set to view in 3D. A 3D trailer has been in circulation in UK cinemas for the new service.
It is thought that it will use the new
MVC
MVC may refer to:
Science and technology
* Maximum-value composite procedure, an imaging procedure
* Multivariable calculus, a concept in mathematics
* Multivariable control, a concept in process engineering
* Mechanical vapor compression, a desal ...
video codec. The first programme that was broadcast by Sky in 3D was the
Arsenal vs
Manchester United football match on Sunday 31 January 2010. The 3D match was available in nine hand-picked pubs in England and in Ireland. On Monday 29 March 2010,
Sky 3D
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy, ...
appeared on the EPG at number 217, showing "Programs Start on Saturday". Sky launched its 3D services on 3 April with the Manchester United vs
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
football match being broadcast in over a thousand pubs across England in 3D.
As of October 2014 Sky 3D is on channel 170.
From 9 June 2015 customers wanting to access Sky's 3D content will only be able to do so via its on-demand channels. To this end, there will be a new 3D segment in the Sky Box Sets, Movies, Store and TV Guide sections.
See also
*
Sky
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy, ...
*
Sky UK
Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...
*
Sky Ireland
Sky Ireland Limited is a subsidiary of Comcast-owned Sky and supplies television, internet and telephony services in Ireland.
Its corporate headquarters are in Dublin which were opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on 18 January 2013.
Sky Ireland ...
*
High-definition television
High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...
*
High-definition television in the United Kingdom
High-definition television in the United Kingdom is available via cable, IPTV, satellite and terrestrial television. The first high-definition broadcasts began in late 2005 and since then the number of channels available to view has grown to a m ...
References
External links
Sky HDat sky.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sk Hd
High-definition television
Sky Group
Television in Ireland
Television in the United Kingdom