Back in May, I moved to a new house and picked up a new Sky+ deal with BSkyB, which came with the newer box with increased capacity (and improvements on the recent software updates). I managed to flog my old box on eBay for £50 and pretty much made back the installation costs at the same time.
However, within a month of the new installation, I started losing channels all over the place, and the only thing which could bring them back was a channel re-scan or a complete planner re-build and a forced software download. So, BSkyB sent out an engineer, who then replaced my Thomson box with a new one.
Over the past few months, the problem has repeated itself, and I've continually found myself bereft of channels, and having to go through the re-scan on a fairly regular basis. When I spoke to the technical support at BSkyB last month about the issue, they sent a stronger update signal to the box, which seemed to cure the problem.
However, the cure was temporary, and the problem resurfaced last week -- so I called up BSkyB and asked them to send out an engineer. The chap who arrived was a pleasant character, and offered to replace not only the box itself, but the LNB on the dish. He even dug out a Pace box from his van for me.
Unfortunately, the Pace box died as he was setting it up, and I had to make do with an Amstrad box. Unfortunately, it means that I've lost a bunch of recordings, some of which I was planning to write about on our siste website, TV Squad.
I'm hopeful that the problem will vanish for good now, but you never can tell. I'll keep everyone posted on the fate of the Amstrad unit, and I'll live in hope that one day a Pace Sky+ box will be mine.
1. Sky HD. If there's one present I'd really love someone to buy me this Christmas, it's BSkyB's news HD service. It's a Sky+ PVR with 160GB of storage capacity (around 80 hours) and it displays tons of Sky's content in glorious HD (presuming you have an HD capable TV. It'll cost you £299 for the box, £60 for installation and an extra £10 per month on top of your subscription, depending on the channels you already receive. More: www.sky.com/hd
2. Topfield TF5800PVR 160GB Freeview PVR. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of ordering one of these top-notch Freeview PVRs for the purposes of my job. It's a twin-tuner unit with a 160GB hard drive and a fairly easy-to-use setup and EPG. The only drawbacks are a slow reaction time on the remote, but it also has the added bonus of a USB connection, which comes in handy for moving videos around on to portable devices. You should expect to pay around £250, but it's worth every penny. More: Amazon UK.
3. Telewest TV Drive. If you're an NTL or Telewest customer in the UK, and you don't yet have a PVR, but you're sick of their basic on-demand service, you should consider treating yourself this Christmas by upgrading to TV Drive. It has a twin tuner, 80 hour capacity, 8-day EPG and series link facility. Oh, and it does HD too. Subscriptions start at an additional £10 per month, with no connection fee. More: Telewest UK.
4. Humax PVR800T PVR. If the Topfield doesn't take your fancy, you might want to consider the Humax PVR800T. It has pretty much all the same function as the Topfield TF5800, but with a slightly smaller HDD (80GB) and can only record one Freeview channel at a time. Expect to pay around £130.
In one of those re-branding exercises which happened here in the UK to products like Snickers (previously Marathon) and Starburst (previously Opal Fruits), BSkyB has renamed its broadband video download service to Sky Anytime (previously Sky by Broadband).
We reviewed the service here a while ago on PVR Wire, and I have to be honest in telling you that I haven't used it since, so a change in name isn't likely to encourage me to delve back in and start downloading DRM-crippled movies or sports events.
Sure, it's an interesting move to drop the limiting label of 'broadband' in favour of something more generic, but what it really needs is less restrictions on its use -- and more importantly, the ability to connect the video-out from my PC graphics card directly to my Sky box, in order to be able to watch the downloads on my TV, or save them off for later consumption.
As it stands, I can't even output the Sky Anytime content from my PC directly to my telly in the way I can with any other non-Sky video download, all because of Rupert Murdoch and Microsoft's effortless ways of persuading people to hate their products.
Digital Spy's regular reviewer Dek Hogan set his Sky+ box to record the BBC's Watchdog show, a consumer affairs programme aimed at targeting rogue traders and such like.
However, the box failed to record the show.
Presenter Nicky Campbell cited the example of one unlucky user who had worked his way through 11 boxes (I'm currently on my second box, V2 box -- I went through two hard drives in a year on my V1 box).
As Dek says, it might be worth running your old Sky+ box in to the ground before upgrading to Sky+ HD and uncovering the world of bugs which still seem to be out there.
This post probably belongs on our sister blog, TV Squad (which I also write for) but there is a point to it.
On Sunday night here in the UK, a special one-off episode of an immensely popular BBC comedy show called The Royle Family was aired, following an absence of almost six years, and was watched by almost 8 million people.
To try and explain the premise of The Royle Family is pretty much pointless, because there isn't one. It's a comedy about absolutely nothing -- but not in the Seinfeld kind-of way -- it's more subtle than that. It's a comedy about a family of working-class people who sit around and watch television.
It's widely regarded as one of the best comedy shows ever to emerge from the UK, up there with The Office, Only Fools and Horses and Fawlty Towers, yet it's nothing like any of them (well, apart from The Office, maybe).
So what's the point of my post?
Well, apart from the fact that the special episode was both heartwarming and exceptionally funny, a character said something that gives me good reason to believe that a word (or rather, a phrase) has well and truly entered the British lexicon, with reference to PVRs, and Sky+ in particular. (Sky Digital was mentioned in a previous episode of the show, when the central character, Jim Royle, received a Sky DigiBox as a gift).
When one of the lead characters, Denise Royle, mentioned that she had some catching up to do (she meant missed television shows, rather than work), her husband remarked that she had "Sky plussed them."
So, there you have it -- from a classic BBC comedy show: 'Sky Plussed'; the British version of the verb "to TiVo", which can be used to describe the recording of a television show on a Sky+ PVR (or otherwise).
If you live in the UK, and you're contemplating getting yourself a PVR -- perhaps even a Sky+ box -- then you probably won't find a better reason than this for the next 12 months: Lost is moving from Channel Four to Sky One at the start of the next series.
To put our US-readers in the picture: Channel Four is the 'fourth' terrestrial TV channel in the UK. It's free to everyone with an aerial on the roof of their house, it appears on Freeview (as well as on digital platforms like cable TV and satellite) and exists as one of the major commercial competitors to the BBC.
However, BSkyB's crown jewel is their mainstream channel, Sky One. On Sky One, you tend to find shows like Eureka, 24, Enterprise and Battlestar Galactica - the prime-time US shows which would normally appear on terrestrial television first, before being snapped up by Rupert Murdoch's cash-flush broadcasting empire for twice the asking price.
Well, it's happened again. It started with Star Trek: The Next Generation, moved on to X-Files, The Simpsons and Buffy, and now the world's most popualar TV show, Lost, has been snatched from Channel Four, with series 3 set to appear on Sky One in the next few months. (I could have set things up nicely with a dumb headline like 'Channel Four loses Lost', but decided not to)
Oh, and Sky One is only available if you have a BSkyB sateliite TV reciever or digital cable.
And if you're planning on getting yourself a sattelite subscription, you'd be as well just getting Sky+ (or NTL's TVDrive, for that matter).
HDTVUK has posted a comment on Amstrad's recent finfnacial report, which indicates that Alan Sugar's successful eletronics firm is currently developing HD PVR boxes for BSkyB's Sky+ service.
Of course, this is nothing new; Amstad already makes the ordinary Sky satellite boxes for BSkyB, and apparently these new HD boxes won't be available until 2007 due to some development delays on Amstrad's part.
So, does this mean the boxes old Alan's company are making will be higher capacity than the current Thomson HD Sky+ boxes? Who knows...
One thing is for sure, they can only be better than the flaky Thomsons. I'm on my second Thomson box this year, and it started flaking out on me last week, although, Sky technical services now claim to have moved me on to a stronger bandwidth signal from the Astra satellite to try and improve things.
BSkyB has released a new Easy Grip remote control for Sky+, which is claims will be useful for older people or those with manual dexterity problems.
The remote is basically a simple modification of the existing Sky+ remote, with larger graphics on the buttons (the buttons also have raised contours) and increased colour contrast between buttons and remote body.
The 'Easy Grip' is available now at the BSkyB Customer Zone, for £19.99.
We're introducing a new feature here at PVR Wire, called Sharewatch, where we'll be keeping a close eye on the share prices of various PVR-related companies, such as TiVo and BSkyB.
We'll start the week on a Monday with a notice of the opening prices, and round off the week on a Friday with an update on how things closed.
We'll also try to supplement the share information with some news, as it relates directly to the share price.
For now, BSkyB (BSY.L) opened on the London Stock Exchange at 547.00 and dropped to 544.00 by 1000BST.
Shares in Rupert Murdoch's satellite giant are set to fluctuate this week, following the announcement of a massive advertising campaign from BT to win over customers for it's broadband internet services, an area where BSkyB has recently set up camp.
How's this for odd: according to The Inquirer (not to be confused with The National Inquirer), the next generation of Sky+ boxes to be released in the U.K. will feature 300 GB hard drives. However, a "source within BSkyB" has leaked information to suggest that only 140GB will be available to the consumer.
There's a number of potential reasons for this -- perhaps it's to reserve space for downloadable movies and shows (the new boxes are rumored to contain an ADSL modem/router), or perhaps it's to prevent fraud (Sky boxes are very easy to move around and install in countries in the ASTRA satellite footprint where a Sky subscription is only available at a premium rate.
If you're one of the unfortunate people who pre-ordered Sky's HD Sky+ PVR service, only to be told that you wouldn't be be able to watch the World Cup in wonderful HD glory because BSkyB's technology partner's let them down, then you'll be relatively pleased to know that your HD box will be installed soon.
Well, if you call September soon.
Sky has announced figures of over 90,000 subscribers who have opted to receive the new HD service, but only managed to install 2,500 in time for the World Cup deadline, with only 17,000 available in total for the original install period.
If you managed to get Sky's HD service up and running, drop us a line and let us know what you think of it.
Despite a recent high spend on Internet service provide EasyNet and various other forays into the triple- and quad-play service market, BSkyB are reporting some healthy rises in subscriber numbers across their satellite TV services, including a jump of 123,000 subscribers for their Sky+ PVR service.
Sky+ now accounts for 19% of the subscriber base, and the media giant has seen a rise in revenues and profits, with revenue rising 8 per cent over the previous year to £4.1bn, and the operating profit increasing by 7 per cent to £877m.
Sky's total subscriber base is now 8.176 million, with Sky+ acocunting for more than 1.55 million of those.
BSkyB's director of customer products and services, Brian Sullivan has chatted with HDTV UK about the recent announcements from the satellite giant regarding their broadband offering, in addition to giving some hints about the shape Sky+ PVRs might take in the future (hint: wireless).
He also talks about the potential of the ethernet connection on the current Sky+ HD boxes opening up to download SD content across the broadband network, although HD content being offered as a web download is probably still a bit off.
Good news if you're a Sky+ or Sky satellite subscriber in the U.K.: BSkyB has announced advance sign-up for its new broadband service.
Having purchased the ISP EasyNet for around £211million earlier this year, the satellite giant is now offering a free 2MB ADSL service, a £5 per month 8MB service (with a 40GB per month download limit) and a whopping great unlimited 16MB service for £10 per month.
The chances of BSkyB making money from offering the broadband service to current subscribers is pretty small, but their real target audience is in sign-ups for their TV and telephone services, in particular pay-per-view movies and sports.
It's a fantastic move for the U.K. ISP industry, forcing companies like BT to re-think their offering and encourage a healthy dose of competition.
If you're a BSkyB customer, to sign up, just visit www.sky.com/broadband. Sales should begin next month.
Over here in the U.K., we have a nifty little gadget that works directly with Sky and Sky+ called TVLink.
It's a simple IR sender which connects directly into the second input on the back of any Sky box to allow control of the unit from a remote location. They're cheap too.
Bluedelta Designs has released a similar product called a SmartEye, which enables users to control a satellite receiver from any TV in the house, and in conjunction with their Smart Blaster product, the SmartEye will also communicate with a DVD, VHS, Freeview box or a stereo.
It has a bunch of other nice features, and runs in at only £24.95.
Back in May, I moved to a new house and picked up a new Sky+ deal with BSkyB, which came with the newer box with increased capacity (and improvements on the recent software updates). I managed to flog my old box on eBay for £50 and pretty much made back the installation costs at the same time.
1. Sky HD. If there's one present I'd really love someone to buy me this Christmas, it's BSkyB's news HD service. It's a Sky+ PVR with 160GB of storage capacity (around 80 hours) and it displays tons of Sky's content in glorious HD (presuming you have an HD capable TV. It'll cost you £299 for the box, £60 for installation and an extra £10 per month on top of your subscription, depending on the channels you already receive. More: 
Oh, and it does HD too. Subscriptions start at an additional £10 per month, with no connection fee. More: 
