SKY HD BOX

Price

When we moved into our flat a couple of months ago it hadn’t really crossed my mind to get Sky. My Mum and Dad has Sky until about 3 years ago when they got rid of it as their TV had freeview built in anyway and they just couldn’t justify the monthly payment. My partner was used to Sky though as her Mum and Dad had it in their house and was keen that we got it too. We had a look online and were offered the Entertainment Plus package, free Sky+ HD box, installation and £50 worth of M&S vouchers for £25 a month which is a lot better than the price I was expecting.

TV Guide/ Planner

I was in on my own when the Sky was in put in so when the engineer left I had full reign to explore the different features of Sky. Initially I found the menu hard to navigate as I was used to the older version and there’s the added ‘+’ element which allows you to record and pause live TV. At the top of the TV there’s options to looks at the main TV, Planner which is recorded programmes, Box Office and Radio as well as setting and parental controls, this is basically the main hub and then whatever you select is displayed below. It was a bit different for me but I found I picked it up quite quickly just by using it and finding out what did what.

Watching Sky+ HD

Obviously the stand out features of the box is the HD, which is getting better and better. I was a bit sceptical if I’m honest, how different could it be? I was shocked by just how crisp and clear the picture was, it’s noticeably different from the standard picture and I was very impressed. At the moment there’s about 60 HD channels, and more are being added all the time, of this about 15 are either sports of movies which we don’t subscribe to as it adds a considerable amount to the bill but for what we do get I’ve been very pleased. It’s worth mentioning that just because a programme is on a HD channel doesn’t necessarily mean its HD, sometimes they don’t scale everything up. I’m not a fan of nature channels but I do find myself watching them now just because the quality of the picture is so good and I find it really fascinating.

The pause function on the TV is great, how often does the phone go in the middle of Corrie or there’s a film on BBC with no adverts and you’re gasping for a drink but don’t want to miss out? I thought we wouldn’t use this function much as I’d never had it before and never thought I was missing out but how wrong I was. It’s become second nature to pause TV and pop off to do something else, it’s irritating now watching TV that I can’t pause and rewind whenever I want. Obviously another advantage is being able to record programmes, especially when it comes to films as we’ve got a collection stored in the boxes memory which is about 100 hours. We often record X Factor, with its many adverts and watch it half an hour after it started. This allows us to fast forward over all the adverts and filler; we do the same with the Sunday night elimination as really there’s only about 15 minutes of the 1 hour show worth watching.

I know that we used to have a lot of trouble with Sky freezing at my Mum and Dad’s or cutting to the annoying blue screen, especially in bad weather. Since we’ve had the Sky+ HD box it has never frozen once and we’ve had really heavy rain and never had any signal problems so this problem must have been solved.

The Sky Box

Another important factor to me is the box itself. The Sky+ HD box is black and silver, it’s very sleek, modern and I feel would fit into most living room, it fits into our perfectly and doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb like the light grey ones used to. The box plugs into a HDMI port in the back of the TV to enable the HD quality images and then obviously into a wall socket. The remote matches the box and is again very modern, it sits nicely in the hand and enables you to make the most of all the services the Sky box gives you. We’re getting a 3D TV later on in the month, and at the moment I wouldn’t consider upgrading but as more channels use 3D I would definitely consider it if we also added the movies package to our subscription- it’s all extra money though!

Overall

Overall, I’ve been really impressed with my use of Sky+ HD, the box looks good and after a bit of use everything is really easy to navigate. The picture quality it a step up from the norm and I think you can really tell the difference, it’s great now that more channels are starting to convert to HD. The pause and record is a great feature and one that I now wouldn’t be without. I’m looking forward to being able to record all bits of Christmas TV and then watching them back whilst eating my body weight in turkey. If you’re considering getting Sky+ HD I’d definitely recommend it.