Sky + (Plus)

How many times have you brought an electrical item on a whim and gone about a year later, why the hell did I buy that? Well you'll never will say that with Sky +. This is probably the best thing we as a family, have ever brought.

We were always fans of watching TV, I adore American TV dramas, and really struggled on a Thursday to not miss my favourite TV shows, however as soon as we brought Sky +, this was never a problem.

The Brand Sky +

Sky + (Plus) is a PVR, which stands for a personal video recorder. I was actually shocked to find out, it was actually brought out in 2001, we didn't even get Sky until around 2003 and then 4 years later heard of Sky + and decided, it was worth the dough.

What does Sky + let you do?

Sky + lets you record, pause and rewind live TV. It also lets you watch back the shows you've taped, whilst you are still taping another show. Forget the days where you miss 5 minutes of your favourite show, with Sky + you can tape this in advance and then go to the start and watch it, still whilst the show is actually taping.

This sounds brilliant, how does it actually work?

I had to do a little bit of research with this as I had no idea, I assumed it worked just like a computer and I was slightly right. Inside the sky + box is an internal hard drive.

Say if you are watching 'Dexter', and you need to go and make a coffee, the box is actually taping as you go along, this is not always stored to your hard drive, as soon as you press the R (record) button, then you are saving it to your hard drive.

How much is the Sky +?

At the moment if you buy it, you can get it for £99 instead of £150, this includes I assume the set up and the installation etc.

If you are already a Sky customer like we were, we just upgraded to Sky +, and this doesn't necessarily mean it's cheaper than if you didn't have Sky in the first place.

I believe if you just have the Sky + in one room, you pay £21 a month, on top of the installation fee, this is a pretty good price I would have to say.

The 'Sky' The Limit

We watch quite a bit of TV, there are 3 of us in the house, and I'm the one that probably tapes the least amount of shows and that's saying something.

The Sky + FAQ's say you can tape up to 40 hours of programs. This is sort of right, we tend to go by the percentage that it shows you in the Sky Planner.

For each program, they all take up a certain percentage amount, say if you watch an episode of Friends it'll probably only take up 2%, however if you tape a 2 hour film, it can take around 8% of space.

The lowest amount of percentage we've ever gone down to is 30%, which sound quite low, but when you think about it, it's still a lot of space.

Sky Planner

This is probably what you will find yourself using the most, besides watching TV. The Sky Planner holds everything you have taped, this is where Sky + show what's on the hard disk. This is also where you can keep an eye on, how much percentage of space you have left on the hard disk.

This sky planner is set out in a list, this list has the name of the show, what status it is, by that I mean, is it recorded, is it still being recorded or have you already viewed it.

Beside that it has the name of the channel and to the right of that t has a place where you can do quite a few things.

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(K)
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If you press the blue button when you're in the sky planner, it'll put the (K) sign next to it, this stops you from accidentally deleting the program, I would seriously recommend doing this, I don't believe you're able to do it automatically though. Instead of just deleting the program, it asks you if you are sure, you want to delete it.

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®
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This symbol stands for, record. You'll find this on your sky + control, and on the sky planner, this is shown when things are being prepared to record.

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Green arrow
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This can either be a great nuisance to you or a great help. Apparently one of the great things about sky + is the series link and this is what the green arrow stands for, if you press the green button on the remote, it should attempt to try and get the series link for you. This means it puts all of the next episodes shown into your planner automatically, or that's what they say it does.

I have found quite a few problems with this little addition; firstly it doesn't always find things for you. When I was watching the new series of Dexter, I constantly kept on forgetting it, just because it was on at a stupid time and on an unknown channel. Sky + wasn't able to find the series link for me, until about two/three weeks ago, and tonights is the last episode of the series.

Other problems, if you're taping two programs and want to tape something and put it on series link, it won't let you. This is not too much of a big problem, but I tend to forget to do it.

Finally, it doesn't always tape. I had a series link of Bones on for ages, it even went as far to tape the episodes on in the day time as well as on the Thursday nights at 9 o'clock, however when the show started at 9.10 instead, it didn't pick it up, and I missed that episode. I really recommend checking if there's something important you want to tape.

The Control

The control is very important, it looks a lot like the normal control you get with sky which was I believe black; however this is white and black. Instead of the normal buttons, the select button, volume, the numbers, you get a selection in the middle which is where you control the sky + box.

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Pause/Play
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This section is pretty self explanatory, if you need to go to the toilet, you press the pause button, when your back on the couch all comfy, then you press the play button.

This sounds brilliant doesn't it and it's one of the things on the sky + that actually works pretty well. There doesn't seem to be any bugs or gremlins when you use this section, it's pretty simple to use, and as long as you treat it right, it'll work perfectly 95% of the time.

That other 5% however accounts for a problem which does occur quite often with us. I'm am a computer nerd, and this came from me sitting on the computer for hours at night after school, due to the 'crap' that my mother and sister watch on TV. Especially soaps.

I usually watch my shows at around 9 o'clock and the amount of times that my sister/mother uses the pause button to do things like make a coffee it does all add up. For example, if you're watching Eastenders which is on around 8.30 (I think), and about 10 minutes in you go and make a coffee which takes around 5 minutes, your then constantly behind, so if you are taping two things at 9 o'clock, the thing does get a little bit complicated.

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Rewind/Fast Forward
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Like the pause/play button these two separate buttons are just as self explanatory. I don't think I really need to explain what they do, so I'll try and go into more detail about the problems we have found.

FREEZE- This happens a lot, it's usually okay, as you are watching the show on the same channel and when it freezes when you are using either of the two buttons, you can fiddle a bit and find your way back, but it takes a lot longer than you would really like.

It doesn't always work, the amount of times we've gone back and then found it cuts out and doesn't remember you taping that part of the show, is amazing. It's good, but not that reliable.

When you rewinding or fast forwarding you have different speeds you can use, they are:

2x- This we use when watching strictly come dancing, we wanna watch it, but after 16 people it gets a bit boring, so it's slow enough for you to still watch the dance but faster than normal speed. The only bum is there should be sound (we have this on our dvd player and watched the whole of Fight Club in 2x speed, didn't make it any better)

6x- We hardly ever use this section.

12x- Never really use this speed.

30x- This is the speed we tend to use through the adverts, it only takes around 7 seconds to get through the adverts instead of 4 minutes I believe. It's a great addition and there never is many problems.

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Record
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This is why we brought it, I don't have a lot of time to watch TV shows on the weekdays and the only time I really get is a Sunday, so recording television helps me so much.

I know I must sounds like a television geek, but I don't watch that much, but the shows that I do watch like Desperate Housewives, Miami Ink, Bones, Criminal Minds, Prison Break, it's so much easier to use the Record button, which is just one little push and you go onto the planner, put the series link on the shows and then you don't really have to worry about it that much.

To watch your recorded shows you can go to the sky planner and press select, then it'll come up with a sub screen which shows you details of the show and you can choose where do you want to start from, press select again and then you're watching the recorded show.

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Anytime TV
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We only found out about this after 8 months of having Sky + and it's a great little function. The thing I found it's best for is say the new series of Prison Break started and you missed it, because it's the new series and the first episode of that new series it'll most likely be in this selection. This works for other popular TV shows (sometimes).

There are some things that annoy me about this section however, we don't get movies/sports with our sky + box, there's no point really as we rent a lot, but Sky Anytime shows a lot of films that you can watch anytime, but if you don't have that package it rejects you, it's like dangling something really nice in front of someone and going, nope you can have this unless you give me an extra £20 a month.

I do find it quite a good addition though, a friend on ciao actually recommended a show to me (which might be my next review), and I was looking on sky anytime, and saw that they were showing the new series, now I'm addicted, even gone as far to buying the second and third series which should be here within a week.

Sky to Sky +
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For those of you that already have Sky the 'All Channels' or TV Guide section is not much different, the only difference I believe is that at the button it says press ® to record.

This section is pretty easy to use, if you want to record all you have to do is press the ® button and it'll record it for you when it's on which is so simple and easy to do.

If you are upgrading from Sky to Sky +, you will find a lot of similarities, there are other products like Sky + on the market, but the reason I think Sky + is so popular, is because so many people are so use to Sky and the simplicity of it. Sky + does make things a lot more complicated, but it's still a lot simpler to use.

Auto Standby

Auto Standby is a great little function which turns your Sky + box onto standby when you are not using it between 11-4.

This means that if you have fallen asleep on the couch, it'll turn itself onto standby, however if you haven't touched the control for a while, it will ask you for three minutes if you want the sky box to go onto standby.

This saves a lot of electricity and I believe it still goes onto standby even when it's taping.

Sky Box Office

We have never used the Sky box office since we've have Sky, however I thought I'd better include it.

To use sky + with the sky box office, you can record the film, but you won't be charged until you actually start to watch the show.

One of the bad points however is you only have a day to watch it once you start watching it, but whilst you are watching it, you can watch it like you would do a DVD with all of the functions on the Sky + control.

Protection

There's always going to be a time, where you have taped a film and your little kid sees the name of it, and thinks, that looks good and ends up watching a horror which will scar them for life.

Well Sky + thought of this and allow you to lock the program taped. This you can do manually, however they do let you choose something which happens automatically.

If it's 12+ rated program or film, then you will have to enter your pin until after 8pm and the same with an 18 rated program/film, however this time you will have to enter your pin until after 9pm.

This is a great little addition in my opinion, however just make sure that you never tell you kids the PIN number, because of course they'll remember it for when you need to use this.

The Best Channels

This section is not just about Sky + but what you would get if you brought Sky on it's own.

Channel 4 (104)- I know you get it on normal TV anyway, but with Sky + imagine taping all of the episodes of Friends, or Desperate Housewives etc.

Sky One- (106)- I probably consider this to be one of my favourites, however at this moment in time I can only think of one show on this channel that I watch constantly and that is Bones as well as Lost. There's also shows like 24, Brianiac etc shown on this channel.

Dave (111)- Home to Top Gear, according to my mom this is a 'boys' channel, like Living TV is for us girls, but I have to disagree. I can watch countless of hours of Dave, well Top Gear.

Living TV (112)- Now this is the channel I probably watch the most. It's home to the likes of Will & Grace, America's Next Top Model, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practise and Charmed. It's a great channel and the audience for it, is mainly girls. On Saturday and Sundays they used to have (I'm not sure if they still do it) Hangover TV, which was perfect for me as Charmed after a night out, was just a nice way to get rid of a hangover.

ITV2 (118)- I hardly watch this channel, it's full of like reality TV shows and lame reality shows following certain stars. The only decent thing about this channel is the fact it show repeats of old classic comedies sometimes.

Virgin 1 (121)- This is home to quite a few shows, I only watch it of the TV series Chuck.

E4 (136)- Home to the likes of Friends, Desperate Housewives and when it's on Big Brother Live. It's a good channel, but home to too many reality shows.

DMAX (144)- I only watch this channel for one show and one show only. Miami Ink. It shows hundreds of these a day. It's also shows repeats of London's Burning as well.

MTV (350)- This is home to shows like Pimp My Ride and Cribs.

Kerrang (368)- Best music channel there is.

Overall I think the quality of channels on sky is just amazing. You do find yourself way too often though without anything to watch, that's just because your way too fussy or something, but that's where Sky + comes in, you can go and watch something that you previously taped.

Complexity

At the moment, my mother is trying to get my nan to buy Sky +, I am however sceptical. She probably doesn't watch enough TV to get the real use out of the box and the fact that it is quite complex when you get into it. The amount of times, I've had to be called to come and fix a problem on it, or work out how the hell are we going to tape something etc, it does get quite complex.

If you are a technophobe, I do think this is for you, it's not all the technical stuff that is complicated, it's the bugs that I think some people will find confusing and just way to complicate to fix.

Reliability

I think 95% of the time, it works perfectly. You never really have any problems, it's pretty easy to use, you can get around it easily after about a week and you will learn all of the tricks of the box, however the other 5% just bugs the hell outta you so much… that it made not be as reliable as Sky hoped.

Bugs

There is quite a few, some of them are ones you would expect. If there's a power cut, your program will never tape, most people who have Sky + realise after a while how to get around the fact that you can only tape 2 programs at once, but sometimes if your not there and it clashes, it will just decide which program to kick off and it won't tape it.

These are ones which is more 'natures' way, than anything else. It's down to you being an idiot or just the fact that you have no electricity, I think if it stopped at this, I think it would be a truly magnificent product, however it doesn't.

Sometimes it doesn't tape for no reason at all, it'll put it's foot down and going 'I'm not taping this', never been able to work out why, but every now and then it'll have a little hissy fit.

Other problems is the series link, which doesn't always work, you really have to make sure you don't rely on it 100% as you do have to keep a small eye on it, to make sure that your favourite shows are being taped. This sometimes throws little hissy fits as well.

When I was watching the last series of ER I used to have to record ER as well as the show afterwards, which was so awkward. The reason why is because a show before to do with Location or something, kept on running into the viewing time of ER. The thing with Sky + is that it records 2 minutes before the show is supposed to start and around 3 minutes after the show is supposed to end, however this wasn't enough, so I was constantly missing the ending of the show.

There's probably a lot more, the product itself is brilliant, however these bugs ruin it for you.

Opinion

We had Sky for many years before buying Sky + and we always love Sky but my mum was never too much of a fan, however I think the three of us as a family absolutely adore it. It's probably one of the best electrical items we've ever brought.

When we heard about Sky +, it took us awhile to actually go, it couldn't hurt, so we brought it. It is quite a complicated set up; there are more wires that need to be added etc. The guy will also tell you that the box takes a lot longer to load compared to the old Sky box mainly because of the hard drive.

I think the price is quite reasonable as well, you pay around the same price that you would pay each month for normal sky, the only extra price is the price for the installation for the sky + box. I think this is a great price for what you are getting.

With the Sky + box that we have, you can record up to 40 hours of programs, with that you can tape 80 episodes of Friends, which I think is brilliant.

You never find that it's too little unless you really do want to tape 80 episodes of Friends, like I said earlier we have never gone below 30% I believe and we never tend to let it go below 30%.

I think the Sky Planner is just a brilliant invention, I didn't even realise that we had one of these when you get the normal Sky, but now we use it daily.

I'm not a big advert fan, so I always like to tape things and then watch them so I can skip through the adverts, and the Sky Planner is so easy to use and so simple and effective, however there are a few problems that we have found.

If you have a list of shows say like this:

Miami Ink
Desperate Housewives
Dexter

If you wanted to delete Desperate Housewives, and didn't have a (K) on either Miami Ink or Dexter, you could delete them as well, this is only your own stupidity, but there's no stopping it or retrieving it once it's gone.

The control is a great little device, it actually costs like £30 to replace this little fellow, and however most of the keys on the sky remote control are on the sky + box.

The control is very simple to use especially the bits which are just for the Sky +, it's all, well our control was very well labelled, but the labels have worn off from use. It's a brilliant little device.

I think the greatest thing about the sky +, isn't the fact that you can pause live TV, woopdie doo, I could live without that, however I think the one thing I'm really gonna miss if I watch TV at university is going to have to be, not being able to record TV.

This is seriously a brilliant invention, for years we used to have piles and piles of VHS's lying around our living room, and we had no idea what was on them half of the time.

I think one time they went through all of the videos and found around about 3 seasons worth of Bones episodes on them, however with Sky + you can see what you've recorded, you can watch it when you want, and it's not laying around, so you can trod on it.

Anytime TV is another great addition to the Sky + box, it does dangle the fact that you don't have movies/sports in front of your face, but if you ignore that you get some shows on their that you may have missed.

I think if you are still with Sky, you should really upgrade to Sky +, your lives will change. You don't get any more channels or anything like that, you are paying for the ability to record/rewind/stop television, but it's so worth it.

Do I like Sky +?

I absolutely adore Sky +, it's a great little invention and like I said earlier, there may be some bugs, but if you ignore them, then it's probably one of the best electronically devices you'll ever buy.

Is it worth the money?

Definitely, it saves you a lot of time as well, especially if you tape a lot of stuff at the moment. The fact that you can watch a program and tape another at the same time is brilliant as well, no more having to choose between watching the X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing.

It's well worth the money, I think every home should have one.

Who is its main audience?

I believe the main audience, is a family or someone that watches a lot of TV. If you're only television vice is watching Hollyoaks once a day, then this is not for you, however if you watch Hollyoaks, and all of the rest of the shows ever released then this is for you.

The reason I think its best used for families, is because it in some way stops squabbles. If two people want to watch two things, tape it, and stick in a film or watch something previously taped or even one of the shows that you are taping.

Are the bugs a big problem?

Not really, they only appear every now and then, when they do appear they do piss you off massively, however once you understand the box, you'll learn how to catch the little minxes and stop them.

Overall, should you buy Sky +?

I think if you fit into any of these categories below, then yes you should.

1) Watch a lot of TV.
2) Get annoyed when you miss your favourite show.
3) Have children, who squabble over what to watch.
4) Have shows that you can't watch at the time, as the children are around.
5) Want to interact with your TV more and control it.
6) Get annoyed sitting with your legs crossed for 15/20 minutes waiting for the next advert as you need the loo.
7) Are bored of your Sky box and want to upgrade.

Anything Else?

I have no idea about Sky + HD, but I know it's the next step up from this one, and the box I have to say is a lot more stylish that this one. If you want to join in with the HD crowd then this is for you.

Hoped this helps. Please comment and rate, I hope you read it anyway. :D

© Kirsty 2008