BBC (Three) now using 'press green' icons during promos

Between Little Britain and Family Guy tonight, BBC Three showed a promo for comedy on BBC Three. I was surprised to see the 'Press green' icon that will be familiar to viewers of Sky channels. This was certainly the first time I'd seen it used on a non-Sky channel. Do other platforms have a similar feature? Pressing green gave me the option to add Family Guy, The Mighty Boosh and Little Britain to the personal planner.

Not just BBC Three, they've been slowly introducing this on certain BBC promos since the start of the month.

Its about time, its a great feature but I don't record much from Sky owned channels so as soon as all channels offer this the better.

I've never actually taken advantage of this feature; does it also allow you to set up a Sky+ recording from the press-green function?

Yes, when you press green you get a list of shows in the promo (the BBC Three example was for comedy in general so there were three shows listed). You then scroll down to the one you want and press select or record in the normal way. This even works if the programme is further than one week away, i.e. beyond the current EPG data being broadcast.

So is that done on the Search and Scan banner or does it take you away from the channel you're watching?

It takes you away from the channel you are watching, although its worth remembering that you are only watching a promo anyway, this doesn't happen during programmes and the audio of the channel you are watching continues in the background rather than the usual EPG music.

Oh okay ... sort of a soft menu then. I wonder whether it interrupts Instant Rewind on that channel.

While I haven't tried it, I should imagine it does, as anything which takes you away from the channel, including accessing interactive services, interrupts instant rewind. The Sky+ boxes are rather stupid like that.

I noticed it on BBC2 a few weeks back. It comes in handy because when you press green it takes you to the reminders section on Sky, and once you come out you're back on the channel.

Though if the sound continues in the background it hasn't taken you away from the transponder has it? Maybe the recording can continue?

I'd expect that, like the "Press Red" icons, it doesn't appear when you're in instant rewind anyway.