HD Channels on Sky

Is it just me, or is any body else missing the part about prices that the Sky HD service will cost?

I notice that the HD channels due for launch yesterday have been delayed until "later in February". The ones due last week didn't appear until Monday of this week.

I appreciate that not many people can receive these channels, but surely Sky should stick to their schedule for launching them, otherwise it starts to look like an unreliable technology (not very good as a first impression).

I'm not really up on HDTV so forgive me if the answer to this is obvious, but why do the HD channels need to be seperate? Can't the main channel be in HD, or would normal boxes and TVs not be able to see it? Isn't it just like a channel being in widescreen, with the ability for the viewer to turn it on or off?

I was under the impression that, although you need a HD-ready TV to use it to the full advantage, it can be watched on an old school TV as well.

Is anyone else dubious as to whether or not HD will take off?

Presumably standard Sky boxes don't have the ability to decode an HD signal at the moment. Personally though, I'd like to see people with HD viewing cards assigned Sky One HD on 106 (for example) whilst normal boxes continue to get Sky One SD on 106. I imagine though Sky want standard subscribers to see the HD channels listed on their EPG in the hope they'll see them and upgrade.



I believe you can, but you need an HD Digibox to decode the channels.



I think like most things, takeup will be slow at first, but then increase as prices come down.

I'm not entirely up on HD, so I'm sure someone can explain more, but AFAIK although there will be SCART outputs on the box which can feed the SD channels to a standard TV, I think all HD output must be through HDMI or DVI, I think it's something to do with the signal remaining digital all the way to the TV (with normal digital TV, the digibox converts to an analouge signal for the last part of the journey up to the TV set).

There's a big difference between the change to widescreen and HD. HD is a completely different resolution to SD. Widescreen is exactly the same resolution but the picture is anamorpically streched (there's no more resolution in an SD 16:9 picture than a 4:3 one).

I'm sure the switch to HD will be much slower than the switch to digital, mainly due to costs - which will come down. In 5 years I see it being the standard choice when replacing your TV, but it'll be many more years probably before it becomes standard for most broadcasters.

Nice to see that the BBC and C4 are lobby together for access to freed up spectrum after the analogue turn off, so they can make HDTV available via Freeview, and also keep two frequencies aside to allow some possible 32 channels for mobile phones.

Will the HDTV boxes be incorporated into Sky+ boxes? Would I have to have both for the time being?

I'm not sure on this, but I think there will be a product for this called Sky + HD, simply because the hard drive would need to be a lot bigger to store HD.

Well on the Sky HD website it says the box incorporates Sky+, so they are not seperate things. Sky HD will come as Sky+

Sky are only launching with one HD receiver - and it is a Sky+ device. You won't be able, initially, to buy a non-Sky + HD receiver (and you may not ever be able to?)

If you have an existing Sky+ box then you should be able to swap your Sky+ with a Sky+ HD device, and use your existing dish, lnbs and cabling - though if your dish isn't well aligned it may need a slight tweak, as Sky are using DVB-S2 rather than DVB-S which needs a slightly cleaner/stronger signal.

The MPEG4 video compression that Sky are using for HD is more efficient than MPEG2 used for SD, so although HD delivers between 4 and 6 times the amount of picture information, it may only require 3-4 times as much digital bandwith, so a 250Gb or 400Gb hard drive would be perfectly sensible.

Also the pictures of the back of the Sky + HD box show it has a SATA connector to allow an external hard drive to be connected for greater storage (as is now happening with US cable box PVRs as well)

In the US everything that is HD is widescreen, and everything SD is 4:3.

It's easy to spot a HD programme, like Malcolm in the Middle, later series of Buffy, Desperate Housewives, etc.

It will be great to see this in wonderful detail.

I read that a Sky HD subscription is required. Is that just a plain straight off subscription or does it have something to do with existing subscriptions?

The cost is £299 for the box, and £10 a month for the HD subscription. If I remember correctly, Sky+ cost the same at the time of launch.