Sky Digital

Welcome to the Sky Digital page, this is our guide to Sky Digital which is a digital television service offering many types of program including entertainment, sports, movies, kids television, documentaries, news, music and much more.

Sky Digital is one of the most popular services for receiving digital TV, this is mainly due to their extensive range of television channels including many premium channels that are only available on Sky. These premium channels include Sky One which has programs such as The Simpsons, 24, Star Trek, Deadwood and many others way before the other channels show them and also lots of other entertainment programs.

When subscribing to Sky Digital there are a few choices you need to make, the first is the channel package you wish to choose. The first package is the basic package with all of the general channels such as entertainment, music, documentaries and most of the kids channels, the next packages up include the premium channels such as Sky Movies, Sky Sports, the Disney channels and a few others. You should only choose these packages if you are a huge fan of the subject such as sports or movies, this is because the Sky package will offer extensive coverage of that subject but it will cost quite allot more than the basic package so only sign up to what you really want. You also have to choose what hardware you would like, there is the basic Sky Digital box that will give access to any Sky channel package you should choose and then there is Sky Plus which will also receive all of the channels but can also record them and do other cool things like pause live television. Then there is Sky Multiroom, Sky multiroom allows you to have more than one Sky box in your home so that you can have access to Sky in more than one room, there is an additional fee for Sky multiroom so only go for this if you really need it.

The main reason people like Sky television is that it offers an extensive range of channels in all subject areas. The subject with the most channels is entertainment, there are hundreds of entertainment channels including the main channels such as BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, Channel 4, E4, Sky One and Channel 5. Then there are lots of other entertainment channels such as Challenge, Bravo, Paramount, UKTV and many others, some of these also have more than one channel on the Sky network so the choice really is immense. The Sky channels are very popular as they often have exclusive rights to show popular programs like 24, The Simpsons, Deadwood, Star Trek and many others, also lots of popular shows get shown on digital television before they are aired on terrestrial television such as Little Britain, Spooks and many others.

Sky Sports is a very popular sky package because it offers a huge amount of sports coverage with live sporting events being broadcast most of the time. The main Sky sports product is football, they have every major football event covered including the Premiership, Championship, FA Cup, League Cup, The Champions league, The UEFA Cup and many others, they also have top coverage of international football. They also extensively cover other sports such as rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, motor sport and many others, just about every sporting event is covered live by Sky Sports. Sky Sports has three main channels, these are Sky Sports 1, 2 and 3 and they also have Sky Sports Extra, all of the main sports events are covered by these channels. Then they also have a dedicated sports news channel called Sky Sports News, this channel is like any other 24 hour news channel but covers only sport so has in depth news and information about all sports including information on events taking place at that time. Sky Sports also have an excellent interactive service, for example when the Champions League games are playing you can choose which one you want to watch, you simply press the red button and then select the Champions league game you would like to see. They also cover a huge amount of Premiership games with live games being shown every week, they also show some Premiership games on pay per view on the Prem Plus channel.

The other premium channel package is the movies channels, Sky Movies offers lots of movie channels with lots of films being shown at any one time. They have lots of general movie channels and then there are specialist channels such as Sky Cinema which shows classic films, there are other subscription based film channels available too like Film Four. The great thing about Sky Movies is that they show new films, Sky Movies has films way before they are shown on terrestrial television. They also have a pay per view service for the really new films that is called Sky Box Office, Sky Box Office has films at roughly the same time they are available to rent but with Sky Box Office it's much easier as you do not have to leave the room to get the film and the cost of a Sky Box Office film is about the same as a rental charge which is charged automatically to your Sky subscription.

Then there are lots of specialist channels, one of the favourites is the documentary channels as these offer interesting documentaries on all kinds of subjects. There are also lots of documentary channels available so you are sure to find something of interest, the subject matter covered by the documentary channels is vast. The most famous documentary channel is Discovery, Discovery show lots of high quality documentaries and also have more than one channel on the Sky network.

Kids TV is also very popular, there are lots of kids channels including Disney, Cartoon Network, Discovery Kids, Nickelodeon, Trouble and many others, all of these shows programs suitable for kids all day long so there will always be something on for them. The kids programs shown also cover all ages so there will be programs for pre school, young kids and teens, there are also lots of educational programs shown along with the cartoons.

The news channels are also very popular, Sky News offers 24 hour coverage of all news events with top class coverage. There are also lots of other 24 hour news channels and they include BBC News 24, Bloomberg, Fox News, CNBC and many others, they all offer up to the minute news coverage and many specialist programs.

Then there are the music channels, these offer music videos all day long with lots of channels covering every type of music. There are general channels such as MTV which show a wide range of music and then there are specialist music channels which show only music in the style of the channel like rock, pop, classical and many others.

One thing to consider when joining Sky Digital is the Sky Plus option, this is a Sky box with an internal hard drive so that it can store lots of information inside of the box. This means that with Sky Plus you can record programs inside the box so you will never have to use blank tapes or DVD's again, this is allot easier to use and will also save space. Sky Plus also has some cool features, when taping a program you can select the series link which means that the Sky Plus box will automatically tape all of the programs in the series so you will not have to bother next week, this is very useful for programs like 24 which are on every week but will not work for programs that are not a typical series like The Simpsons. Sky Plus can also pause live television, this is a very cool feature as it allows you to have a break whenever you like, no more having to wait for the adverts! It does this by taping the program onto the hard drive when you press pause and then it keeps taping it until you press play, it then plays back what it has taped but keeps recording so that you do not catch up with the program and get cut off. As it is playing the program from the hard drive this offers a few advantages too, you can rewind or fast forward to any point you like which means you can fast forward the adverts or rewind to certain parts of the program you enjoyed.

So when joining Sky Digital there are a few things to consider, the main consideration is the channel package. The most basic channel package offers access to most of the channels including the entertainment channels such as Sky One which show programs such as The Simpsons, 24, Star Trek, Deadwood and many others. Then there are a the premium channels such as Sky Sports and Sky Movies, these offer extensive coverage of sports or movies such as the latest films and sports such as football with the Premiership and Champions League but do cost quite a bit more, you're best off checking the current prices and then deciding if it is worth it. Then there is the equipment, the basic Sky box is free but the Sky Plus box is much better as it offers advanced features such as being able to record and pause live TV which really can add to your Sky Digital experience. Then there is Sky Multiroom which allows access to channels in more than one room, this is great if you have family members who disagree on what to watch but there is a monthly fee associated with Sky Multiroom so again it's a matter of deciding if it is worth the extra money.