Відео

I grew up in the 90s with ONdigital, we had regular Sky and Telewest, but one thing I'll never forget was my first time trying Sky Plus. It would've been maybe 2004ish. Having the ability to pause and rewind and record individual shows onto the magic hard drive inside the console? That was legit the coolest thing this 11 year old had ever seen. I even remember when my mother bought a Multi-Room subscription and I got a second Sky Plus box in my bedroom. Cartoons and such 24/7, whenever I needed them, all at my disposal. As far as I'm concerned, even 20 years later, Plus was the best it ever got.

1998 is when it started, not 1999 on the description

oh and i had a sky+ box too

12:25 i had that box and ive got the flowline,two hd boxes [black n silver] and ive got a panasonic/amstrad one

The lights on the panel on the white Sky+ boxes were green, not blue!

Great

Some has recreated the old sky epg menu with games and things you can check it out online.

Well done Ash! Here's to another 9!

Very insightful video Ash! I actually remember having the box at 26:30 as it was mainly sold to customers through Sky Multiroom, used to have it installed in my bedroom (as having Sky in your bedroom was almost sort of a "commodity") in my old house. Definitely helped those days where I was sick off school and needed a Cartoon Network or Disney XD fix to put my mind off the pain/sickness I was feeling. I completely forgot they built these boxes without a HDD, which explains why they weren't as heavy as the +HD boxes and could be easily installed by anyone. Although they definitely still packaged a +HD remote with these boxes, despite not having the PVR features included. I don't think it had the capability for On Demand either, as again, it wasn't able to save to a hard drive, I could entirely be wrong though as my memory with this box is a little fuzzy. Nowadays, it's nice that Sky boxes now don't require a HDD and the main Q box can be used for storage, allowing the boxes to intertwine with each other. Although, in our experience, the Mini box we have does not like to play ball often. We've only had to replace the main box once though. Hopefully, when I get a Mini box installed in my current bedroom, it won't have the same issues.

Re: quality of the old Amstrad boxes; I believe they were actually built by Samsung. It would be nice to get some kind of teardown and see what the technical architecture is. At least one of them I think was an ARM-based device, although not as cool as some of the Acorn RISC PC-based set top boxes which were really a general purpose computer with a nice desktop and everything.

def not end of line- made by Humax and they are still available ;)

if I remember correctly we had ITV Digital because we couldn't get a signal for Sky at our house. ITV Digital going bust made us eventually move house lol.

My first digibox was the Panasonic TU-DSB31 (11'09"). I wanted the Sony, as I had a Sony analogue receiver for Sky at the time. But in hindsight, I was glad to have the Panny as I believe it had the fastest UI of all the digiboxes at the time.

Sky+ was invented by a scouser😂me.

How are you updating the software in 2024?

Which box has the fastest start up. For example if I complete shut the sky box off and put it back on which comes on first(on actual sky). Please someone tell me. Thanks

When I was born I my family had Directv because there was no cable in the area until 2008. But Sky would have been in the same family as Directv.

I do know that Foxtel and Sky are just Directv anyway.

Wednesday 1st May 2002

They was no BBC channels on Sky SD boxes anymore

The service fell harden than Kermit when he fell of the building.

Hiya, so is this the SD box without a viewing card? I connected my old box without a card at the start of the year or end of last and nothing would happen unless I had the card, has anything changed? Cheers!

the USB ports on the earlier +HD boxes were used for the wireless connector mini wifi adapter it was given free to HD customers who didn't have all of their boxes online in the mid 2010's

Reminds me of the late 90s when we first got Sky Digital haha :) Contrast on LOW setting actually looked nicer

Do you have any videos about getting footage off the Sky boxes? There is an old show. I can’t find and I’m considering buying job lots of boxes just hoping someone might have it recorded. I was sectioned and put into a hospital which was on Channel 4 dispatches called under lock and key march 2017 is was on and i can’t find it. I want to find it so I can show people what it was like for me in there no one believes me.

Another great video, Ash. 😊

My mum used her Sky Digibox all the way from 2005 until we replaced it with a Freesat box in 2023 since Sky discontinued Freesat from Sky. But Freesat has a lot of channels removed as well. She can't figure out streaming services and Freeview doesn't have reception in her area so now has to deal with a much reduced tv service.

Sky have pretty much given up on Satellite now - the current Astra satellites they use for broadcast will go end of life 2028 and freesat till 2030. It looks like Freely will be the freesat / Freeview replacement which provides regular TV via the Internet and will enable the BBC and Freeview to decommission both the Sats & the Terrestrial broadcast platform (via the Aerial). And sky already have that with Stream which also will be their primary product. Biggest issue is for older people who don’t have broadband connections as this could leave them out in the cold - so there may be a period of government investment to get older people on internet for TV.

Could use the +1s to still be able to watch some channels.

I remember the autoview feature on the personal planner could be used with certain VCRs and DVDRs to automatically record programmes using a signal on a scart connection. Considering Sky+ was still to be invented this was an amazing function at the time.

The reason none of the HD channels appear on the EPG is because the Digibox you used is on a really old version (presumably one that predates when Sky HD was made available). If you were to use a Digibox with the last EPG version available (which is 3.8.8) the HD channels will appear on the guide, of course with a message telling you to upgrade to HD in order to watch the channel.

How TV may look in the future, if the BBC decides to move online only. Hopefully paving the way for us to watch TV without a TVL!!

Great video Ash made me feel in my early 20's again with that one hope you can give us a Cable n wireless Ntl walk through soon

Great video Ash, however I would recommend recording at 1080p50 as PAL is 50p

Hi Ash just got your message and now am watching this ha ha

Also, the Q on the Sky Q box makes the remote beep to find it. Nice touch

The keyboard remote is called the Sky Navigator.

I found the song on SoundCloud, but my comment got removed

Do they still work ? Can you get anything out of them?

Hi Ash, great video by the way. Could you make a history lookback video for NTL/Telewest/Virgin Media digital set-top boxes soon please? But only when you find any of them.

18:04 yes that is a 2004-2005 one. I remember it as my parents had it, when I was growing up. Born in 96. Grew up with Sky. However, I have not had it for over 12 years now. Sadly, not as good as it used to be.

Great video Ash! If you do a video about the old Sky analogue service then that would be appreciated. Maybe even something about satellite dishes too. 😊

Great video man. do you have any Sky analogue boxes.?

Great video Ash, thank you

I remember I was so excited when I got my Squarial - also had about a foot of snow on it - and no sparklies ...wonderful times indeed

ITV Digital could have been so much better. Shame about what happened to it.

The prices of those Philips and Nokia BSB receivers (with a Squarial) dropped from around £300 to £50 within a week after the merger, I bought one and installed it myself, and got about 2 years of use before the digital service was turned off and the MarcoPolo satellites 1 and 2 were sold to a Norwegian broadcaster, as of 2024 those satellites are more than likely in the junk belt. However, after the 1992 BSB digital switch-off, I repositioned the Squarial a few degrees east, picked up a modded BSB receiver, and got a French service that played movies in English and a music video channel (MCM) that was 90% UK and US artists, at the time they played the full version of Guns N' Roses November Rain and played Neil Youngs Harvest Moon video before the song was first played on the radio here in the UK.

I have a similar BSB receiver but from Wolsey Electronics. Any chance of whipping the top off and showing the insides?

Good video, I had the Phillips box I bought towards the end of ITV Digitals life for £12 at a carboot.

1:38 Downturn in advertising?!!? The ads were great i loved the first one