Sky were the first company to offer a digital TV service in the UK, with all the added benefits of interactive broadcasts and a wider selection of channels, and they were also the first to offer their customers the ability to pause, record and rewind the television in real time as it was being broadcast, and that is thanks to the technology contained within the Sky+ Set top box.

There are currently two varieties of the Sky+ service, the Sky+ box and the Sky+ HD box, both of which have slightly different operational abilities and applications in the digital homes.

Sky+ Box

With the Sky+ box you can of course access the hundreds of great channels that are available on Sky, and the flexibility of their packages, which you can tailor to your particular tastes and budgets and of course add to at any time. However, on top of that the Sky+ box features a built in hard drive which allows you to store shows and movies without the need for VHS tapes or DVDs.

Up to 40 hours of video can be stored on the hard drive so you're not likely to need to delete anything for a while. With the Sky electronic program guide it's as easy as selecting your favoured show and setting the Sky+ box to record it. You can even use Series Link to set the box to automatically record the whole series of a particular program without you having to go through and manually select each one.

The Sky+ Box is currently on offer to new customers for just £99 with an additional installation charge of £30, and on top of the ability to record shows straight to the hard drive it also comes with access to Sky's on demand video service called Sky Anytime TV. This is a bank of shows and movies to watch at any time of the day or night that is most convenient, and there's no need to take up any of the space on your Sky+ hard drive.

{QUICK_TV_COMPARISON_TABLE TAGS="sky,tv,sky plus" ORDER="srv_price" LIMIT="2"}

Sky+ HD Box

The next generation of television will not just be broadcast digitally but will be in High Definition (HD). With up to 4 times more picture detail than current standard definition broadcasts, HD will make everything from sports to movies a more vivid and entertaining way to watch TV.

At the moment you can get access to HD channels through Sky+ using their Sky+ HD box. Up to 80 hours of SD video or 30 hours of HD video can be recorded to the Sky+ HD box, and just like the standard box you can pause, rewind and record live TV and set up the box to record whichever programs you want.

If you've got an HD ready TV then Sky+ HD can cost you only £49 when you sign up for one of the HD packages of channels, starting from just £26.25 a month and including free broadband and free off peak calls to UK landline numbers.

Sky+ HD is best bought as part of a bundle that contains these other services as it's the best way to keep the costs down across the board, and combining all of your monthly TV, phone and internet costs into one bill is a huge convenience. Everything from sports to Sci-Fi to news is now available in HD.