Information about the New HD EPG

In March 2009, Sky began the rollout of the much anticipated HD EPG to Sky+ HD boxes. Initially, a batch of 38,000 Sky+ HD boxes received the update, which were the 4E300E version Thomson boxes.

The rollout has since began progressing to other version numbers and all Sky+ HD boxes should receive the update within a few months from when the rollout began.

The New HD EPG brings with it the following features:

• Mini TV
• Now, Next and Later banner
• Record and Series Link
• Series Stack
• Improved Search
• Highlight HD Content

Mini TV

The new mini tv gives you the ability to continue watching television whilst browsing your TV Guide. This means you can plan your evening's viewing at the same time as continuing to watch your favourite show.

It also lets you preview other channels without going out of the EPG, making it easier to choose what you want to watch.

Not only can you continue watching TV whilst using the new HD EPG, but you can also hear the programme that you are watching too, the music from the old EPG has now gone.

The Mini TV can be turned off if you prefer, however the audio from the programme that you were watching will continue when you enter the EPG.

With the Mini TV enabled, you see TV listings for 6 channels at a time. If you turn off the Mini TV, this increases to 11 channels.

As well as the Mini TV, when it is enabled, you also see a on-screen description of each programme that you highlight.

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Now, Next and Later banner

The existing "Now and Next" banner has been improved to a "Now, Next and Later" banner and now lets you see information on any programme across all channels that start in up to 12 hours ahead.

The old EPG would only allow information to be displayed about the programme that you are currently watching without going into the EPG. This is no longer a problem, so you can find out what is happening in your favourite programme this evening.

As with the old EPG, pressing SELECT on your remote whilst watching TV will display the "Now, Next and Later" banner. Pressing the UP or DOWN buttons will scroll through the channels and pressing the LEFT or RIGHT buttons will scroll through the listings on the channel.

There has also been the introduction of a last viewed channel button, which is combined with the existing favourites button. The Blue Button can now be pressed once to display the "Now, Next and Later" information banner of the last channel viewed, and any further presses of the blue button will scroll through your favourite channels.

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Record and Series Link

Recording and setting up series links has now been made even easier. Recording a programme can now be done without interrupting what you are watching.

Recording from the "Now, Next and Later" banner now lets you set any programme you want to record without having to go into the EPG, simply press the R button on the remote.

Recording from the EPG has also been made easier. On the Old EPG, when you selected a programme to record, you would be taken to the Planner screen.

This is no longer the case with the new EPG, meaning that you can now set your whole evening's recording in just a few simple button presses.

Setting up Series Links is now a lot easier too. When you choose to record something, if it is part of a series, you now get prompted to choose "Record Once" or "Record Series".

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Series Stack

The new HD EPG now has a Series Stack, which is a nice little feature that groups your recorded programmes into a single entry in your planner if they are are from the same series.

For series where you have recorded more than one episode, you will see the series stack icon, shown below:


The description also tells you how many episodes are in the stack and also how many of those have been viewed.

When you enter the stack, you will be presented with a list of all the recorded episodes in that stack.

The list displays the status of the episode, such as whether it has been viewed or recorded.

There is also a description next to the Mini TV giving a synopsis of the highlighted episode.

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Improved Search

In our opinion, the improved search facilities that the New HD EPG brings with it is one of the most useful and impressive features of all.

On the old EPG, the best that was available was simple A-Z listings. However, this would only allow you to find programmes beginning with a single letter and would only find programmes that were to be broadcast within 48 hours.



With only being able to find programmes by their first letter, it would often find a LOT of programmes and you would have to scroll through many pages to find the programme that you were interested in. This combined with only finding programmes in the next 48 hours made this a useless features that in most cases took longer than looking through the listings yourself.

The New HD EPG now allows you to search for programmes with much more flexibility.

You can now search for programmes by typing part of the name of the programme, with up to 10 characters supported. The entry of these 10 characters can be done on your remote control as you would for text messages, so for the letter 'D', you would press number 3 once, and for the letter 'O', you would press number 6 three times. You can also specify a Genre (e.g. Movies) and a Sub Genre (e.g. Action). You can then filter the results to either the TV Guide, showing results from the main TV Listings, or by Anytime, which will look for programmes available in your Anytime section, and Planner, which will look in the programmes that you have recorded in your planner.

Another great improvement with the search is that you can now search through listings for the next 7 days, instead of 48 hours in the old EPG.

The search results also incorporate the stack system, so that the same epsisode of a programme or movie is shown once in the results, and you can go into the stack to see all of the screenings of that programme or movie.

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Highlight HD Content

The New HD EPG also gives you the option to highlight HD content on the EPG in an orange colour to make it a lot easier to find something to watch in high definition.

With this feature enabled, you no longer need to view information about each programme to find out if it is being broadcast in high definition, which is especially useful on the simulcast HD channels where not everything is broadcast in HD.

If you prefer to watch TV in high definition, this is a good feature to have enabled.

To enabled this feature, press "Services", then "Select", then scroll to "Customise" (or Press 8), then press "Select" and change "Mini TV Mode" to "ON".

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