The Sky Guide user interface has been though a lot of changes ever since its launch in October 1998. Being one of the first Digital TV platforms in the UK, however despite having numerous software updates throughout the years, its core design remains the same albeit with certain alterations being made in light of new feature being added to the service.

Screenshots below are captured off a Pace 2500S5 running EPG software version

Search & Scan

Pressing the blue button cycles through the selected favorite channels, Personally I’ve never understood why it cant just open up a small menu showing favorite channels along with what’s being broadcast now, the way it’s been implemented seems like it was tacked on at the last minute, and if you have nearly 50 favorite channels it can take a while to cycle through them all.

If you wondered what the messages button does, It just shows the message above. Originally it was supposed to received broadcast style messages to the digibox, informing customers of any changes to their service

Low battery icon, supported on 2001 and later revision remotes

Sky Guide

TV Guide

Main grid style view, programmes highlighted in white have audio description, this can be changed in the Language & Subtitles menu in the Services section.

Pressing i on the remote brings up a synopsis of the program selected. Also wtf is going on with modern Simpsons?

Sky added further categories in 2005 to accommodate the amount of channels. However in 2021 some of these genres are redundant, there’s only one channel in the Gaming & Dating category for example.

Viewing channels based on genre

No more Lifestyle & Culture channels, Sky merged the genre back into Entertainment

TV Guide: A-Z Listings

Viewing A-Z list of programs by genre. This has always been a mess since the same programme is repeated multiple times due to the advent of +1 and HD simulcasts, Ideally Sky should have combined the same program title into one per channel, instead you can have pages of the same program if it is repeated on multiple channels at different times.

Programs can be viewed by subgenres, which can be selected using the bottom row of colour buttons.

TV Guide: Personal Planner

The Personal Planner was introduced in 2001, and serves as a timer and reminder feature of Sky Guide. Programs can be added here and the digibox will remind you when the program starts. Autoview will make the digibox switch over to the channel automatically, useful for recording programs to a VCR (remember those?). Series Link automatically adds the next program to the personal planner, like the Season Pass feature of the Tivo.

To be honest, I found the Personal Planner to be buggy, many series links will randomly disappear over time.

TV Guide: Favorite Channels

The Digibox can store up to 50 favorite channels, which a separate EPG being introduced that lists the favorite channels exclusively, introduced in the EPG 3.4 update

Box Office

Sadly Sky axed it’s Box Office Pay-Per-View in 2016 in favor of its on demand service. So this part of the guide is now dead.

Services

Shows telephone numbers for broadcasters and departments on Sky. I thought this was a wasted feature since how often do you contact these broadcasters?

A better feature would be to allow the user to enter and save their own phone numbers, then should a contact call, a small message would appear with the callers phone number and name, like a caller display feature. It would certainly give customers a good reason to plug the Digibox into the phoneline. The only time I’ve seen this feature implemented was on a BT Freeview box.

Services: System Setup

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Second Location Picture Format refers to the RF2 output, if the second TV is 4:3 with the main set being 16:9

On-Screen icon timeout referrers to the red button props that appear for interactive. Previously the red button icons would stay on screen unless the user pressed the Backup key

• Model number referrers to the driver stack implemented on the digibox, and varies for each box model and revision
• Version Number – First two characters refer to the Digibox manufacturer, the next two are the major revision (model/CPU chipset), the last two refer to the minor Digibox hardware revision. This field is static and remains the same throughout
• Serial Number – identifies the digibox uniquely
• Viewing Card Number – Refers to the viewing card number currently inserted
• Operating System – the core operating system on the digibox, using a modified OpenTV1.2 with the NucleusOS realtime kernel
• EPG Software Version – Version of Sky Guide currently running

• Signal Strength – How much signal is being received, determined by the size of the dish, quality and length of the cable run and the quality of the tuner used in the box.
• Signal Quality – Signal to noise ratio
• Lock Indicator – If the digibox can decode the transport stream
• Network ID – Used to identify the satellite the user is on, Astra 28.2 is 0002 with Astra 19.2E being 0001, Hotbird 13E is 013e
• Transport Stream – The transponder that the digibox is tuned to

Services: Installer Setup

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Services: Auto Standby

Services: Other Channels

Other Channels lets you add channels that are not on the Sky EPG, but are broadcasting on the 28.2E satellite. These could be regional channels not populated on the guide, or test channels.

In theory you could use this feature to watch channels on different satellite providing your dish is pointed to the satellite. In practice you are limited to two symbol rates (22.0 and 27.5) which restricts what transponders you can tune into (on 19.2E this isn’t much of an issue since Astra frequencies tend to stay consistent). The digibox isn’t a good receiver for this purpose since it wasn’t designed for it, it only barley works with the standard Sky digital service.

Services: Favorite Channels

Lets the customer program up to 50 favorite channels. This was originally 20 channels with the limit being increased in 2005.

Pressing i gives you a channel description, this also appears when you access a channel that you are not subscribed to.

Interactive

MySky

A list of interactive services, or service. Sadly this menu used to be full of different service that were available back in the day (Playjam, Sky Active, QVC, DirectGov, Gky Gamestar)

Unfortunately MySky no longer loads

Pressing i gives you a description of the service

Error Messages

What happens when you disconnect the sat feed, the box cannot load listings, showing that the full listings are not cached in the digibox itself

A weird glitch, BBC Alba and Premier Sports on channel 65535

I believe this is due to a channel being restricted via the encryption, yet the customer is enrolled on the package. Could be due to area/post code restrictions,

Low battery message, supported on v4 remotes and later

Nag screen that appears when you boot up the digibox without a telephone line connected, since Sky have axed all of the interactive services (except for BBCi which does not use the telephone) they might as well remove this prompt

Appers when you switch on the digibox from the mains

All regular Sky digibox’s can only decode MPEG2 SD channels, if you go to an HD channel you simply receive this message. You used to be able to get tv listings for HD channels but Sky remove this to conserve memory since they were running out of EPG spaces

Appears when you insert the viewing card backwards, rumored to charge Sky for the subscription rather than the customer

When you have no signal being received for that channel transponder

Sometimes the digibox can’t load the program information, this message will be diplayed for a few seconds before the synopsis appears.