Tag Archives: Sky Active

Sky Interactive – Part 3

Music Choice

Music choice is premium music channel subscription service. Two channels were offered, Music choice on channel 480 was included in the Sky family Pack, whilst Music Choice Extra was on channel 481 and offered 40 different channels centered on a specific genre or theme, and was a separate subscription service that could be added. Both channels featured a press red prompt which would open and lead to the main interactive service where the channel could be selected, and information on the currently playing song along with artist and album information.

Playjam

PlayJam was the other main gaming service offered on Sky Digital, and could be accessed by pressing the interactive button, then selecting option 3. Playjam featured exclusive game of which they developed, and operated on a pay 2 play scheme like Sky Gamestar offered where the Digibox would use the telephone line to order and unlock the game or to submit a high score. PlayJam also offered competitions that users could join.

QVC

QVC offered a shopping service to supplement the main channel by advertising the products on offer and allowed for a way to order through the interactive service. QVC made extensive use of Sky interactive platform.

Sky Movies Active

Sky Movies Active offered movie trailers for the movies that Sky Movies was showcasing, and upcoming relates and behind the scenes commentary of the movies.

BBCi

BBCi was offered on all BBC channels and could be access either by pressing the red button or by pressing text. The service is very similar to what’s offered on Freeview and Cable, as BBC at the time wanted to remain platform neutral across the different providers.

Sky Active

Sky Active was treated to a rebrand in 2004, with the service being focused on news and articles that you would normally find on the MSN or Yahoo homepage. There’s less focus on shopping or ecommerce and is more to enhance the Sky service by adding value.

An interpretation of the popular board game Scrabble

One of the many Tom & Jerry games on Sky Active, If I remember correctly this game required you to play as Jerry, and navigate the (large) house and collection cheese, whilst avoiding Tom and his friends. Keys could be collected to unlock areas of the house

Sky Interactive – Part 1

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A look at Sky’s interactive services offered in 2002, back when interactive TV was a thing

Also can’t mention Sky interactive without the Red button dude, who’s sole purpose was to promote Sky interactive services by pressing your red button, even though that only worked on a Sky channel.

Interactive Menu

Sky Gamestar

Sky’s interactive game service

Sky Gamestar – Cartoon Network

A dedicated section of gamestar with games based on Cartoon Network shows

Domino’s Pizza

At one time you could order Pizza through your Sky Digibox

Sky Active

The Classifieds and info section, for local jobs and marketplace

Cinema Listings

View and book local listings, this only worked with Odeon cinemas, which was useless because there were no Odeon cinemas in my area.

Adverts

Sky used to advertise their services and competitions whilst interactive screens were loading

Lovetomeet

A dating service that relied on the internal modem

HSBC

Before internet banking there was Interactive TV banking, again I only saw HSBC and LLoyds TSB being supported, other banks were not on the service

Sky Movies

Exclusive to the Sky Movie channels, shows local cinema listings and to purchase DVD’s, a nice feature of this service was you could see behind the scenes clips from moves.

Your Mobile

Download ringtones, logos and custom voicemail, back when ringtones were polyphonic (think Nokia 3210, Ericsson T28s)

Sky Active: Shopping

Home shopping was considered to be a main feature of interactive TV, since customers could see the items themselves. Sky allowed a range of retailers to have presence on interactive, and even had their own storefront, SkyBuy

Marketplace

Some sort of eBay/Gumtree service, customers could buy and sell locally

Sky News Active

Activated by the red button, a very useful service where you can browse news headlines, view ‘Active Channels’ which were small channels dedicated to certain subjects or headline coverage. These could also be tuned in using the Other Channels feature, bypassing the service

Sky Movies Active

This is where you could see the behind the scenes stuff from movies, similar to bonus scenes on DVD’s

Sky Winzone

Sky Active

Another view of the main Sky Active home screen

Interactive today

Sadly Sky axed most of their interactive services, so here is the interactive menu that you are left with

Does it work? Well…

It seems the only OpenTV interactive TV services available is BBC Red Button and the S4C language changer, none of which use the modem/return path. I’m not sure if the services offered on Sky Q are the same, I believe it’s mostly Netflix/Prime type of applications that are video on demand services.

Sky Interactive – Part 2

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A look at Sky’s interactive services offered from 2001

Sky Text

An alternative interactive service provided by Sky, unlike Active that focused on shopping and games, Text focused on information like local listings, news, weather, etc

Open…

Prior to its relaunch to Sky Active in late 2001. Open… was the main interactive portal on Sky Digital, and provided a gateway to other interactive services

Open… Shopping

E-commerce was the main attraction of interactive TV, with the ability to buy products though Sky Digital

Woolworths

Woolworth (Remember them?) was one such retailer

Sky Text

Sky text was designed to be used whilst watching regular Sky TV channels

Horoscopes

Not much to say, just star signs and horoscopes

Asda

Supermarket portal, do your grocery shopping through your TV

Harrods

The Simpsons

Sky Movies Active

Cinema Listings

Sky Guide Redesign

Sky were due to redesign the Sky Guide interface, with a new two tone blue interface in line with the corporate branding of the time.

BT Phone

This never officially launched, but at some point you were supposed to be able to manage your phone bills via your TV, this would have extended to your Gas, Electric and Water