Sky boxes

Sky boxes are digital satellite receivers with a couple of slots for a viewing card. There are free channels on sky that can be viewed without even a sky viewing card; however channel 4 and channel five require a viewing card.

The standard Sky Box

On a standard Sky box there is 2 Scart's and 2 phono's. The Scart's on the Sky box only contain a composite and RGB signals. There is no S-Video support on a standard Sky box. You must have Scart control on and select RGB for RGB to work correctly, otherwise the sky box will send a composite signal.


"The back of a Normal Sky box"

Sky+ boxes

The Sky+ box offers a additional S-Video and optical connection, however again no S-Video on the scart. The optical output on the Sky+ box is rarely used for 5.1 sound apart from the movie channels.


"The back of a Sky+ box"

SkyHD

The SkyHD box offers many connections which where missing on the other boxes such as component (new HD boxes will not have component outputs - see here) and HDMI. The SkyHD box also allows for high definition pictures unlike the standard Sky box and Sky+.


"The back of a SkyHD box"