ITV HD can now be viewed on Sky+ HD boxes, thanks to Sky's new EPG and operating system, currently in the process of being rolled out to Thomson, Pace, Samsung and Amstrad HD boxes.

The channel has to be added manually, so check out our Step-by-Step Guide to adding ITV HD to your Sky+ HD box.

There aren't many programmes – let's face it, the channel is a complete waste of bandwidth most of the time – but with Champions League, FA Cup and England's World Cup qualifying matches, plus the likes of Law and Order, Lewis and Moving Wallpaper (OK, forget I mentioned that last one) it's certainly worth making the effort.

Pace Sky+ HD receivers are being recalled by Sky.  Customers who own certain revisions of the Pace TDS850NB are being contacted directly by Sky with regards to a potential fault uncovered during testing, that may manifest itself in the future.

When I spoke to a member of the Sky Technical team earlier today, he would not divulge the details of what the fault might involve, but did assure me that it was not a matter of health and safety, and that it did not involve any issues of a hazardous nature (early suggestions are that it is hard-disk related).  Neither could he reveal which specific batch of Pace Sky HD boxes are being recalled, although according to our own initial research, many of them appear to have been purchased through the recent Tesco promotion and are version 9F3002 or 9F3003, 1.614.

For those with boxes that are affected, and reports suggest the number may be in excess of seven thousand, Sky are offering an engineer visit to install a replacement, together with a new twelve month guarantee and three free months of Sky HD subscription.  Unfortunately, Sky are not able to say whether the replacement box will be a Thomson, Samsung, Amstrad or another Pace, or whether it will be a refurbished item.

This puts owners of affected Pace Sky+ HD receivers in an awkward position; either hang onto a (currently) fully-functioning box knowing that it might develop a fault of unknown nature in the future, or arrange a replacement for what might turn out to have lip-sync or noise issues or perhaps worse still, a refurbished Thomson. The box swap is optional, not mandatory.

If you don't know what brand of HD receiver you own or what revision it is, those details can be determined via “Services” -> “System Setup” -> “System Details” from the on-screen menus.

Given that many consider the Pace to be one of the better Sky+ HD boxes, this recall will come a something of a surprise, although confidence in the build quality of previous Sky HD boxes has never been particularly high.

Important Update 15/02/2009

Four days after we broke this story, Sky have finally provided an official announcement that helps clarify the situation. All the information we originally posted was correct, but the news is worse than we originally thought.  Ninety thousand Pace Sky+ HD receivers are being recalled over a period of approximately twelve weeks.  They are all those produced as part of the first batch: versions 9F3001, 9F3002, 9F3003 and 9F3004. As we initially suspected, some of those who have already had engineer visits have been offered Thomson Sky+HD boxes as replacements.

The Sky statement explains that: “The issue relates to the way in which some of the boxes in the batch were assembled. In particular, it involves the internal cabling and the quality of the connections between components. This means that the build quality of the box may not meet Sky’s standards. The assembly flaw does not involve a faulty component, such as a hard drive, or a software problem. Importantly, Pace has confirmed that the assembly flaw does not pose a safety risk.”

The full text of the Sky statement can be found at: Pace Sky+ HD boxes

All Sky receivers, including Sky Plus and Sky HD boxes have, under their picture settings menu, a contrast adjustment.  There’s some confusion about which is the best Sky contrast setting but if you have a Thomson-manufactured HD box, I always tell people that “Low” is definitely the one to go for, regardless of whether you’re viewing on an LCD, plasma or in a dark or light room.

The goal is to feed your display the best possible picture, then adjust it to your taste or accurate, ISF calibrated levels.  No amount of fiddling with the controls on your TV will restore image information already discarded by an incorrect contrast setting in the receiver itself.

Contrast Low (562.77kb)

Contrast Medium (606.53kb)

Contrast High (599.97kb)

Once you get past the fact that Emily Deschanel’s complexion doesn’t hold up to HD scrutiny (Clearasil anyone?) you’ll notice that the Thomson's “High” setting makes noise in the image more apparent, but also ‘clips’ the highlights in the windows behind her.

‘Clipping’ is the term used to describe when the lightest areas of an image become too bright and lose detail.  Imagine looking at the bulb of a torch, when it’s turned on you can no longer see the filament – it’s still there but it’s too bright to see.

The “Medium” setting also has slight clipping, but the “Low” setting preserves all the highlight detail and produces a more neutral image, exactly what your display deserves.  It also produces results that are almost identical to that of the raw transport stream (the broadcast itself).

Contrast Low (674.31kb)

Contrast Medium (676.21kb)

Contrast High (710.63kb)

Our second example uses a frame from the new BBC HD channel ident sequence, and we’ve included a histogram to make it a little easier to see what is going on, useful if your computer monitor hasn’t been calibrated.  If it has, then it’ll be easy to spot that a large amount of detail in the waves just above and to the right of the logo has been completely lost with the Thomson Sky HD receiver set to a “High” contrast setting.  Notice also how the histogram is unnaturally flat.

Visually the “Medium” setting looks much better, but again, the histogram shows that the brightest parts of the image are clipped.  With the Sky box set to “Low” however, none of the highlight detail is lost.  You might feel that “Low” makes images a little dull, but as you can see from the histogram there is available latitude to add a little more contrast to the image using the controls on your display, without sacrificing any detail.

It's worth mentioning that the contrast control on Pace-manufactured Sky HD boxes appears to be broken in the current software version, both the “Low” and “High” settings are dreadful, so stick with the default “Medium” setting for best results if you own a Pace.  Amstrad boxes are also problematic in this area, they're all stuck on “High” and the output does not change regardless of the setting in the menus.

Oh, and in case you're wondering who manufactured your Sky HD box, that information can be found via "Services" -> [4] "System Setup" -> [5] "System Details".

“This will be a fully HD facility with an IT-based workflow and we are targeting 1080p as the main production format,” said Troy Smith, director of Technology Platforms at BSkyB, about the company’s new broadcasting facility in Osterley, West London.  The building is set for completion in 2010 and will support all of Sky’s play-out and distribution requirements, include eight studios and the most of the broadcaster's postproduction and edit suites – with the exception of Sky News – when the facility goes live in 2011.

Stanhope, Arup Associates and Bovis Lend Lease are working together on the construction of the 25,000m², £130 million “green” building, and BSkyB have appointed Sony as lead systems integrator to support the £77 million technical fit-out, a mandate that will include the building’s flexible HD capable multi-platform content production facilities and support their “strategic multi platform play-out and distribution requirements.”

The project represents one of the largest infrastructure builds in the UK broadcast industry to-date. As lead integrator, Sony will support the end-to-end technical fit out but that does not necessarily mean the deployment of Sony hardware.  “We haven’t made any decisions on specific technology, which is one of the strong points of going with Sony,” Smith said. “There may be Sony kit in the final design but we’ve done SI deals with Sony before which haven’t included Sony products. We’ve chosen Sony for their design capability and systems integration capability.”

Whether 1080p at 50fps makes it as far as our televisions remains to be seen, not only would it require new hardware but also a huge bandwidth increase.  Films do not benefit whatsoever from 1080p/50 so converting Sky’s movie channels would be a complete waste of time – Sky already broadcast films at 1080p/25, converted to 1080i by the HD receiver – but it’s a different story where light entertainment, documentaries and especially sport are concerned.  Technology progresses at a frightening pace, so who knows what another three years will bring...