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UK Digital TV explained

What is Digital TV?

Digital TV offers a far wider choice of TV viewing with lots of extra channels, and uses digital technology to reduce the interference that you may experience on analogue TV (the five channels you get via your standard TV aerial).

Digital TV also offers other benefits, such as a greater selection of widescreen programming, and on-screen electronic programme guide, interactive services, and in some cases, Dolby 5.1 surround sound.

What are the Digital TV options?

The options open to you if you want Digital TV in your home, are:

Freeview	Freeview's formal name is Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT), and it is received through your standard TV aerial. All channels are free to watch, there's no installation or subscription cost, no contract, and no engineer needs to visit (although in some cases, an aerial upgrade may be needed if your current aerial isn't suitable). Freeview offers around 60 channels of TV and radio - the channel line-up is more limited than Sky Digital. To get Freeview, you either need to buy a special Freeview set-top box and connect it to your existing TV set, or consider getting a new TV that has a built-in Freeview receiver. See our Freeview pages for details, answers to common questions and our help section
Satellite	Digital satellite from Sky Digital. This offers the largest range of channels around, with channels including Sky One, UKTV Gold, Paramount Comedy, lots of Sky Movies channels and an unrivalled range of sport, music and kids channels. You'll need to arrange for a Sky engineer to install a satellite dish and give you a digibox that plugs into your existing TV. You'll also need to plug the box into your phone line, as a condition of subscribing. This is so that the box can use interactive services, or dial Sky to verify payment for pay-to-view films and sport. If subscribing, we recommend you look at Sky+, which will change the way you watch TV... For more details on Sky, see our Sky page. Offer: Sky Digital is offering the following package: Over 200 digital TV channels, Broadband Internet access (with a free router) and free UK evening and weekend landline phone calls... all this for just £19 a month. A £30 installation fee applies. Limited time, when ordered online. Freesat: If you'd prefer not to subscribe, a number of free-to-view channels are also available with a suitable dish and digibox. In May 2008, Freesat launched, offering free-to-view channels via a dish. This is a joint venture from the BBC and ITV. More on our Free Satellite page.
Cable	If you live in a part of the UK that's covered by cable TV operator Virgin Media, they may be able to provide you with a cable TV package, as well as home phone and high-speed Internet access. The Cable TV firm will install a set-top box and an engineer will call to connect it to their fibre-optic cable. To see if cable TV is available in your area, try www.virginmedia.com More on our Cable TV page
BT Vision	BT Vision. Customers of BT Total Broadband can sign to this service and get a special V-Box that gets Freeview TV, supports live pause of TV shows, and comes with up to 80 hours of recording time. It also can download TV content over a Broadband Internet connection - for content like movies, TV shows, kids programming and sporting events. BT Vision is only available to BT Total Broadband customers (How to Switch provider), and the basic service is subscription-free. More on our BT Vision page
Top Up TV Anytime	Special box that offers the Freeview channels, access to a small number of extra channels, and downloads special TV content overnight onto the built-in hard-disk. Box supports 100 hours of content downloaded over the air to watch on-demand, plus 20 hours of Freeview recording. Content refreshed every seven days. Channels include UK Gold, UK Style and Living TV. You need to be in a Freeview coverage area. The special Top Up TV Anytime set-top box costs £99.99, and the subscription fee is £9.99 a month. See our Top Up TV Anytime page for details
Tiscali TV	Tiscali TV. Formerly known as Homechoice, this service is available in parts of the UK including London, Birmingham and Liverpool, and offers over 80 TV channels to via your phone line. The service also offers 1000 on-demand movies, over 5000 music videos, hundreds of TV series, and a TV rewind service. More on our Tiscali TV page, or at www.tiscali.co.uk/tv

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What are the bonuses of digital TV?

More channels - Sky offers the biggest channel line-up, but check your potential provider to see if they have what you're after. Popular channels include Sky One, E4, BBC3, and UK Gold. Channels exist for comedy, Sci-Fi, kids, movies, music, news and sport.
EPG - An electronic programme guide. Much better than Teletext for seeing what's on. Most offer a "Now and next" popup overlaid onto your TV screen, but king of the EPGs is the Sky Planner, showing up to a week's worth of programmes on all of the available TV channels.
Reduced interference - Nice sharp pictures, without ghosting and interference. Freeview is susceptible to electrical interference in some environments, but in most cases digital TV offers better picture quality, and improved reception of Channel Five.
Pay-per-view services - Pick from a selection of movies, special sporting events, or adult programming and pay via your subscription or credit card.
Improved viewing - with services like widescreen, Dolby 5.1 surround sound, and interactive services.
Digital recorders - Record one channel while watching another. The digital TV set-top boxes normally allow you to record a digital channel while watching a non-digital channel, or the other way around, so you could record E4 while watching BBC1, or record ITV while flicking through your digital channels. Basic services don't allow you to record one digital channel while watching another digital channel. You may like to consider Sky+ , a Freeview PVR or if you're with Virgin Media cable, the Virgin V+. These are hard-disk recorders that give you greater control of what you record.

The Digital Switchover

The UK is set to turn off analogue TV services between 2008 and 2012, so it's important to start thinking of making sure that you only buy TV equipment that's ready for digital TV. After the switch-over to digital, you'll need to have a special digital set-top box connected to your existing TV, or own a TV with a built-in Freeview receiver (something to bear in mind if you're thinking of buying a new TV soon).

As we get closer to the switchover, you should consider the Digital TV options open to you. For more, go to www.switchhelp.co.uk information.

The science bit: If you're interested in the technical side, Digital TV uses something called multiplexing, to combine and compress multiple TV channels into a single transmission that can be decoded by a suitable digital receiver. In the UK, digital TV follows the worldwide DVB (Digital Video Broadcast) standard.

What is Freeview?

As mentioned above, Freeview provides free-to-view TV - Extra channels from your standard TV aerial, without a subscription. You can get around 40 TV channels and 24 channels of radio with Freeview, provided you're within a coverage area (check coverage). Channels include BBC 3, BBC 4, ITV2, ITV 3, ITV 4, E4, More 4, BBC News , Film 4, Dave, Virgin 1, Sky Three, Cbeebies and UK History.

You can get Freeview via a set-top box plugged into your existing TV set, or if you're buying a new TV, look for one with a built-in Freeview receiver.

We have a page dedicated to Freeview, detailing the channels available, a summary of the various set-top boxes available, plus links to useful sites. See our Freeview page.

What is Interactive TV?

Most providers offer some kind of interactive service. Think Ceefax and Teletext, mixed with the Internet. Information on demand, plus two-way services over your phone line, such as email, online shopping and banking. Sky TV viewers are encouraged to "press the red button" to get interactive, and try the news, offers, games, features, and pay services of their interactive offering, Sky Active. Alternatively, check out BBCi, the Beeb's excellent interactive service.

BBCi Interactive
Interactive TV in action