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44-497: Sky Network may refer to: Sky Television (New Zealand) , a pay television service in New Zealand, which is also referred to as Sky Network Television Sky Group , a British broadcaster and telecommunications company See also [ edit ] Skynet (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with

88-481: A VideoCrypt decoder and a UHF aerial, both of which were supplied by when joining Sky. The signal was sent with the picture scrambled using VideoCrypt technology; the decoder was used to unscramble the picture. Sky Movies was the only channel broadcast in NICAM stereo; Sky Sport and Sky News were broadcast in mono. The original decoder didn't actually support stereo sound; if a subscriber wanted to watch Sky Movies in stereo,

132-413: A 1% shareholder) as well as CNN and HBO providing it with a supply of sports, news and movies for the three channels. Sky News screened a mixture of CNN International and BBC news bulletins and a replay of the 6 pm One Network News bulletin from TVNZ , later changing to a replay of the 3 News 6 pm bulletin from TV3 . The Sky News channel was later discontinued and became branded as

176-668: A 320GB HDD. The quality of My Sky HDi is 576i via component and 720/1080i via HDMI. A new feature was released exclusive to My Sky HDi on 6 July 2010 called Record Me. This feature allows subscribers to press the green button on programme advertisements to record that advertised programme. In May 2009, Sky introduced copy protection on My Sky and My Sky HDi decoders limiting the ability to copy material from My Sky/My Sky HDi to DVD/HDD recorders and to PCs. Sky Box Office channels, including adult channels are copy protected so DVD/HDD recorders and PCs will not record from these channels. Other channels are not copy protected. Copy protection technology

220-452: A CNN channel. In 1994, Sky launched two further channels – Discovery Channel and Orange ; Orange later became known as Sky 1 and then The Box . Discovery Channel broadcast on a channel already used by Trackside . The Trackside service was available free to air to anyone who could receive the UHF signal without the need for a Sky decoder, Discovery Channel screened outside of racing hours and

264-405: A genuine card. The basic model was that the decoder would present the card with a packet of data (the question or challenge) which the card would process and effectively return the result (the answer) to the decoder proving that it was a genuine card without disclosing any critical information. If the decoder received the wrong result from the card, it was supposed to stop decoding the video. However

308-590: A new digital decoder, manufactured by Kaon. The Kaon Sky box includes built-in Wi-Fi. A Sky Link adapter device can be ordered for free by customers, in order to use a Wi-Fi connection on current My Sky boxes. The Kaon box has an ability to block recording features and storage capacity. The decoder upgrade allowed Sky to cease broadcasting scrambled channels using H.262 video compression in favor of H.264 , which means Sky roughly doubled its capacity on satellite for additional channels and possibly Ultra H.265 HD broadcasts in

352-523: A new partnership that would allow Sky to remain the exclusive distributor of HBO and Max content in New Zealand. SoHo would also be revamped as a linear HBO channel showing HBO Original content. The Max hub and the revamped HBO channel would be hosted on Sky Box, Sky Pod and Sky Go . The Neon streaming service would also host the Max hub. Sky defines a virtual channel order that groups channels by their content. VideoCrypt Three variants of

396-749: A partnership with Discovery New Zealand to provide coverage of The Championships, Wimbledon for free-to-air channel Three . In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine , Sky removed Russian state TV channel RT from its programming. Sky spokesperson Chris Major stated that their decision to remove RT came following complaints from customers and consultation with the Broadcasting Standards Authority . In July 2023, Warner Bros. Discovery renewed its HBO Max programme supply agreement with Sky but decline to confirm whether it would launch its own streaming service in New Zealand. On 22 October 2024, Sky and Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed

440-439: A pay television service was new to New Zealand and Sky had early problems. These included viewer acceptance of subscriber television. It faced difficulty in educating retailers and customers on the use of the original decoders. However, this problem was eased with the introduction of easier-to-use decoders that allowed greater viewer flexibility. Sky originally launched on 18 May 1990 as an analogue UHF service. Subscribers required

484-434: A series stack function. The software upgrade to My Sky boxes contained many bugs and caused thousands of customers to become disgruntled. The major issue was with the screen font which Sky later addressed in a future upgrade. In June 2016, Sky TV and Vodafone New Zealand (now One NZ) agreed to merge, with Sky TV purchasing 100% of Vodafone NZ operations for a cash payment of $ 1.25 billion NZD and issuing new shares to

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528-579: A technologically insecure implementation of this otherwise strong cryptographic element made it redundant. The VideoCrypt-S variant, used by the BBC Select service, was based on line shuffle scrambling. This form of video scrambling changes the order in which lines are transmitted thus line 20 may be transmitted as line 32. The VideoCrypt-S variant used six blocks of forty seven lines per field. It had three scrambling formats: full shuffle in which 282 lines were affected; half shuffle, in which every alternate field

572-517: Is a New Zealand broadcasting company that provides pay television services via satellite , media streaming services, and broadband internet services. As of 31 December 2022, Sky had 1,023,378 residential television subscribers consisting of 517,003 satellite subscribers and 506,375 streaming subscribers. Additionally, Sky had 23,156 broadband customers. Despite the similarity of name, branding and services, such as Sky Go and MySky shared with its European equivalent, Sky Group , there

616-401: Is cut at one of 256 possible "cut points", and the two halves of each line are swapped around for transmission. The series of cutpoints is determined by a pseudo-random sequence. Channels were decoded using a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) sequence stored on a smart card (aka Viewing Card). To decode a channel the decoder would read the smart card to check if the card is authorised for

660-469: Is no connection between the companies. The company was founded by Craig Heatley , Terry Jarvis , Trevor Farmer and Alan Gibbs in 1987 as Sky Media Limited. It was formed to investigate beaming sports programming into nightclubs and pubs using high performance 4-metre satellite dishes by Jarvis and an engineering associate Brian Green, but was redirected into pay television following successful bidding in early 1990 for four groups of UHF frequencies in

704-418: Is not built into other decoders. On 1 July 2011, a version of the same decoder with a 1TB hard drive was launched as My Sky+. In November 2005, Sky announced it had purchased the free-to-air channel Prime TV for NZ$ 30 million. Sky uses Prime TV to promote its pay content and to show delayed sports coverage. New Zealand's Commerce Commission issued clearance for the purchase on 8 February 2006. Prime

748-561: The 2020 Summer Olympics , instead of its own free-to-air channel Prime . On 27 October 2020, Sky announced a partnership with Spark, where the Sky Sport Now streaming service would be bundled with Spark Sport for a NZ$ 49.99 monthly subscription. On 9 June 2021, Sky announced an exclusive partnership with Disney to provide Sky Broadband customers with a 12-month subscription to the Disney+ streaming service. On 24 June 2021, Sky announced

792-622: The Auckland , Hamilton and Tauranga regions. Initially operating only in the Auckland region, Sky contracted Broadcast Communications (now Kordia ) to provide the broadcast service and transmission from its Panorama Road studios, formerly owned by defunct broadcaster Northern Television. The first Sky subscriber was former Speaker of the House of Representatives Jonathan Hunt , according to Helen Clark , former Prime Minister of New Zealand. The concept of

836-609: The Government and will be recycled to support new broadcasting ventures. In April 1997, Sky introduced a nationwide analogue direct broadcasting via satellite (DBS) service over the Optus B1 satellite . This allowed it to offer more channels and interactive options, as well as nationwide coverage. It upgraded it to a digital service in December 1998. While some channels on the UHF platform were shared with other channels, Sky Digital screened

880-555: The Neon brand but uses Lightbox's interface and includes content drawn from both Neon and the old Lightbox. On 21 May 2020, Sky announced its plans to launch fibre broadband internet plans in 2021. Sky raised $ 157 million from investors with a discounted share issue to cover the cost of entering the broadband market. On 10 September 2020, Sky announced that a number of its staff members including Sky's then CEO, Martin Stewart, were trialing

924-670: The Sky toll-free help-desk, Sky posted update messages on their website advising customers that they were working with Optus to restore service by midnight. Sky credited customers with one day's subscription fees as compensation for the downtime at a cost to the company of NZ$ 1.5 million. Sky switched its DBS service to the Optus D1 satellite on 15 November 2006. It later expanded its transponder capacity on this satellite to allow for extra channels and HD broadcasts. In December 2005, Sky released its own digital video recorder (DVR), which essentially

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968-461: The UHF platform. NICAM stereo was eventually removed from Sky Movies, the CNN channel was discontinued in 2004 with the UHF frequencies issued to Māori Television . Sky switched off its analogue UHF TV service on 11 March 2010 at midnight. Sky used a portion of the freed up UHF and radio spectrum to launch its joint venture, Igloo , in December 2012. The remaining unused spectrum was relinquished back to

1012-615: The VideoCrypt system were deployed in Europe: VideoCrypt I for the UK and Irish market and VideoCrypt II for continental Europe. The third variant, VideoCrypt-S was used on a short-lived BBC Select service. The VideoCrypt-S system differed from the typical VideoCrypt implementation as it used line shuffle scrambling. The system scrambles the picture using a technique known as "line cut-and-rotate". Each line that made up each picture (video frame)

1056-625: The Vodafone Group. Vodafone UK will get 51% stake of the company. However, the proposed merger was rejected by the Commerce Commission which saw a plunge in Sky TV's shares. Sky continued to be a wholesale channel provider to Vodafone until 31 March 2023. In late February 2018, Sky TV announced that it would be splitting its existing Sky Basic service into two new packages called Sky Starter and Sky Entertainment, giving new and existing customers

1100-573: The broadband service in their homes. This testing was later expanded to a small group of customers in December 2020. On 24 March 2021, Sky launched the broadband service initially for existing satellite customers only. Sky later expanded the offering to new customers on 17 May 2021. On 22 August 2019, it was announced that Sky had signed a six-year agreement to take over from Westpac as the naming sponsor of Wellington Regional Stadium , effective 1 January 2020. On 28 November 2019, Sky announced that TVNZ would be its free-to-air broadcast partner for

1144-779: The chief executive role in January 2001. On 21 February 2019, Martin Stewart replaced John Fellet as CEO. He had previously worked for BSkyB , The Football Association and OSN . On 1 December 2020, Stewart left the company to return home to Europe. Sophie Maloney was immediately appointed to the CEO position. In February 2015, Sky launched its own subscription-based video streaming service called Neon to allow New Zealanders to stream various HBO films and shows and to compete with US-based streaming service Netflix , which launched in New Zealand in March 2015. Sky had initially planned to launch Neon in 2014 but

1188-488: The company expanded to Rotorua , Wellington and Christchurch . Then in 1994, the company expanded to Hawke's Bay , Manawatu , Southland and Otago , followed by the Wairarapa , Taupō , and Wanganui regions in 1995. Its final UHF expansion, in 1996, was to Taranaki , Whangārei , and eastern Bay of Plenty Region . Following the launch of the digital satellite service in 1998 (see below), Sky began reducing services on

1232-726: The end of 2001, when the two parties entered an agreement to carry the channels in November of that year. A SkyMail email service was featured for a time starting November 2002, but was later pulled due to lack of interest (including the wireless keyboards they had produced for it). The unreliability of the ageing Optus B1 satellite was highlighted when the DBS service went offline just before 7 p.m. NZST (8 a.m. London, 3 a.m. New York) on 30 March 2006. The interruption affected service to over 550,000 customers and caused many decoders to advise customers of " rain fade ." Due to excessive volume of calls to

1276-511: The future. The upgrade of transponders to H.264 was completed in March 2019. Free-to-air channels such as Prime, Edge TV and Bravo Plus 1 remain in H.262 to be accessible to non-Sky subscribers such as Freeview viewers. Additionally, the My Sky HDi and My Sky + decoder software was upgraded to use the same system software as the new Kaon boxes. The new Sky software had features such as internet capability, search functionality, favourite channels, and

1320-412: The option of building bundles. The Sky Starter package would cost $ 24.91 monthly, replacing the earlier Sky Basic service which cost $ 49.91 monthly with extra charges for sports, movie, and other premier channels. The price reduction came in response to fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix , Lightbox , and Amazon Prime Video , which had caused the loss of 38,000 satellite subscribers

1364-439: The previous year. Unlike its competitors, Sky TV was dependent on a linear broadcasting model and its exclusive rights to rugby union , rugby league , netball , and cricket content. While Sky had TV hoped that this change would attract new customers, the company's stock market shares dropped by 10% in response to investor concerns about future revenue, knocking NZ$ 100 million off its market value. In early March 2018, it

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1408-740: The same channels 24 hours a day. Orange (later known as Sky 1 and The Box ) extended to screening 24 hours a day on Sky Digital but was only available to Sky UHF subscribers between 4 pm and 6 am. Discovery Channel was available to Sky Digital subscribers 24 hours a day but UHF subscribers could only receive the channel outside of Trackside's broadcast hours. Digital versions of free-to-air channels have always been available on Sky Digital meaning that some subscribers did not need to purchase any equipment to receive digital TV when New Zealand switched off its analogue service. While most free-to-air channels have been available on Sky Digital, TVNZ channels TVNZ 1 and TVNZ 2 did not become available until

1452-473: The specific channel. If not, a message would appear on screen. Otherwise the decoder seeds the card's PRNG with a seed transmitted with the video signal to generate the correct sequence of cut points. The system also included a cryptographic element called the Fiat Shamir Zero Knowledge Test. This element was a routine in the smartcard that would prove to the decoder that the card was indeed

1496-727: The subscriber had to feed the audio from another source such as a NICAM stereo capable VCR . Free-to-air broadcasts were shown in the early morning hours on Sky News and between 5 pm and 6 pm on Sky Sport until mid-1991; however, those without a Sky subscription could view the broadcasts without a UHF decoder by tuning their TV to the Sky News or Sky Sport UHF channel, as the signals were not scrambled during those times. The original channel lineup consisted of three channels, Sky Movies (later renamed to HBO before reverting to its original name), Sky Sport and Sky News. Sky rapidly won long term rights from US sports network ESPN (which became

1540-533: The title Sky Network . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sky_Network&oldid=1170033319 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Sky Television (New Zealand) Sky Network Television Limited , more commonly known as Sky ,

1584-604: The touch of a button. There was software in My Sky that after an hour of no signal from Sky then the decoder locks playback of pre-recorded programmes. This was discovered on 30 March 2006, after the ageing Optus B1 satellite was out of alignment for a 13-hour period and therefore unable to broadcast Sky to over 600,000 subscribers. This generation of box was replaced by My Sky HDi when it launched on 1 July 2008. These boxes allow connection of up to four satellites which can work with its four TV tuner cards in any combination. The device has

1628-469: The transaction, NEP will be Sky's outsourced technical production partner in New Zealand until at least 2030. The sale was cleared by the Commerce Commission on 5 February 2021. In February 2013, News Corp announced it would be selling the 44 percent stake in Sky TV that it acquired via a merger with Independent Newspapers Ltd in 2005. From November 2015, Sky started replacing the legacy standard digital decoders and original 2005 My Sky decoders with

1672-437: Was TVNZ's outside broadcast division, that had dominated the market. Moving Picture's assets were eventually sold when Sky's sports rights increased in the mid 2000s and OSB took hold. OSB owned the following vehicles (until 2020's sale), based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch; On 12 August 2020, Sky announced it had sold Outside Broadcasting to NEP New Zealand, part of American production company NEP Group . As part of

1716-538: Was an upgraded set top box similar to Foxtel IQ in Australia or TiVo in the United States. Called My Sky, it offered viewers the ability to pause live television, rewind television, record up to two channels at once straight to the set top box and watch the start of a recorded programme while still recording the end. It also gave viewers access to a revamped Guide and the new Planner, used to plan and access recordings at

1760-428: Was delayed by systems bugs. On 16 August 2019, Sky announced it had purchased Coliseum Sports Media's global rugby streaming service RugbyPass for approximately US$ 40 million. On 19 December 2019, it was announced that Sky would be purchasing Spark New Zealand 's streaming service Lightbox . On 14 June 2020, Sky confirmed that Lightbox would be merged into the Neon app on 7 July 2020. The merged service retains

1804-502: Was only available to Sky subscribers. Orange broadcast from 10 am onwards each day with Juice TV screening outside of Orange's broadcast hours, Juice TV was available originally free to air. Cartoon Network shared the same channel as Orange from 1997 to 2000 screening between 6 am and 4 pm with Orange screening after 4 pm. In 2000, Cartoon Network was replaced with Nickelodeon . Later, funding allowed Sky to extend its coverage throughout most of New Zealand: In 1991,

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1848-559: Was renamed to Sky Open in 2023. In July 2010, Sky purchased Onsite Broadcasting, later Outside Broadcasting (OSB), from Australia's Prime Media Group. The sale price was $ 35 million but once liabilities were taken into account the net amount was $ 13.5 million. Since 2001, OSB provided outside broadcast facilities for Sky's sporting coverage and was also contracted out by Sky to other broadcasters like TVNZ, TV3, Warner Bros., Fox Sports, Channel 9, Ten Network, Channel 7 and BBC among others. It effectively replaced Moving Pictures, which

1892-508: Was reported that Sky TV CEO John Fellet was pursuing talks with Netflix and Amazon Prime to share content and services. Fellet hoped to mimic the UK-based television company Sky plc 's success in negotiating a bundling package with Netflix. On 26 March 2018, John Fellet announced his intention to step down from his position, after being CEO for 17 years. Fellet had been with the company since 1991, first as chief operating officer before taking on

1936-428: Was scrambled; and a line delay scramble in which the start position of the video in each line was pseudo-randomly delayed. The BBC chose to use line shuffle scrambling rather than line cut-and-rotate because tests had shown that line cut-and-rotate is more susceptible to picture degradation when exposed to ghosting and co-channel interference conditions commonly present in terrestrial transmissions. The VideoCrypt system

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