Sky HD

Massive hard drive ; Improved On Demand choice ; Seamless app integration

No 5.1 Dolby Digital over HDMI ; Only two tuners

Glorious HD picture quality ; Fantastic channels

Subscription can be expensive

Unsurpassable for wow-factor pictures, particularly when it comes to HD, but too many repeats on third party channels can be annoying

Great Sky+ recording functionality; fine selection of sports and movies; can look and sound stunning; price

We'd like more of that 300GB capacity available for recordings

Range of HD content and extensive channel choice

Lacks comprehensive on-demand content

For sport and an ever-expanding range of top-drawer HD content, this remains the undisputed champion. Even Michael Parkinson likes it...

In terms of costs, yes you are paying for the Sky HD box and an extra £10 a month, but I’m definitely saving money in the long run as I'm no longer buying DVDs (with lower picture quality) which I only end up watching once.

HD pictures can be almost unbelievably good, good connectivity, good design, nice price for the box

10 extra subscription seems a bit steep, occasional software glitches, variable HD picture quality

Its connections panel intriguingly sports both component and HDMI outputs for HD pictures. Originally Sky had suggested that it would only allow HD pictures to leave via the HDMI socket because of HDMI's more advanced anti-piracy measures. So...

recording ability, user frendly, cost saving, no contract time to make up your mind what package you want.quality of programs, quality of picture / sound

slow when starting up