TVPlus: Record to your Sky+ box. Wirelessly – [Updated]

Posted on October 21st, 2008. Written by Arron.

Released just a few days ago, this is definitely one for UK and Ireland. TVPlus is in fact the first application on the store to offer and integrate Sky‘s ‘Remote Record’ functionality. What this means is, you can be out and about with your iPhone (or iPod touch), and as long as you have access to a Wifi connection, your one tap away from sending a ‘record’ request for your favorite movie or TV show, to your Sky+ box at home.

Sound sweet? – Well it is, for the most part.
However, there are a lot of downsides which go with it …

[Update 21st Oct @ 20.40pm]
Ed (the dev) has tonight pushed version 1.1 of TvPlus out onto the store, which features:

• Long awaited ‘regional’ settings

• Clearer error messages

• Bug Fixes

For existing users of TvPlus this update should appear on the mobile App Store, or physical iTunes, as a free update.

Original Article:
Initial Setup
In order to use TVPlus [App Store] you are required to sign up to Sky.com’s online service MySky. This is entirely free, and if your quick, you can be up and running in 15 minutes. This process basically verifies you are authorized to access the Sky Plus box in question. In order to completely verify you are the owner, Sky ask for the last 6 digits of the account number which is currently paying for the Sky TV Package.

Once your account is setup online, the next step is to tell your Sky Plus box that you want to use Remote Record. To do this, with your Sky remote, do this:

Hit the interactive button > Press 1 for Sky Active > Register for Existing MySky Customers >
Follow the on-screen instructions.

Setup may ask for your mobile number to continue, this isn’t required. Simply enter your number, it will state it doesn’t recognise it, and then press ‘Select’ to continue setup.

Note: When setting up ‘Remote Record‘ for my Sky Plus box, I was warned the box must access the internet to verify the details, and this was charged at freephone rates (8p peak rate).

Once you’ve told the box a phone exists, that’s it. You can now launch TVPlus on your iPhone, scroll down to ‘Account’ and enter the username and password you signed up to MySky with (Note to Self: Pick something I can remember – haha). Once connected, TVPlus will let you know by displaying ‘Login Successful’. Now for the fun part …

Recording your Shows
TVPlus offers a simple but lacking user interface. Currently, to record a show, you navigate and scroll through the 400+ channels, choosing the relevant sub-categories along the way, tap the show you want to record, and hit the big red record button at the bottom of the about screen.

A confirmation asks you to confirm your selection, and as soon as you do, it’s scheduled in your Sky Plus ‘Planner’ for recording. Now this is great and all, but I really do want it to do more for it’s £2.99 price-tag.

Hence the downsides:

• No ability to set recording for entire series

• No ability to search keywords within show description

• On the subject of search, there is currently no ‘search’ for channels

• No ability to cancel recordings (apparently this just isn’t possible remotely)

• No option for scheduled reminders (Developer says: it’s on it’s way)

• Maximum limit of 10 recording requests per 24 hours

• No ability to set a list of favorite channels / change order (Developer says: it’s on it’s way)

There are however some advantages to owning TVPlus. The most prominent being, the developer has stated all future updates to the application will remain free of charge to all owners:

“If you buy the application now you will be eligible for all updates in the future at no extra cost, regardless what happens to the price of the application.

The updates will appear in the App Store application on your phone, and in iTunes as free downloads.”

- Ed Lea (Source)

Secondly, as far as I can tell, TVPlus works over Wifi, 3G and Edge. Meaning, unlike other App Store offerings, you don’t actually need a persistent Wifi connection to send a record command to your box. In the car, on the train, in the cinema, forgot to record your favorite show? – It’s a few taps away.
I can’t wait to see where Ed takes this application, and more interestingly, what extended functionality is added in the future.

Price
According to the App Store, TVPlus was released on October 2nd, which is slightly wrong as it actually appeared on the store on October 14th. It currently sells for £2.99 ($4.99). While the current functionality is pretty much satisfactory for this price, I believe this app could evolve into something even greater, and it should for £2.99.

It’s currently lacking a lot, but that’s not to say it should be degraded. This application is the first of it’s kind, it works exceptionally well for what it was originally designed for (remote record) and I’d definitely expect to see existing TV guide apps follow suit further down the line.

Grab your Copy: [App Store]

Ed has also setup a Get Satisfaction page for TVPlus, where you can start up support topics, or just let him know how awesome or non-awesome his product is. Ed seems to be pretty active on there lately.