ITV has been showing a small number of programs, mainly films and sport, in Hi Def each week, but it’s only been available to Freesat, the joint collaboration satellite service from ITV and BBC. Now with a little settings tweak  on your Sky HD box you can also enjoy ITV HD! Here’s how to do it:

Important: You must have the new EPG to add ITV HD.  If your box hasn’t been updated yet and the on-screen menu doesn’t look like the one in the pictures below, then there’s nothing you can do only wait.

Adding ITV HD to your Sky HD box

Step One
Press TV Guide on your remote to enter the EPG.  The default All Channels view will be the first thing you see and the middle menu bar will have focus.  Anything that has focus is indicated by a light blue background.

Step Two
Press the Up Arrow on the remote to give the top menu bar focus.  It defaults to TV Guide.

Step Three
Now use the Left or Right Arrow keys to move along through the options.  You’ll need to press it twice to the left, or eight times to the right, until you reach the Options menu.

Step Four
Use the Down Arrow key to move the focus back to the middle menu bar.  Sky+ Setup is the default option.

Step Five
Use the Left or Right Arrow keys to move through the options.  If you use the Left key it’ll require four presses, whereas the right arrow key has to be pressed five times.  Stop when you get to the Add Channels option.

Step Six
Press the Down Arrow key to give the main body of the menu focus.  Here you need to enter the frequency, polarisation, symbol rate and forward error correction (FEC) values of the satellite transponder upon which ITV HD is broadcast.  Use the remote control’s numerical keys to add the frequency and the Left/Right Arrow keys to change the polarisation.  The other two values are suitable in their default states. Enter the following:

Frequency (GHz): 11.427
Polarisation: H
Symbol Rate (Mbaud): 27.5
FEC: 2/3

When the values are correct, press the Yellow button on your remote to Find Channels.

Step Seven
The box will now take a few moments to scan all the channels available on that transponder.  While it’s doing so, you’ll see the following notice and the mini-TV (if enabled) will temporarily go blank.

Step Eight
After a moment, the Sky HD box will display all the services it has found.  ITV HD is cryptically labelled as “10510”.  Use the Down Arrow on the remote to highlight that option, then press the Yellow button on the remote to Store Channel.

Step Nine
A small tick icon will appear next to “10510”, and you can now save your changes by pressing the Select button on the remote.

Step Ten
The Sky HD box will confirm the changes to the channel line-up, and you can press Select to continue

…and that’s all there is to it.  You can now view ITV HD on your Sky HD receiver.

Viewing ITV HD on your Sky HD box

Step One
From the sequence above, follow steps One through Four, which will take you to the Options menu.  Ensure that the middle menu bar has focus, then press the Right Arrow button four times to select Other Channels.  If you use the Left Arrow button, it takes five presses.

Step Two
Press the Down Arrow to give focus to the main area of the menu, then highlight the “10510” option and press Select once to show a preview in the mini-TV, or twice to go to view ITV HD itself.

unfortunately there’s no way to rename the channel, add it to the list of other channels or add it to your favourites list, but that’s just a small price to pay to view this otherwise unavailable channel, enjoy

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