Sky Active is the brand name for interactive features

Interactive television

Interactive television describes a number of techniques that allow viewers to interact with television content as they view it.- Definitions :...

 on Sky Digital

Sky Digital (UK & Ireland)

Sky is the brand name for British Sky Broadcasting's digital satellite television and radio service, transmitted from SES Astra satellites located at 28.2° east and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5°E. The service was originally launched as Sky Digital, distinguishing it from the original...

 and is available in the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and the Republic of Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

. It enables a viewer to interact with TV content, respond to an advertisement or access internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

-based services.

The service replaces Open.... which helped launch Sky Digital's interactive content, and launched many other features that viewers see today such as game

Game

A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...

s, email

Email

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

ing and shopping

Shopping

Shopping is the examining of goods or services from retailers with the intent to purchase at that time. Shopping is an activity of selection and/or purchase. In some contexts it is considered a leisure activity as well as an economic one....

 via their TV.

It can be accessed by pressing the red button

Red Button (Digital Television)

Red Button is a button on the remote control for certain digital television set top boxes in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and By Directv in the USA. It is for interactive television services such as BBC Red Button and Astro...

 on a Sky Digital remote, while watching any Sky Digital Channel. Alternatively, there is an entry in the "Interactive" area of the EPG

Electronic program guide

Electronic program guides and interactive program guides provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus displaying broadcast programming or scheduling information for current and upcoming programming...

.

Differences from Open....

Since Sky Active launched on October 1, 2001, many changes have been made:

• Viewers now have the ability to reach all Sky Active services by pressing the red button on any Sky channel - this now leads to a menu screen with the TV programme still available in 1/4 screen mode. (Previously viewers had to leave the programme they were watching to use Open...'s services.)
• In the Sky Active main menu the video loop changes as you go through each of the options allowing customised advertising to be displayed.
• The new interface is much cleaner and easy to navigate.
• The style and look of the banner advertising is richer, more rounded and more "TV friendly".
• There is now a less regimented use of colour keys, allowing all 4 keys to be used for navigation purposes in the right-hand portion of the screen.
• Major retailers such as W H Smith
  W H Smith
  WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...
  
   and Dixons appear to have less prominence in the service than previously.
• Options can now be selected using the remote control's colour keys rather than the numerical keys.
• Sky Gamestar was launched on October 1, 2001. Classic games Tetris
  Tetris
  Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic...
  
  , Pipemania, Beehive Bedlam and more games were available on the games House of Cards, Classics, Prize Quizzes and Mindbenders.