Just coming up to three weeks of moving to Sky Stream from Sky Q.
Following is my journey from calling Sky for the change of service, delivery/setup and how it all works.
Background
Been a Sky TV customer since satellite TV on Sky started (just a small year away some 17 or so years ago) so through Sky+, Sky+ hd and for the last eight years or so Sky Q. Plus, have had Sky broadband since it started (in its many forms of dial up and the few dsl services) and last summer upgraded to Sky broadband Ultrafast +.
Sky Q was a faultless experience for me with a Sky Q main and one mini box, all connected on wifi, using the Q hotspots while on a dsl service, little point using the Q hotspots with a fibre connection (as that pushed out a higher local network speed for other devices across the house), so turned off the 2.4 ghz in settings on Q when I got fibre to stop the Q hotspots, just kept the 5 ghz on to keep Sky Q hidden mesh running/sharing together nicely, along with them both connected for first time on ethernet.
As a Sky trialist and currently a Sky community Superuser have had the opportunity of early firmware releases for the Sky boxes over that time and did get to be one of the first to get the Sky Q 2tb uhd/ hdr capable box, that I have just finished my Sky Q time with.
Move to Stream
Had a couple of calls to Sky, one being a possible move and how it works out as an account deal, plus the next call actually doing the deal of moving to Stream. A good deal.
Used 150 from landline and said 'Sky stream upgrade' at the voice prompt. Got straight through to Sky and was passed to a Sky Stream trained customer service rep, being pleasant helpful and knowledgeable. Great service as ever from Sky.
All was explained very carefully, from delivery, the setup process, billing changes (Stream and broadband now become separate billing dates), the changes/actions I need or could take for the service (changing Netflix tier and removing Ad skipping).
I had the original Ultimate TV package, so that got transferred over as Netflix Premium on Sky Stream (your current Netflix premium with Sky gets transferred at time of ordering, so with the later in year Sky Q renewal that would have gone up anyway to reflect the new Netflix pricing). Ad skipping was added by default. More on both these later.
Delivery
Sky Stream was delivered next day.
All track order updates in MySky app were well laid out clearly. Along with plenty of emails and texts sent to alert me of the delivery, with the tracking number. DPD service was great as it always is when have deliveries from them.
MySky app and a welcome email had some useful info for setting up with Sky Stream and the info I needed for the changeover. Important things listed there, examples being the Netflix changeover, Sky Store purchases and having to reactivate the Discovery+ app.
Setup
Excellent of Sky to have as previous products (Sky Protect kit and broadband routers) all cardboard and paper packaging. Not a piece of plastic bag, plastic tie or polystyrene at all.
The packaging was all well laid out, with clear and simple instructions, immediately you knew what to do.
Setup was easy, first pairing remote with puck and TV, then following the instructions on screen to activate the service and each puck.
Had no setup issues for both of my pucks.
MySky app showed I had activated and had all the correct info about my new pucks and services.
I decided I did not need the Ad skipping and also would downgrade the Netflix to the Sky Stream free offered tier. Within the MySky app, later that day made both those changes, it showed that after the first month would revert to that change, all reflected too in billing.
Do like the idea that apart from your base Sky entertainment package and Sky Sports (both 18 months contracts), other parts can be changed on/off month by month easily within the Mysky app, like Netflix tier, Ad skipping, UHD/Dolby, whole home.
Do also like the idea that we are renting the kit, like we did for Sky Q, so if anyting hardware related fails, it is a next day replacement of the puck or remote.
I did, a month or so back while on Sky Q have a faulty Sky Q remote,. Tried everything to fix, but in the end filled in the online form via the Sky help pages and a replacement remote was delivered by Royal Mail next day.
Using
So far, have had no issues at all with Sky Stream.
I decided to have both pucks connected via Ethernet. In settings, have turned off wifi and set both pucks with Network Standby On and Power Standby mode Off.
Both pucks, with the Netflix app speed test check showing speeds of early 90Mbps, well above the recommended speed required for Stream.
All linear TV and apps have worked fine.
Have noticed too the energy use of the pucks compared to Sky Q is a lot less when using, along with standby. It all adds up, even if over a year if its a only a few tens of pounds.
Must admit, the whole playlist thing works so much better than how I first envisioned it.
The playlist was a major factor that I was hesitant on re the move from Sky Q, that I thought I may dislike or miss the whole Sky Q and Sky+ multi and series link recording ideals we have got so use to for decades.
Even with all the homework to understand it more, before the actual move to Stream, I feel the promotion of it from Sky does not in my view really present it all that well to me how it actually works.
Seeing it online in videos, demos and in the Sky shops (the shops being limited to use by time and the staff not letting you get too involved with trying it, it's obviously in the shops more a brief show and look around for an up sell experience) really does not give you a proper overall picture of how it all works in concept.
But, my perceptions were not that in using over the last three weeks.
For Myself and I have also shown it the last few weeks to a few die hard more traditional TV users and Sky Q users, who felt they still needed Q to record, record, record.
On using Myself and from the reaction of the others I now have switched over to the whole idea of Stream and getting how the playlist actually works. Finding it actually fits and works so much better in todays streaming changing world than traditional recording with the Sky Stream cloud recording and 'playlist +' button' bookmarking of content.
I must be honest, I had reduced my recording of content in last few years with so much more being now available On demand and within apps. For example, shows like The Blacklist, FBI, Rookie having UHD content available, some of that recording was really just setting up a backup/reminder of the programmes when a new episode arrived and I'd mostly delete the hd recording and just watch the UHD On demand version.
Sports plays a big part of my live TV viewing. That being F1, Premier League, EFL football, cricket, golf, tennis, Indycar, all on Sky Sports as well as on Eurosport of the winter sports, Olympics, motorsport, Le Mans, and tennis. Plus, on occasions like last night the two FA Cup finals on BBC and ITV. Look forward to how the multi hour BTTC will play out on ITV, a major sports lovers clash exercise, simply I imagine, now I get it.
Usually it plays out for my sports viewing like this, being live or watching a little later (say half hour from start at most) or a later that day catch-up if it's been a crazy multi sport clashing day. On Sky Stream this has not been a problem at all and all has been a pleasure as it was with Sky Q. Cloud recording (especially of the F1 and all its series, sessions and programmes) has worked without a glitch.
Cloud recording works well and yes it does record (in a different manner).
An example, if you watch a show on ITV at 8pm Sunday, like Vera, it is two hours long with its ad breaks. Set to cloud record from the epg or anywhere else in the menus, come in from your Sunday 'out and about' and settle in say 45 mins into the current linear live output. Play the cloud recording you set or just even go to the channels it's showing live on and click 'watch from start'. You can watch from the beginning with either of those methods and skip through any parts and of course pause, rew and ff, eventually to even catch-up with the live output if you like.
Watch from start is available on every channel. You can do that for as long as the programme is listed for that time. Was great during the Sky Tennis a few days ago, when the four hour slot had two of the matches I wanted to watch, as I could not watch it live being for a short time engaged. So from watch from start, it was into the third hour of that four, I watched the first match, then ff to the start of the third match, nice and easy.
The only channels where 'watch from start' does not do that is for BBC listed channels, where it launches the iPlayer app to the watch from start live showing there. No big deal really as that is quick and painless.
For cloud recording, if any programme has an On demand available, normally within a short time, your cloud recording then gets changed over to that On demand content and still retains the original 'playlist +' bookmark with that link, so if you had watched it on the linear cloud recording on day one, on day two or later you may be watching the same programme episode or film via the the On Demand version or via the app. Once again that has worked very well and much easier than I imagined.
With Sky Stream channels that have no On demand, like Legend (linked from Stream) are played out within Sky Stream itself, so reamin seamless and basically sit 'forever' as a cloud recording.
Fot the likes of the main terrestrial channels and Sky channels content, at that later stage when On demand is made available it will launch the On demand content for the likes of the Sky channels and for the likes of the terrestrial channels via ITVx/C4/My5 apps etc. That is once again quick, easy and pretty seamless on Stream.
Using the apps, does bring up their own trick play (ff, rew, pause, play), but then with the likes of Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+ etc we are very used to that UI mixture anyway. Would be nice if at least for the UK terrestrial ones all had a similar feel, but think that is beyond Sky to really fix.
When using 'watch from start' or pause linear content, the trick play that Sky Stream uses is great and matches what we are used to on Sky Q.
In addition to that, compared to Sky Q the Sky Stream voice command is certainly a much bigger step up. For your trick play, just say all the ff, re, pause, play etc and they work very well.
Much the same with moving around Sky Stream, changing channels or finding content, the voice commands are excellent and so far have not had any kind of glitch with them.
One thing I really do like, is when viewing content, as well as the usual all episodes and series, more like this, on this week there is a rail called 'Cast and Crew' that lists the actors and directors of the programme or film. Have used this a lot to find so much other content.
The playlist offers up to five different playlists for different members of the family, named as you wish with a different coloured icon, but I am using all five as genres categories, naming mine as;
Sports
Westerns OldTV Films
Drama
Sci-fi and fantasy
Quiz News Doc Music
Finding it really useful that way at certain times of the day to drop in to a relevant one and play or see new.
The menus within Sky Stream, for content are laid out in similar categories to Sky Q, which helps when moving.
But some things seem lost, 'new toy maybe'. Stream is new and getting regular updates, I'm sure it will fix the few anomolies and change slightly in time, as Sky Q did before it settled down.
Finding trawling the Sports menus, content seems a lot harder work and seem to not always find an easy path back and forth. That might get better over time with learning or just using the more improved voice commands.
Have found a small anomoly that I hope gets fixed, example being;
Like on on Sky Q, the football tables are there. On Sky voice you could call the rail up, not so on Sky Stream. It's quite a trek through Home>Sports>football to find that rail.
Do like the way Continue Watching works and picks up your viewed content, rather than the jumbled pick up way we had on Sky Q with multiple episodes across series listed and its poor in my view implementation.
Notice, on Sky Stream, continue watching has a limit of holding 20 of the last occurrences, before they drop off. but it picks up from linear, On demand and apps (Netflix, Paramount+, ITVx etc). Disney + is not part of that, but hope that changes going forward.
Only slight annoyance though is, when using Watch from Start on any channel (except BBC) it adds that to continue watching, from a very brief look, plus it can list on occasions a fully watched programme that you have finished very close to the end or when ff to end and returned to the live channels. If its near end or returned, it should not be flagged in continue watching, as you have watched and would not be continuing. Hope that gets looked at going forward. Would like the ability to remove such things from the continue watching rail, when you mistakenly added or the syrtem did.
The picture quality in hd and especially the Sky HLG sport's streams, is a very welcome and very noticeable uplift, than from Sky Q.
The Dolby and Dolby Atmos is also putting out a much cleaner sound.
The red button (well coloured buttons as they are displayed on the Sky Stream remote) for F1/tennis/football and the seperate on its own golf one all work well, in fact just as you experience on Sky Q.
One channel though I do miss is Talking Puctures, that is not on Sky Stream. Yes I know of the reasons why, but a shame.
Still,, I have taken one of the cables from the now redundant Sky Q dish and plugged it into the 'basic' Sat option on my smart TV, and have recorded a few programmes from it onto a usb stick, namely the 'footage detectives'.
Plus, all the content is on their online encore site that you can cast to a TV via chomecast or via in my case to a Roku using the airplay option.
For me, so far the move has been a pleasure with the dealings with customer support, the delivery, setup and the whole transition and differing ways to get, view and manage all your content, but still keeping all your Sky channels, use and UI familiarity all very similar.
Hope this experience helps others on here.
Moderator note: Removed excess spacing at the foot of the message
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Sky Community Superuser
Sky Stream (2 pucks), Sky Ultrafast + using Sky SR203 hub. Sky Protect kit tester.
