topic Re: Sky Glass Review in Archive

Sky Glass Review

mercelous — Tue, 02 Nov 2021 23:51:50 GMT

Buying brand new tech can be exciting but can be daunting at the same time.

The feeling of trepidation once you turn your new gadget on for the first time. The excitement of what is to come. The joy it brings realising you’re one of the very few that have received the new product ahead of others.

However the joyous moment makes you feel, you can’t wait to get stuck in. Enter Sky Glass. A revolution in television.

It’s crazy to think that 30 odd years ago we were watching TV on huge power hungry sets that weighed as much as a car. Well slightly exaggerated I know but they were huge. Boy did we enjoy watching only four channels until the introduction of satellite television and Sky.

Fast forward to 2021 and now we have Sky Glass. A streaming TV that aims to break boundaries and eliminate the hassle of cables and multiple devices. I can see Sky’s logic. Combine all the major streaming apps into a television that can bring them all to you in one device and with just one cable - the power cable.

This is how I imagine TV in 2021. Set top boxes are going the way of DVD players and VHS. They are old tech. I am astonished games consoles still use discs. It’s time to move forward. It’s a new era.

SKY GLASS BUILD QUALITY

Sky Glass is a beast. I plopped for the 65” blue TV. When it arrived I was blown away. It’s beautiful. The cold feeling of the aluminium casing and gorgeous looking stand that holds this behemoth in place. One little criticism I do have about the build quality is I would love the back of the TV to be aluminium too rather than plastic.

When I first turned the TV on after the lovely delivery chaps installed everything and put the television in its new home, I was treated to a beautifully bright picture and boom sound of the official Sky Glass logo.

Setup was simple. It took a matter of minutes. I did originally connect the TV using Ethernet but now use Wi-Fi. I do have BT FTTH (fibre to the home), up to 1 gigabyte download. However via Wi-Fi, I never achieve more that 500 megabits per second. That’s another story.

SKY STREAMING PUCK

Sky Glass runs effortlessly on my internet connection. No dropouts or disconnections. I also have the Sky Streaming puck in my bedroom. This also connects via Wi-Fi. It streams content without any real problems. I have had instances where content being streamed started to slow down then sped up but it has been sporadic.

The puck itself is small and fits in the palm of your hand. It takes a few seconds to boot up from standby but once it does, it mimics the main Glass unit perfectly. Pictures are vivid and detail is crisp. There can be the odd stutter when scrolling menus but it’s nothing major.

It’s fantastic that you can now stream 4K content in another room. Something unfortunately Sky Q didn’t allow. Accessing streaming apps is quick and responsive. I haven’t encountered any issues with apps. They load quickly and once signed in, a dream to access.

NIGGLES

So three weeks in, what do I think? Well It’s been great. I would love to say amazing but there have been a few niggles which have been a little inconvenient. However, one of those niggles has this evening been resolved. The screen flickering issue!

The new update has got rid. It wasn’t the biggest issue in the world. It’s one of those things that once you see it, it never goes. But now it’s stopped, it feels like the TV has a new lease of life. The picture is great.

Another problem has been random instances where I have been unable to turn on the TV from standby. The TV turns on but it’s a black screen. On these occasions, a quick switch off at the mains or holding the power button for 10 seconds on the side of the TV remedies the problem. It’s a gremlin that I’m sure Sky are addressing. They have stated that they believe it’s linked to the “Enhanced Experience” which would disable itself every time you powered off the set. This has apparently been addressed in the new software download and fingers crossed, my set is now powering on perfectly.

Another thing I would like Sky to update in the future is notifying on screen when watching Dolby Vision or HDR content. Sky Q does notify you with an HDR popup when accessing HDR content but not Dolby Vision. This is completely absent on Sky Glass. You can see the brightness increase when 4K content kicks in so you know it’s working, but for some, a notification would be better.

Coming from Sky Q myself was a gamble. It was like a friend. Reliable, dependable and always ready to listen. Well using the remote anyway. It had some faults too however. One issue I found was it would randomly crash every now and then. I had to reset the set top box to remedy it. Also multi room had issues. When watching TV in the bedroom, I would experience random picture breakup on channels. It wasn’t constant but annoying. Also not being able to watch 4K content in another room was a weird decision on Sky’s part. Especially when I have 2 4K televisions but could only watch 4K content on my main television.

This is no longer an issue with the Sky Streaming puck. It plays 4K content seamlessly. It looks beautiful. However, please note that you will have to change picture settings to 2160p in the puck settings as it defaults to 1080p.

NEW USER INTERFACE

The new look of Sky Glass menus are crisp and easy to navigate. It’s bright, colourful and picture led. The search bar is at the bottom of the menu which in my opinion should be at the top. Sky are definitely going full throttle with voice control which can be brilliant. Voice control does need more work as there are times when asked, it fails to understand your command. Also I have found asking to change channel to BBC ONE or channel 4 fails to work. You have to use either the relating channel numbers or as in channel 4’s instance, you have to say channel 4 HD. Strange when channels such as ITV just require you to say “ITV”. There are other anomalies with other channels too.

Sky Glass’ UI It isn’t a million miles different to Sky Q but does have some quirky differences. One being to scroll down a page or go to another day within the TV guide, you hold down the up, down, left or right button on your remote. It’s weird at first but you quickly get used to it. Top right of the remote is a red, green, yellow, blue button. This is used to access on demand content on a channel. At the moment it seems only the BBC are requiring use of this.

REMOTE CONTROL

The remote itself is just like the Sky Q one but with a few differences. Gone is the channel up/down button. Gone is the record button and replaced with a red + button. Also it’s backlit. It comes to life when you move it. It’s bright and punchy. I think this remote is one of Sky’s best yet.

It feels great in the hand and has a rubbery feel to it. It has a more premium feel and definitely warranted an upgrade.

Once you press the home button on the remote, you land on the home page. It shows programmes tailored to you. Things it thinks you would like to watch. This I love. Scroll down a couple of times and you get to your playlist. This is your new home for recordings and programmes you have pressed the + button for to add to your playlist.

VOICE CONTROL

One of the big selling points of Sky Glass is Voice control. It’s technology that is evolving. It enables us to put down the remote and control everything with our voice. Sky have embedded this Ito Sky Glass and to great effect.

When the TV is in standby, say “Hello Sky”, and the TV wakes and turns on. You can ask it to turn up/turn down the volume with “Hello Sky, turn volume to 30”. It’s a great feature. You can also access menus by saying “Hello Sky, settings”. It takes you strait to the settings menu. If you see something you want to add to playlist when watching TV, for instance say “Hello Sky, add Emmerdale to playlist”. It will then do so and you will find it in your playlist.

If you have had enough watching TV or you are off to bed, say “Hello Sky, turn off TV”, and Sky Glass will happily oblige. You can also use voice control using the remote. The voice button sits happily below the home button on the remote.

If you find voice control on the Sky Glass TV a gimmick or not useful for yourself, you can turn it off. This can be done either in settings or on the bottom right hand corner of the TV itself. There is a mic button just above the standby button. When disabled, a mic symbol on the button is lit up.

I find voice control fantastic. It’s a joy to access content and channels with only your voice. It’s something I have craved for years. Remote controls will always have a place but with technology evolving, even the humble remote is beginning to look old tech. It’s something that will die eventually.

PLAYLIST

Playlist is new. It’s revolutionary. It redefines how we record our favourite shows. Don’t get me wrong, many people will rue the fact they can’t record programmes in the traditional sense. But I will say this, give it time and playlist will grow on you.

Playlist directs you to broadcasters streaming apps. By doing this, you can watch the programme you want and at the same time, come across new content. Not all broadcasters have streaming apps and in these circumstances, Sky Glass will record in the traditional sense. However, only if it can’t find the content you want elsewhere. Sky do say customers have 1000 hours of cloud storage. I do think it would be impossible to use it all up though.

I will admit some streaming apps are brilliant, other not so. BBC iPlayer has to be one of the best out there. Picture quality is top notch and no adverts. However, I have found out that for a majority of providers and TV brands, a lot of the programming is 720p. ITV hub is a different story. It’s full of ads. ITV really need to step up their game. Programmes although HD, could easily pass for standard definition.

I do get why people feel aggrieved about playlist. People thought they would be able to record programmes at will just like Sky Q. But reality is, broadcasters don’t want you to be able to record stuff when you can access it on their streaming apps. In theory, this makes sense. Why spend so much money having streaming apps if you record shows from TV. It’s something we all have to get used to as television evolves. Unfortunately it’s an advertisement industry.

Another negative of playlist is it’s layout. In my opinion, TV shows should be top and there should be a search icon available there also. There is one but is found at the end of the carousel of programmes when scrolling. A bit useless really to place it there.

People have found anomalies with playlist. One being a programme called Frasier. People noted that Frasier could not be recorded and wasn’t available to be found on streaming apps. This appears to be something Sky have acknowledged and say it’s a content issue with broadcasters. They are working with providers but unfortunately some anomalies will pop up on occasion. It will improve over time but obviously right now, people are not happy.

People want to be able to record programmes and if not, find it on streaming apps. I do understand People’s frustration however, people also need to hold broadcasters to rights. Sometimes things are out of Sky’s hands.

Personally I love playlist. I find myself finding more content which before I would have missed and not having a hard drive with a percentage of space left number is great. Deleting content permanently on Sky Q can be tiresome and convoluted. Not having to do this on Sky Glass is a breath of fresh air.

SOUND QUALITY

The inbuilt Dolby Atmos soundbar within the Sky Glass TV sounds great. It has deep bass and gets very loud. I haven’t had the TV higher than 50% as even then, it’s stupidly loud. Voices are clear and movies provide a real punch.

Accessing content on Netflix in Dolby Atmos is a delight. The sound that the speakers push out is crisp and authoritative. You do get a sense of height but not to the standard of dedicated ceiling speakers. Watching Toy Story 4 at the beginning, the heavy rain can be heard from above. It’s a wonderful sound.

Sky Glass definitely pushes out immersive sound from it’s inbuilt speakers but for true sound scope, a dedicated audio visual setup is required. Sky Glass is never going to replicate a true sound system setup but having the ability to ditch a dedicated soundbar is a great feature.

CONCLUSION

Sky Glass is great. Not amazing as it needs improvement but this will come with time. It will evolve. With updates and careful implementation from Sky, Sky Glass could be a fantastic evolution in television.

Early adopters will encounter issues. No matter how much fine tuning Sky or any company for that matter do to a new product before launch, there will be issues. So many factors can effect a products reliability. With all the different internet providers out there, different providers services will encounter issues with a new product. It’s life unfortunately.

Sky Glass has niggles. It needs touch ups here and there. Hopefully Sky won’t take too long in releasing future updates to fix/update issues.

What I can say about Sky Glass is it is way ahead of anything else on the market in its field. It pushes television streaming to new heights. It amalgamates all the major streaming apps into one, innovative system capable of so much more.

In time, problems will be ironed out. Even Sky Q had problems at the beginning. It takes time to finely tune. Sky Glass has the ability to be something special.

Think of Sky Glass as a bottle of fine wine. It will get better with time.

Re: Sky Glass Review

Carnoch — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 01:08:40 GMT

@mercelous Thank you for that review. I was having a bit of doubt after reading some other threads but this has made me think that Sky Glass is the way to go.

Re: Sky Glass Review

GD1 — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 02:41:42 GMT

@mercelous Thank you for a great review that gives potential buyers both good and bad pints. Well written and hopefully people will read through this before opting for glass. This review should give them the answers they seek.

Re: Sky Glass Review

Carnoch — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 03:14:04 GMT

@mercelous Thanks again for the review. I have now ordered my Sky Glass (M black). Delivery not until 19th November so now the wait begins!

Re: Sky Glass Review

Chrisee — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 04:48:35 GMT

@mercelous excellent balanced review many thanks. Some of Sky's decisions like the search positioning is a llttle strange to say the least.

Re: Sky Glass Review

Silverfox8 — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 07:00:35 GMT

@mercelous

Well what a well written post.

Think you summed that up quite good.
Summed up very well.

Mine arrives today.

I have read most of the reviews and comments and can understand why some are not happy.
I am approaching it with a different perspective than with some.
I am looking forward to the experience wether I will be disappointed remains to be seen.

Re: Sky Glass Review

matty147 — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 07:28:27 GMT

Really good review. Well written and balanced.

Re: Sky Glass Review

TimmyBGood — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 08:02:36 GMT

@mercelous wrote:

I do have BT FTTH (fibre to the home), up to 1 gigabyte download. However via Wi-Fi, I never achieve more that 500 megabits per second. That’s another story.

One side-effect of the increased availability of the higher speed bands possible with FTTP is that it's increasingly unlikely that wireless speed at any particular device can match that arriving at the router. Happily almost nothing a domestic user does, apart possibly from the initial download of games, comes close to benefiting from that kind of bandwidth anyway: should 8K streaming ever become a thing it will require between 50 and 100Mbs arriving at the client device, so the main advantage of gigabit fibre delivered to an address is to permit 'fast-enough' streams to multiple individual devices simultaneously.

Re: Sky Glass Review

SDR — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 07:42:30 GMT

@mercelous Thank you for an excellent review.

Re: Sky Glass Review

SJH4 — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 07:52:02 GMT

@mercelous a great review, I had my doubts in the first week but it is the way forward

Re: Sky Glass Review

Sarakale — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 08:23:01 GMT

@mercelous Thanks for the review more or less what you've said is the issues most of us are having,you e got to be crazy to think the sound off it isn't good like most people think,as for the Dolby vision notification when watching something in Dolby vision like a 4K Blu-ray Disc if you press the elipsis(3 dots button) where the search and subtitles pops up in the right corner it tells you it's in Dolby vision and or Dolby Atmos

Re: Sky Glass Review

Melancholic — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 09:27:04 GMT

@mercelous

A good, solid and honest review; it's exactly what has been needed on this forum.

The only thing that has stopped me transitioning to Glass is the playlist situation. My wife will sometimes watch ITV shows via her iPad and is always moaning about the adverts and the overall quality, so I knew having to use an app permanently would have seen us returning the TV anyway.

On the other hand, my Mum, who can't get Q where she lives, is taking delivery of Glass today, so I will be able to at least keep a close eye on how it develops and evolves over the coming months.

Re: Sky Glass Review

Q-tips — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 09:32:14 GMT

@mercelous your admirable thesis should qualify you for a degree. There are some issues - reported widely in this forum - that you don't touch upon, presumably because they don't affect you, eg the alleged sub-standard quality of Sky Glass UHD imagery compared to other broadcasters (and even compared to the HD feed on Glass). And the lack of any feedback when Playlisting a programme which is only available for live view: people obviously need to know from the get-go when the programmes they select to view later can't be time shifted.

Sky are obviously working on fixing Glass issues but apart from the flickering screen problem, they haven't said how long it will take. Some of the reported issues may not be fixable at all. So it's a leap of faith - which would be a big concern for folk, unlike you, who couldn't live with these issues for long and know that Sky's 31-day returns deadline is approaching. Some won't trust Sky to deliver timely fixes and so will take their refunds while they can.

The solution would be for Sky to be much more transparent than they want to be and list all the known issues with Glass together with a deadline for fixing them - while agreeing to extend the returns window until that date for those who stick with it. With so much hard-earned cash on the line for Glass subscribers, I suspect there won't be many prepared to keep the faith if it takes them beyond the returns window and their right to a refund.

Re: Sky Glass Review

oellph — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 11:32:06 GMT

Fantastic review and I echo your opinion and thoughts.

Except, I'm not keen on losing the page up and page down buttons. The long presses take too long to kick in. I'm sure that could be tweaked in a software update.

Re: Sky Glass Review

oellph — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 11:34:04 GMT

Ah, I can't yet edit my posts. I wanted to say, I feel that the picture quality for SD programmes looks better on my Glass (55") compared with our previous 4K LG 49" tv. It surprised me.

Re: Sky Glass Review

mercelous — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 12:33:25 GMT

EDIT:

I have just uncovered a little quirk which I'm not sure has been noted before by anybody...

When you bring up the mini guide by pressing the centre button on a channel, if you then press the multi coloured button, top right on the remote, it appears to change the contrast/brightness/transparency of the mini guide.

A weird little Easter egg

Re: Sky Glass Review

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 14:42:38 GMT

@mercelous A great review, I note that you refer to putting the sound up to 30, I don't know if I'm missing something but all I get when adjusting the volume is a rising blue line on the left hand side of the screen but no numbers like I used to have with Q.

Re: Sky Glass Review

mercelous — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 23:43:28 GMT

Although the volume hasn't numbers when you change it, you can ask Sky to increase or decrease the volume using percentages

Re: Sky Glass Review

Aiden. — Sat, 20 Nov 2021 09:51:01 GMT

Well constructed , detailed review.

Thank you for that.