topic Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace in Sky Stream

Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Flimbin — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 13:40:22 GMT

I'm new to Sky Stream and I bought it because I like to record a Rugby match I watch in the stadium and then review certain incidents that happen during the match when I get home. I do not have Ad Skipping as I don't mind watching a few ads, BUT I can't fast forward / rewind to any particular place as every time I stop , I have to watch the ads again. I end up just watching all the ads over and over again and not finding the bit I wanted to watch again. Is this user error or am I correct in thinking that Sky have made the system unusable and demand £5 a month to make is useable ?

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Fothergill1 — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 13:53:49 GMT

@Flimbin Sky Stream should work perfectly well without Add Skipping you just have to watch the Adds. It sounds as though there is a system glitch so try unplugging your stream puck for a minute and then plug it back in again. It will take about a minute to reboot.

TBH charging for the privilege of using the FF/RW to get past the apps is ridiculous particularly with the lag on the FF/RW making it almost impossible to use effectively.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Mr+Michael+P — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 17:59:25 GMT

I totally agree and your right trying to jump to certain parts without ad skipping is very difficult at times at it will force you to watch the ads you have try to skip past, which I agree is a disgrace.

I currently pay for ad skipping but I hate the product it's not fit for purpose often difficult to control and let's face it at premium prices there should be no ads in on demand, I just don't understand why even if an extra fee the ads are just completely removed from recorded or on demand shows it's possible.

I don't feel sky stream will ever be the premium product it could be without removing ads from on demand like any other service, Netflix, etc also offer?

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Padam_Padam — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 18:20:23 GMT

I've reverted to a NOW TV with Boost subscription on an Apple TV 4K box for watching any Sky programmes now. It gives a proper ad-free experience and is so much more pleasant to use.

I simply will not accept such a poor implementation of fast forwarding and rewinding on Sky Stream. It is outrageous that this is a chargeable part of the subscription. Even though I've had it for free for a couple of months it's still infuriating to use and I will be cancelling my Stream subscription as soon as is possible. It's simply not worth it in my opinion.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Mr+Michael+P — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 18:35:07 GMT

Same. Now TV with boost cheaper and ad free unbelievable that owned by the same company and yet they sell sky stream more expensive with ads which is unacceptable. I'm still in contract at the moment if I keep sky it will be for 4k uhd football only the sky tv drama on demand is beyond poor value with ads in on demand it not even compare to the cheaper now tv, I hope they realise and fix it but I doubt it cause why they can they will fleece us I wish more ppl would speak up and demand that all on demand content such be ad free at this price. The European version of sky stream get ad free and I might be wrong but overall cheaper than what we have to pay.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Fothergill1 — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 18:41:50 GMT

I have always thought that for the streaming platform Sky should simply put up the price of the basic Ultimate & Netflix subscription by maybe £2 for all subscribers and include the add skipping as part of the ultimate package.

They could have incorporated it in the April increase.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Anonymous — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 19:23:00 GMT

I think the issue with FF/RW on sky stream relates to the remote control and not the box/software. When I use the sky remote the FF/RW is flakey at best, however when I use my LG Magic remote on the same box - the FF and RW works like a dream

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Flimbin — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 20:11:25 GMT

So I unplugged it and plugged it back in then found the game I saw on Friday in Playlist So I wanted to find an incident early in the game when a player was yellow carded. Should be easy to FF to it - and even Rewind if I'd gone too far, but I didn't manage to get to it and I just watched the same adverts (all of them) 5 times whilst trying.

This is not fit for (my) purpose and it's reasonable to expect it would be without paying an extra unadvertised £5 pm. IMHO there should be laws against it

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Mr+Michael+P — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 20:37:28 GMT

Your right it was not long ago what you are trying to do was the basic feature of any free view recorder without any extra charge.

even if you paid the £5 ad skipping fee I think you would be surprised how poor it is, they really need to remove ads totally from on demand and improve it greatly to fast forward cloud recordings for sports like what you are trying to do.

Even with a LG remote which might work like a dream but at that point if it's that smooth to skip ads why put them in at all it's pointless at this premium price.

I just don't think it will change, I've mentioned it many times at it just don't seem a big enough issue for most customers I really thought more would be speaking up and depending better for the price of the product.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Guy85 — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 10:06:34 GMT

Appalling, same issue. I just watched 15mins of ads back to back, which is longer than the programme time I was trying to fast forward to. It's a joke.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

GB28 — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 16:36:48 GMT

I had exactly the same and it renders the use of recording/playback unusable. I also wonder if it contravenes Ofgem advertising rules about the amount of ads that can be in a certain time. The offer of addtional fees to allow you to FF ads is an insult, besides many reports that it is not much use! It puts them on a par with Ryan-air approach to customers, not one of a premuim service. I'm seriously considering going through a complaint process, all the away to Ofcom if needed to escape the contract. What I am getting now is way worse than the Sky I has 2 years ago inspite of considerable price increases - it's utterly unacceptable.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

TimmyBGood — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 17:17:00 GMT

@GB28 wrote:

I also wonder if it contravenes Ofgem advertising rules about the amount of ads that can be in a certain time.

Ofcom regulation hasn't caught up with the on-demand age: they are largely operating on legislation that's more than two decades old. As Ad Skipping doesn't (and can't) apply to live broadcast content, I suspect it may not be covered, and technical glitches are unlikely to be penalised anyway.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

GB28 — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 22:07:19 GMT

I agree Ofcom is behind the curve, but after the long chat with Sky technical support, they are saying it is operating as designed. I guess customers will vote by going elsewhere if this is indicative of what we get.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Padam_Padam — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 22:18:34 GMT

@GB28 wrote:
I agree Ofcom is behind the curve, but after the long chat with Sky technical support, they are saying it is operating as designed. I guess customers will vote by going elsewhere if this is indicative of what we get.

That's what I did. The poor functionality of Sky Stream was enough for me to stop being a Sky customer after 18 years, It turned watchung TV into an infuriating experience,

I'm so pleased to be rid of it TBH. The alternative TV streaming service we now use is so much more polished and reliable.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 10:45:59 GMT

@Padam_Padam wrote:
@GB28 wrote:
I agree Ofcom is behind the curve, but after the long chat with Sky technical support, they are saying it is operating as designed. I guess customers will vote by going elsewhere if this is indicative of what we get.
That's what I did. The poor functionality of Sky Stream was enough for me to stop being a Sky customer after 18 years, It turned watchung TV into an infuriating experience,
I'm so pleased to be rid of it TBH. The alternative TV streaming service we now use is so much more polished and reliable.

What service is that please?

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Padam_Padam — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 13:34:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Padam_Padam wrote:
@GB28 wrote:
I agree Ofcom is behind the curve, but after the long chat with Sky technical support, they are saying it is operating as designed. I guess customers will vote by going elsewhere if this is indicative of what we get.
That's what I did. The poor functionality of Sky Stream was enough for me to stop being a Sky customer after 18 years, It turned watchung TV into an infuriating experience,
I'm so pleased to be rid of it TBH. The alternative TV streaming service we now use is so much more polished and reliable.
What service is that please?

We stream everything via an Apple TV 4K box.

We're not sports fans in our house, we mainly watch movies and drama series and have no need for live TV. I pay £10pm for Netflix Premium as a perk of my EE mobile contract, get free Apple TV+ until November, Disney+ is currently free on a 6 month offer from my wife's mobile contract, we subscribe to Max and Peacock in the USA (but we're not allowed to discuss how on these forums) and get all UK broadcast live streams and catch up content from the relevant apps (iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, My5, etc).

The Apple TV box has an Up Next feature (similar to Sky's playlist) which keeps track of where you are in a series and you can add upcoming shows to it to stream when you wish. If you have an iPhone or Apple Watch you can get alerts telling you when a new episode is available to watch.

Voice control using the Siri remote is much more useful than Sky Stream's effort. For one it understands me 95% of the time, and has many more useful features.

It's not for everyone - there are plenty of Apple haters who will forever sing Sky's praises, but compared to the Stream puck the hardware is far superior. Yes it's more expensive, but it's faster, much better built and just works. I've had to do a restart (from a menu rather than the switch at the wall) just once in the past 3 months. With proper frame rate matching, a vast range of user-chosen apps and more HDR options it suits us as a household much better than Sky Stream ever did.

Just to be clear - Sky Stream can and does work well for some people but it depends on many factors. It didn't work for us, largely due to quality and reliability. But the Apple TV 4K box suits how we watch TV perfectly.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 19:40:56 GMT

@Padam_Padam wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Padam_Padam wrote:
@GB28 wrote:
I agree Ofcom is behind the curve, but after the long chat with Sky technical support, they are saying it is operating as designed. I guess customers will vote by going elsewhere if this is indicative of what we get.
That's what I did. The poor functionality of Sky Stream was enough for me to stop being a Sky customer after 18 years, It turned watchung TV into an infuriating experience,
I'm so pleased to be rid of it TBH. The alternative TV streaming service we now use is so much more polished and reliable.
What service is that please?
We stream everything via an Apple TV 4K box.
We're not sports fans in our house, we mainly watch movies and drama series and have no need for live TV. I pay £10pm for Netflix Premium as a perk of my EE mobile contract, get free Apple TV+ until November, Disney+ is currently free on a 6 month offer from my wife's mobile contract, we subscribe to Max and Peacock in the USA (but we're not allowed to discuss how on these forums) and get all UK broadcast live streams and catch up content from the relevant apps (iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, My5, etc).
The Apple TV box has an Up Next feature (similar to Sky's playlist) which keeps track of where you are in a series and you can add upcoming shows to it to stream when you wish. If you have an iPhone or Apple Watch you can get alerts telling you when a new episode is available to watch.
Voice control using the Siri remote is much more useful than Sky Stream's effort. For one it understands me 95% of the time, and has many more useful features.
It's not for everyone - there are plenty of Apple haters who will forever sing Sky's praises, but compared to the Stream puck the hardware is far superior. Yes it's more expensive, but it's faster, much better built and just works. I've had to do a restart (from a menu rather than the switch at the wall) just once in the past 3 months. With proper frame rate matching, a vast range of user-chosen apps and more HDR options it suits us as a household much better than Sky Stream ever did.
Just to be clear - Sky Stream can and does work well for some people but it depends on many factors. It didn't work for us, largely due to quality and reliability. But the Apple TV 4K box suits how we watch TV perfectly.

Thanks for that. I'm an apple developer, so have a few Apple TVs around.

I'm no fan of sky, and would be off like a shot if it wasn't for UHD F1 and Prem.

I can't get that anywhere else, so I'm just trying to make the best of it.

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Supercatthemarvel — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 21:58:38 GMT

Ad skipping is a complete rip off.

It kind of works on channel 4 but is unreliable. Any other channel in my playlist (includind sky channels), it just freezes the program and you have to go back to home screen and back into the program to get it working and guess what? Yes, it takes you to the beginning of the ads again.

Total and utter rip off!!! Dont waste your money on it...

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Steve93 — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 22:36:03 GMT

I have Apple TV 4K & the NOW tv app & Sky Stream, yes it's faster than Stream & you get no adds for £6 a month, it's good my only gripe is Ch5 they don't offer a premium version & you have to watch all the adverts which is a real pain, wonder why MY5 don't offer this service, there's only "watch from start" on bbc & ch5

also the add skipping on Sky Stream, I don't have a problem with works fine for me have got it free until mid August

Re: Charging for Ad skipping is a complete and utter disgrace

Mister_Dalek — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 06:41:12 GMT

@Steve93 wrote:
I have Apple TV 4K & the NOW tv app & Sky Stream, yes it's faster than Stream & you get no adds for £6 a month, it's good my only gripe is Ch5 they don't offer a premium version & you have to watch all the adverts which is a real pain, wonder why MY5 don't offer this service, there's only "watch from start" on bbc & ch5

also the add skipping on Sky Stream, I don't have a problem with works fine for me have got it free until mid August

Incorrect. Watch from the start is also available across all live channels on the ITVX and Channel 4 apps on Apple TV 4K and other streaming devices which offer the live channel streams.