topic Re: Sky Stream Poor in Sky Stream

Sky Stream Poor

Maccca1 — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 21:41:28 GMT

I’m getting really frustrated with Sky Stream to the point we hardly use it anymore. The picture and sound keep cutting out, and watching live sport is dreadful. We have Sky Broadband with a booster and speeds of 50mbps+, and all other apps (Netflix, Prime, Disney, Apple TV) stream perfectly in 4K on our Samsung TV without issues.

I’ve tried switching the Stream boxes on and off, resetting them, but the problems continue. Our contract runs until August 2026 — are we locked in even if the service isn’t working properly? The AI chat couldn’t give me a clear answer.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

lettice — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 21:48:42 GMT

Having a good local network broadband reach is key to Sky Stream.
Not just broadband speed to your house and router, but for your local network supply via wifi or ethernet, that can be affected in a busy household.

Best way to test is via a network speed test on each of your Pucks.
Launch Netflix on your pucks (you do not need to be logged into it, if you do not use netflix) and scroll down the left menu to Get help.
Choose Check Network.
Would suggest running the test a few times, over say a half hour period during tests.
What is your speed for each puck?

The recommended minimum broadband speed for Sky Stream and Sky Glass reliability is 25Mbps.
Or 30Mbps if you add an extra Sky Stream puck or to watch in UHD.

Plus, using the Sky Sports live sync option adds a few Mbps per puck or Sky Glass Tv.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

BenJoBanjo — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 22:06:33 GMT

@Maccca1 wrote:
I’m getting really frustrated with Sky Stream to the point we hardly use it anymore. The picture and sound keep cutting out, and watching live sport is dreadful. We have Sky Broadband with a booster and speeds of 50mbps+, and all other apps (Netflix, Prime, Disney, Apple TV) stream perfectly in 4K on our Samsung TV without issues.

I’ve tried switching the Stream boxes on and off, resetting them, but the problems continue. Our contract runs until August 2026 — are we locked in even if the service isn’t working properly? The AI chat couldn’t give me a clear answer.

Sky won't hold you to your contract if you cannot get the service to function as advertised. Many customers have been released from 2 year contracts without penalty and without fuss. Sky know it doesn't work for everyone and won't charge you for a service that can't be delivered fully, once you've tried their troubleshooting.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

peter-marlow+1966 — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 22:17:58 GMT

How is your puck connected to the Internet? And ethernet cable is more stable, an 50mps is no where near enough, that is what you are getting to your hub,i would say, to watch hd channels on sky stream sky say a minimum of 25mps to watch uhd channels you need a minimum of 35mps, to see what speed the puck is getting open Netflix go to help opening that and running check my network and that will tell your speed you are getting , the faster the speed to the hub the better the streaming works

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Maccca1 — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:16:19 GMT

Thanks very much for the helpful replies. I’ve carried out the suggested tests (though admittedly during the day) as it does seem a bit slower in the evenings. At the moment, we’re getting around 35 Mbps at the puck in the kitchen but only about 19 Mbps in the lounge.

The telecom cable comes into the back of the house upstairs, and since the lounge is at the front, it’s the furthest point away. Unfortunately, hardwiring isn’t an option as it’s an older house. We do have one Sky Wi-Fi booster in between—would adding another one in the lounge improve things?

Re: Sky Stream Poor

MarkGoldsmith — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:23:40 GMT

@Maccca1 wrote:
Thanks very much for the helpful replies. I’ve carried out the suggested tests (though admittedly during the day) as it does seem a bit slower in the evenings. At the moment, we’re getting around 35 Mbps at the puck in the kitchen but only about 19 Mbps in the lounge.

The telecom cable comes into the back of the house upstairs, and since the lounge is at the front, it’s the furthest point away. Unfortunately, hardwiring isn’t an option as it’s an older house. We do have one Sky Wi-Fi booster in between—would adding another one in the lounge improve things?

@Maccca1 another option to look at is a powerline adapter. Essentially this allows you to hard wire the internet connection via a device that just plugs into your electrical supply ( so you only need a spare plug socket close to the affected puck).

Re: Sky Stream Poor

lettice — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:59:10 GMT

Your speed is really going to cause you ongoing issues.

Your kitchen one will just about be ok at times, but will probably suffer during busier household internet usage times.

Your lounge one is going to be a very poor experience I'd expect most of the time, if staying connected at all most times.

To be honest a wifi booster is not going to really help, as it will drop the speed a little and so your not really gaining.

Assume your router is also located upstairs?

You could try the power line adapters as mentioned above. A few issues there is, you saying it's an older house. Older properties can often have a downstairs and upstairs separate power circuit. With power line adapters they all need to work on the same circuit.

Your best options would be to relocate your router downstairs in a more centralised position. Not sure if that's possible for you though.

Or to run a couple of cat 5e ethernet cables from your router to the Sky Stream pucks.

You can buy ones that are known as flat cable, they may be better to feed and lay under the carpets, skirting and the like at points or trails, than the more traditional round cable design, especially if being fed around the house and the round cables not so easy to pass along walls or hidden with or by walls or skirting.

What is your recommended broadband speed that Sky say you should be getting to your router?

Just to be certain, are you sure you cannot get any kind of Fibre connection, bringing a much faster speed.

You can check that via the Ofcom broadband checker, by entering your postcode and house number;

https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/en-gb/broadband-coverage

As well as the speeds shown, look at the list of networks shown lower done on that page for all the broadband suppliers, like Virgin and altnet providers in your area providing fibre broadband connections.
That, when they show has links to their sites.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Maccca1 — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 11:56:43 GMT

Thanks again for the really helpful advice. Yes, the upstairs and downstairs are on separate power circuits. Moving the router would mean relocating the socket, which would need an engineer visit. Our broadband is guaranteed at 50 Mbps to the socket, and to be fair, we do get that in the room where the router is.

The question is whether upgrading the package would actually fix the issue — for example, if we’re only getting around 2/5 of the speed in the lounge now, would that same ratio apply if we upgraded to 100 Mbps?

Running cables isn’t really an option with parquet and tiled floors, and I’ve looked into Sky Max, but it seems they don’t provide booster pucks by default.

So the next step will be a phone call. Once again, thanks — it’s been really helpful in confirming that there is a problem!

Re: Sky Stream Poor

TimmyBGood — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:19:28 GMT

@Maccca1 wrote:

Running cables isn’t really an option with parquet and tiled floors, and I’ve looked into Sky Max, but it seems they don’t provide booster pucks by default.

It's the WiFi Max subscription supplement which brings the option to claim booster pods: none are shipped initially.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

BenJoBanjo — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:27:54 GMT

@Maccca1

The other option would be to try powerline adapters. These send the broadband signal via your home's internal electrical wiring. One adapter connects to your router via ethernet cable, the other adapter is then plugged into a power socket next to the puck with an ethernet cable out of it into the puck. This can often provide a better, more stable connection than can be provided by a booster.

Worth experimenting though.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Hunter2660 — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:42:37 GMT

Maybe if things can't improve it's time to cut your losses and leave and take a look at Sky's Now service for Sky channels. That would be far more reliable as it's app based, unlike Stream which is run entirely on Sky's servers.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

lettice — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 13:58:59 GMT

@Maccca1 wrote:

Thanks again for the really helpful advice. Yes, the upstairs and downstairs are on separate power circuits. Moving the router would mean relocating the socket, which would need an engineer visit. Our broadband is guaranteed at 50 Mbps to the socket, and to be fair, we do get that in the room where the router is.

The question is whether upgrading the package would actually fix the issue — for example, if we’re only getting around 2/5 of the speed in the lounge now, would that same ratio apply if we upgraded to 100 Mbps?

Running cables isn’t really an option with parquet and tiled floors, and I’ve looked into Sky Max, but it seems they don’t provide booster pucks by default.

So the next step will be a phone call. Once again, thanks — it’s been really helpful in confirming that there is a problem!

Ok, Powerline adapters are going to be no use then with your different floor circuits. Must admit Ive never been a fan of them Myself anyway.

100Mbps if you can get that would work perfectly. The wifi reach based on what you are saying, would be around the 50+ mark, 45Mbps at worst case. That would work well for your Sky Stream needs.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

BenJoBanjo — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 14:16:50 GMT

@lettice wrote:
@Maccca1 wrote:
Thanks again for the really helpful advice. Yes, the upstairs and downstairs are on separate power circuits. Moving the router would mean relocating the socket, which would need an engineer visit. Our broadband is guaranteed at 50 Mbps to the socket, and to be fair, we do get that in the room where the router is.

The question is whether upgrading the package would actually fix the issue — for example, if we’re only getting around 2/5 of the speed in the lounge now, would that same ratio apply if we upgraded to 100 Mbps?

Running cables isn’t really an option with parquet and tiled floors, and I’ve looked into Sky Max, but it seems they don’t provide booster pucks by default.

So the next step will be a phone call. Once again, thanks — it’s been really helpful in confirming that there is a problem!
Ok, Powerline adapters are going to be no use then with your different floor circuits. Must admit Ive never been a fan of them Myself anyway.

100Mbps if you can get that would work perfectly. The wifi reach based on what you are saying, would be around the 50+ mark, 45Mbps at worst case. That would work well for your Sky Stream needs.

Don't discount powerline adapters and don't trust every electrician's advice about circuits.... I live in a Victorian property with ancient circuitry and some antique light switches and power sockets. There is no logic to how some of it has been wired up. Yet a pair of cheap £30 Powerline adapters allowed me to get a wired broadband speed of around 80Mbps to various corners of the house.

If you don't want to invest in a decent WiFi mesh system which can cost a lot of money, or pay an additional monthly fee for some form of 'boost' from Sky, then they are worth a try. Get them from Amazon and they're easy and free to return if they don't work.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Maccca1 — Thu, 18 Sep 2025 18:12:44 GMT

Just spoke with Sky, and we’ll be switching to fibre broadband next week. The technical advice and support here have been really helpful, as we were able to explain everything we’d already tried. I’ll share an update once the new service is up and running next week.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Maccca1 — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 22:00:51 GMT

Switching to fibre broadband brought an initial improvement, stream speeds increased, picture quality was good, and I was even able to watch a football match in UHD on Tuesday. However, performance has dropped during peak times (20mbps) and picture freezing with Channel 4 this evening . The solution seems to be upgrading to higher speed, though this comes with a cost.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Maccca1 — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 22:23:58 GMT

Actually 13mbps after a Netflix test.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

peter-marlow+1966 — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 22:25:47 GMT

13mps is nowhere near good enough to stream that's you problem you need a fast broadband speed

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Dan43753 — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 14:46:41 GMT

People complaining about their internet speeds let this sink in:

I have LG G5 (all apps Netflix etc and my pc can / media server can play 4k with no problems.

when I use the sky puck sports looks very low bitrate (connected with WiFi and eth) tried various cables (cat5/6/7) and the quality is still very poor.. especially the sports channels sky sports and ultra.

for context my neighbour has sky q + Satalite dish (night and day difference) looks great th quality... how it should look.

he has the LG G4.

there is something FUNDAMENTALLY bad with these cheap stream boxes, I tried virgins steam box (same low quality bitrate) they are sending poor quality feeds out compared to their satalite equivalent and I won't have anyone tell me different.

iv even had a replacement router (same quality issue).

any suggestions from the poeople pointing fingers at internet speeds? My dl is constant 900d/100u ....

Re: Sky Stream Poor

Hunter2660 — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 14:59:40 GMT

@Dan43753 wrote:
People complaining about their internet speeds let this sink in:

I have LG G5 (all apps Netflix etc and my pc can / media server can play 4k with no problems.

when I use the sky puck sports looks very low bitrate (connected with WiFi and eth) tried various cables (cat5/6/7) and the quality is still very poor.. especially the sports channels sky sports and ultra.

for context my neighbour has sky q + Satalite dish (night and day difference) looks great th quality... how it should look.

he has the LG G4.

there is something FUNDAMENTALLY bad with these cheap stream boxes, I tried virgins steam box (same low quality bitrate) they are sending poor quality feeds out compared to their satalite equivalent and I won't have anyone tell me different.

iv even had a replacement router (same quality issue).

any suggestions from the poeople pointing fingers at internet speeds? My dl is constant 900d/100u ....

I can't comment on why your picture is poor, but I can assure you Stream produces some excellent pics, I would say better than Q. Satellite and DTT are constrained by the fact the channels are squeezed into a small space, SD is particularly poor. Stream on the other hand has little issues with compression, and is predominately HD, with SD channels showing a nice sharp clean pic in comparison.

Re: Sky Stream Poor

BenJoBanjo — Sun, 02 Nov 2025 17:51:04 GMT

@Dan43753 wrote:
People complaining about their internet speeds let this sink in:

I have LG G5 (all apps Netflix etc and my pc can / media server can play 4k with no problems.

when I use the sky puck sports looks very low bitrate (connected with WiFi and eth) tried various cables (cat5/6/7) and the quality is still very poor.. especially the sports channels sky sports and ultra.

for context my neighbour has sky q + Satalite dish (night and day difference) looks great th quality... how it should look.

he has the LG G4.

there is something FUNDAMENTALLY bad with these cheap stream boxes, I tried virgins steam box (same low quality bitrate) they are sending poor quality feeds out compared to their satalite equivalent and I won't have anyone tell me different.

iv even had a replacement router (same quality issue).

any suggestions from the poeople pointing fingers at internet speeds? My dl is constant 900d/100u ....

I personally never watched sport when I had Stream but I can say that the UHD output from Sky on demand sources was always very good - sharper and more colourful than my previous Sky Q box.

Do you have any picture processing options turned on on your G5? Are you using Film-maker mode? What size is your screen?

Football in particular can tend to look pretty poor on some displays due to the inherent flaws of watching a large block of predominantly green pitch, with small variations in detail. Some picture processing can struggle to show it well and will make it look posterised, and low bit-rate.

Would it be worthwhile trying a month of Sky Sports via the NOW app to see if that looks any better on your screen? I switched to NOW from Sky Stream and find it gives me a much better overall experience. This partly down to the Apple TV 4K hardware we use having better image processing for the type of content we watch (which isn't sport) and is generally much more reliable.

If your G5 has the NOW app on-board already then it might be worth comparing the image quality you get from the same Sky Sports channels to see what works best for you. If sport is important to you then it's probably worth spending £15 on a day membership to try it out. Add Ultra Boost too (there's often a deal offered for it) so you can compare the UHD HDR streams.