topic HELPING MY PARENTS in Sky Q

HELPING MY PARENTS

LucyPendlebury — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 06:13:53 GMT

Hello. I'm looking for some help and guidance please.
we have sky Q and I'm trying to simplify my parents TV needs.
They are 73 and have multiple platforms with numerous remotes and even some sort of DVD box to record.
They live remotely yet have Fibre Broadband but I don't really think a Dish would be an option but I am open to suggestions.
The TV they have is too old to have (for example) ITV3 so they are happy to get a new one.
They don't necessarily "need" Sky yet would like to have all their requirements on 1 TV with 1 remote and be able to record, pause etc.
I got through to Sky yesterday and a lady was trying to assist and we got disconnected.
I'm not overly techy and don't want to give them wrong advice.

Re: HELPING MY PARENTS

nigea99 — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 06:54:33 GMT

@LucyPendlebury wrote:

Hello. I'm looking for some help and guidance please.
we have sky Q and I'm trying to simplify my parents TV needs.
They are 73 and have multiple platforms with numerous remotes and even some sort of DVD box to record.
They live remotely yet have Fibre Broadband but I don't really think a Dish would be an option but I am open to suggestions.
The TV they have is too old to have (for example) ITV3 so they are happy to get a new one.
They don't necessarily "need" Sky yet would like to have all their requirements on 1 TV with 1 remote and be able to record, pause etc.
I got through to Sky yesterday and a lady was trying to assist and we got disconnected.
I'm not overly techy and don't want to give them wrong advice.

hi @LucyPendlebury

There is a SKy Tv without a dish called SKy Glass which on the face of it gives a simple 'all in one place' for TV but it has quite a few nuances - it cannot record it uses playlists and streams all TV and uses all the various 'Catch up' apps such as iPlayer, ITV X, All4, UKTV Play to play.

It does need good broadband

The Glass TV does not use normal 'Freeview' TV from an aerial (although it has the capability as a backup when broadband fails but this is not automatic and needs to be changed in menus)

There is a seperate Glass (& Stream) board here - Stream is the stand alone box that has the similar functionality of the tV but is separate and needs a separate TV.

I should point out that the Glass TV is reliant on the UI & operating system provided by SKY which gets fairly frequent updates and there have been the odd brief periods where updates (or other reasons) causing glitches meaning brief but frustrating problems for users

I would suggest you do look at the dedicated board & do further research - many are happy with SKY Glass TVs but it is different to older Tech & SKY Q

BTW even an older TV should be able to get ITV3 as ITV3 is broadcast by the same transmitters in the same way as BBC1/ITV1 & all other Freeview channels - although in some areas the Freeview signal for some frequencies may be weaker than others - which may be the problem you mention - a call to a Freeviw aerial installer may be able to advise (loss of channels might just be down to needing a new Freeview aerial and/or cable)

I have not used this specific functionality but if pause & record from TV is something they really want many modern 'Smart TVs' have the capability of plugging in an external Hard dive and pause/record TV that way - again you might need to specifically research a TV you may think suitable.

As you have SKY Q you know this would add a remote to the equation - SKY Q itself does allow most watching to be done in one place & definitely has the pause / record functionality - it can probably be used with any TV th at has an HDMI input (It does, of course, need a Satellite dish)

Re: HELPING MY PARENTS

nigea99 — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:41:31 GMT

hi again @LucyPendlebury

I wil add that I think a SKY Glass TV itself is pretty much tied into a SKY Subscription so if cost may be an issue in the future then this may need consideration

I will tag a couple of our other helpful contributors here that I think have SKY Glass and may be able to give further insights into that and probably other thoughts as well - @Chrisee & @TimmyBGood

Re: HELPING MY PARENTS

GD1 — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 07:47:25 GMT

@nigea99 A Glass TV can be used without subs, but in all honesty is severely limited.

If the users are not technical then Glass isn't going to be for them.

@LucyPendlebury For ease of use Sky Q would be the best option, you can pair the Q remote to do simple TV operations.

You could also look for an All 4 One type remote to take away the excess remotes and this may be a better option as they have a DVD player to run.