You have to look at this in context. TV & Film is subject to copyright. You example of Apple backup in iCloud is typically for your documents and general pictures you have taken. The backup of your Apple music/iTunes is granted through the identity you have on your phone (logged user name) and it is ecrypted using this information. You would not want other people to have access to your content without some form of protection would you. Your identity would be stolen and your life would be utter hell. The same is true of movies.
Content producers want to see a trusted connection from the viewers screen to the store that cannot just be copied and shared at random. Annoying but fair. If this did not happen then no one in film world would make a profit and no more films would be made.
So to avoid this being too easy some anti-piracy stuff was built into the HDMI system that has become mostly standard for DVD/TV/DVR boxes to link to TV's or display things (projectors). One of these is the logic of a content steamer (DVD, Bl-Ray, SkyQ box, DVR, Streamer, AppleTV) and a display. The device at each end of the HDMI cable needs to be one or the other. Things like HDMI switches are just that and should not be capable of bleeding the data.
This should work by encrypting content against something YOU have (long number of viewing card) so that it can only be played on your machine. You can take the stream from the Sky engine and store it on your Q box. It will be encrypted as it rests on he disc in the box. If you put in another card it will not be able to read any of the stored content as it is a different "person". Fairs fair the new card may not have rights and have paid to watch it.
So why not stream it from the cloud directly. It's generally not as reliable and Sky want you to have a great experience (i dont' work for them) so b having some of it buffering or run from the local disc the FF/RW, pause experience is instant and shuttling back ten mins is easy. If you compare it with true streaming the Netflix FF/RW is a lot scruffier.
So if you try and insert something that is not either of these then the streamer should shout foul and refuse to play. To maintain the integrity of the chain this means you cannot just backup the files and content as it takes it outside the trusted digital chain from Sky-SkyQ-TV which is against the rules that Sky have to sign up for in order to be able to store and sell this stuff.
Annoyingly if you do have a pile of saved content on your Q box and the disc fails you do loose it. Totally. Yes this happened to us.
On the older Sky+ boxes it was possible for a sufficiently geek person to extract the physical disc from the cabinet (no warranty and risk of damage) and mount it on a PC with some software so you could see the files but the avent of the Q box closed this hole. It was also illegal just for clarity.
To some extent the SkyQ box is a bit of a hybred. It has the satellite engine as well as a good streaming engine where the Chrome and AppleTV boxes tend to be streaming only. SO if you want to use SkyGo and lose the Q box it can be effective depending on how you consume your content. The user experieence on Sky content on the Q box is much smoother. The cost and hence value is your opinion.
So no you cannot legally backup to the cloud, it would be a breach of copyright. The fact that there is no "migration tool" is a fail IMHO. (removed)
HTH.
Moderator note: Removed inappropriate comment.
Sky Q 2Tb + 2 Mini's, 65 Samsung UHD.
Sony PS, Marantz Amp, AppleTV, ChromeCast.
Sky, Prime, Netflix, DTV, where will it all end?
