How powerful is the Sky Q box

[seandrews]

Hi I wonder if anyone has any information on how powerful and capable is the Sky Q box. 

my box as well as the many I encounter at other homes seems slow sluggish and struggling to do all the things it is meant to do. 

how does the Sky Q box measure up against the most recent YouView Box Virgin TV Box and BT TV Box

are Roku Boxes, Amazon Fire TV Boxes or Apple TV Boxes more powerful faster and able to do the things the Sky Q box us just not doing as well as it should. 

I am probably right and correct in saying we will never get an upgraded Sky Q box with satellite inputs and a hard drive for recording so I think Comcast are happy with a dying few million boxes in peoples homes and just waiting to, effectively, force people onto Glass or Stream. 

Coukd they not have a commercial relationship with one of the big tech companies Sony/Samsung/Apple to build something that works as it is designed to. 

are the microchips in Samsung or Sony TV's or Roku or Apple TV boxes better than whatever Sky have been sending out? 

[TimmyBGood]

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@seandrews wrote:

how does the Sky Q box measure up against the most recent YouView Box Virgin TV Box and BT TV Box

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Perhaps worth remembering that Q is now an 'mature' system: the last significant revision was the late 2019 release of the 1TB UHD/HDR model.  Original Q main boxes are eight years old, as is the Mini box specification.

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@seandrews wrote:

I think Comcast are happy with a dying few million boxes in peoples homes and just waiting to, effectively, force people onto Glass or Stream. 

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Quite possibly: given geosynchronous satellites have about 15 years of propellant on board, if new ones aren't launched to replace the decade-old orbiting units in the Astra cluster then the days of Sky by satellite (and Freesat) are distinctly numbered.

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@seandrews wrote:

Coukd they not have a commercial relationship with one of the big tech companies Sony/Samsung/Apple to build something that works as it is designed to. 

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I would think that Comcast doesn't particularly want to pay 'Sony/Samsung/Apple' hardware prices...

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@seandrews wrote:

are the microchips in Samsung or Sony TV's or Roku or Apple TV boxes better than whatever Sky have been sending out? 

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Recent Apple silicon is undoubtedly 'better' than whatever generic budget chipsets Sky uses, but then Apple is selling expensive and shiny multipurpose kit with high customer expectations while Sky is loaning hardware that just has to do what Sky needs it to do adequately enough to keep a sufficient number of subscribers subscribing.

[simon194]

@TimmyBGood 

@seandrews 

Also bearing in mind that Sky's carriage deal with SES expires in 2028, I would hazard a guess that this will be the end of satellite broadcasting through Sky.

There will probably be a big push to move current satellite subscribers to Stream before then.

[TimmyBGood]

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@simon194 wrote:

@TimmyBGood 

@seandrews 

Also bearing in mind that Sky's carriage deal with SES expires in 2028

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Makes sense given the age of the current satellites:  by then the youngest will have been up for 14 years.

• Astra 2E (launched in 2013)
• Astra 2F (launched in 2012)
• Astra 2G (launched in 2014)

Interestingly, SES is putting up two new ones, but at 19.2 degrees to serve television into mainland Europe.

https://www.ses.com/press-release/ses-orders-two-state-art-satellites-its-prime-tv-neighbourhood-ser... 

[PandJ2020]

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@simon194 wrote:

@TimmyBGood 

@seandrews 

Also bearing in mind that Sky's carriage deal with SES expires in 2028, I would hazard a guess that this will be the end of satellite broadcasting through Sky.

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I can hear the people still on Sky+ moaning when their beloved system stops working... 🤣

[cuke]

Don't kid yourself that 'premium' products contain much more than generic components found within other less than premium devices. For example Apple only have assembly lines for brought in components the same as any other manufacturer.

If you take apart a apple device there are Samsung, Broadcom Hynix  parts, to name a few https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+TV+4K+Teardown/97511

https://www.androidauthority.com/where-is-the-iphone-made-3234349/

Up until recently Apple were producing laptops and desktops that were exactly the same internally as any other intel based system you'd find in Curry's the only differences were the screens, if you purchased the retina versions at a exorbitant price, the operating system and double the price.

[TimmyBGood]

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@cuke wrote:

Up until recently Apple were producing laptops and desktops that were exactly the same internally as any other intel based system

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Of course, because they'd been using Intel processors and chipsets since 2006 when the PowerPC family ran out of steam.  Apple started shipping products with its own M1 CPU/GPU silicon in late 2020.

I've got a gorgeous looking 21.5" full-HD mid-2014 iMac sitting on the desk next to me: unfortunately under the hood it's a distinctly underwhelming 1.4Ghz dual-core Intel Core i5 and a 500GB spinning HDD ; (