Need a fifth additional box - is Sky Stream good enough?

[Lunno]

We have a large house with a Sky Q box and four additional boxes in various rooms. We have just added an annexe (as extension of main house) and would like an additional box - rather than removing existing boxes from other rooms. Sky seems to have an arbitrary limit of four additional boxes. I have been told we cannot connect another main Sky Q box to our existing satellite dish. Can this really be correct? The suggested solution is a more expensive Sky Stream package (plus additional equipment). I'm concerned the picture quality would not be as good - plus the impact on our WIFI (although luckily we do have Sky Fibre). Would appreciate views and/or any other ideas. Thanks 

[PandJ2020]

---

@Lunno wrote:

Sky seems to have an arbitrary limit of four additional boxes.

---

It's a hardware restriction (Remember Q was released around 2016) and there are no plans to increase it.

Indeed, although you can have 4 additional boxes you can only run 2 concurrently for live/recorded TV.

I believe if you switch to Stream then you cannot have a Q contract.  Stream is obviously quite a different product (no recording).

[Lunno]

Thanks for this. I hadn't appreciated you can't record on Sky Stream so that's great to know. I appreciate this is a #firstworldproblem, but the subscription is so eye wateringly expensive these days, the lack of flexibility is a bit frustrating 

[TimmyBGood]

@Lunno 

With up to six independent boxes in simultaneous use for UHD (bandwidth permitting), Stream is considerably more flexible than Q.  Given these are all covered by one Whole Home subscription add-on it's also potentially much cheaper per box, and the platform has its own version of 'recording' through hybrid in-app playback and server access (which does have some definite foibles)

Whether the lack of local hard drives is an issue is really defined by household viewing habits: Sports viewing can definitely be a weakness.

As @PandJ2020 indicates, Q is now a decade on from its design phase, and realistically represents the final iteration of satellite television broadcast reception which, in the UK at least, will probably cease before the end of this decade.

[Lunno]

Thanks @TimmyBGood 

Definitely given me some things to think about, thank you.

I'm going to see if an AV specialist can split / duplicate the same output from one additional box two screens simultaneously I think. We don't want to lose the Sky Q functionality for recording etc.

[PandJ2020 · Accepted solution]

---

@Lunno wrote:

I'm going to see if an AV specialist can split / duplicate the same output from one additional box two screens simultaneously I think. 

---

Yes this is possible as long as the distribution unit can handle the HDCP and bandwidth required.