Sky Box Bundle

[Psybertron]

Can't find anywhere (or any human) on MySky that will provide me with a box for recording (Sky Q or latest equivalent?) in order to watch on catch-up with ad skipping. Full fibre to the house, VIP customer (whatever that means). Sky Stream "Puck" is useless service by comparison. Like others on this forum I've had FURIOUS conversations with Sky people telling me we can't have a box without a satellite when there is patently no technical reason given the bandwidth available. Long term customer with a break in service only when we moved to house (without satellite). Have just about every max content bundle. Paying a fortune for useless customer service and useless catch-up TV service. Help!

[oj01]

@Psybertron The only Sky service with local recording capability is Sky Q, which requires a satellite dish.

[Invisiblename]

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@Psybertron wrote:
Can't find anywhere (or any human) on MySky that will provide me with a box for recording (Sky Q or latest equivalent?) in order to watch on catch-up with ad skipping. Full fibre to the house, VIP customer (whatever that means). Sky Stream "Puck" is useless service by comparison. Like others on this forum I've had FURIOUS conversations with Sky people telling me we can't have a box without a satellite when there is patently no technical reason given the bandwidth available. Long term customer with a break in service only when we moved to house (without satellite). Have just about every max content bundle. Paying a fortune for useless customer service and useless catch-up TV service. Help!

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You're "demanding" a service that Sky just doesn't offer. If you wish to stay with Sky & want recording capabilities, you have to accept Sky Q with a dish. Your alternative is to Leave Sky & maybe try BT Tv (now called EE tv)

[PandJ2020]

The future is streaming.  The days of local hard disk recording are numbered - ironically, because of the increase bandwidth.

It gives the broadcaster(s) full control over their material.

[Mark39]

@Psybertron Sky's 'box without a satellite' is their streaming Puck. i.e. what you've already got

[Invisiblename]

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@Mark39 wrote:

@Psybertron Sky's 'box without a satellite' is their streaming Puck. i.e. what you've already got

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But they also want to be able to record so they can 'ad-skip' which you can't do with their streaming service.

[Laing1]

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@Psybertron wrote:
Can't find anywhere (or any human) on MySky that will provide me with a box for recording (Sky Q or latest equivalent?) in order to watch on catch-up with ad skipping. Full fibre to the house, VIP customer (whatever that means). Sky Stream "Puck" is useless service by comparison. Like others on this forum I've had FURIOUS conversations with Sky people telling me we can't have a box without a satellite when there is patently no technical reason given the bandwidth available. Long term customer with a break in service only when we moved to house (without satellite). Have just about every max content bundle. Paying a fortune for useless customer service and useless catch-up TV service. Help!

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@Psybertron maybe not quite so useless seeing as what they are telling you is the truth that Sky does not do a box that you can record all programmes without having a satellite dish

[TimmyBGood · Accepted solution]

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@Psybertron wrote:
Like others on this forum I've had FURIOUS conversations with Sky people telling me we can't have a box without a satellite when there is patently no technical reason given the bandwidth available. 

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No such device has ever been available in the UK, so it's a little unfair to be 'furious' with support script readers who have zero influence on commercial decisions taken at board level (particularly when the relevant boardroom is at the top of a skyscraper in Philadelphia)

'Q without a dish' was actually designed, built (to a mainland European specification), got launched in Italy and Austria and was due for release here, but became overtaken by the acquisition of Sky Group by the Comcast Corporation in 2018 and just wasn't a product they wanted to pursue: Stream is very much a Comcast software stack in a Sky-branded plastic enclosure.

https://www.skygroup.sky/article/award-winning-sky-q-to-launch-without-a-satellite-dish-bringing-sky... (2017)

[Psybertron]

@TimmyBGood That was my original suspicion, that this was a commercial business decision, about constraints by others in the contenty supply chain, but that there is no technical reason why a Q-box (or equivalent) couldn't work with the internet service without a dish. (I had the technical point also confirmed by a cable installer.)

@PandJ2020 The reason streaming isn't the future, is that without any standardisation on how catch-up is configured, how ad-skipping is configured, and how you plan to watch asynchronously, is that you are attempting to control many different proprietory apps with the buttons on one Sky Remote. The Puck only connects you to the streaming providers once you're there, it's their controls. You'd be better off watching TV streaming through a PC with keyboard & mouse, or a tablet with gestures. 

Having an actual hardware Queuing and Recording box, with one set of controls, gets rid of all of these issues. And software solutions in the cloud could provide the same service. Basically, I'm paying a fortune to watch ads others have already paid for and an inferior TV scheduling service - a rip-off - so I remain furious with Sky  😂😂😂

Guessing there must be better solutions than Sky out there. (There are literally only two Sky channels we choose to watch and only one we'd miss, all the content is from elsewhere.)

[TimmyBGood]

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@Psybertron wrote:

 there is no technical reason why a Q-box (or equivalent) couldn't work with the internet service without a dish. 

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Certainly, but once Comcast was in charge, priorities and strategic direction changed.  Thirty billion pound corporate takeovers tend to be like that.

[Chodley]

I don't see the slightest issue with having multiple apps with a single remote. What do any of them use other than 4-way cursor, play/pause/ff/rwd and select/back/home?

The fact all the apps use a different menu navigation design is the actual issue.

I still don't see the point calling Sky customer services and railing at them for the fact their company doesn't make or offer something you want.

[Sparkymatt100]

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@Invisiblename wrote:

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@Mark39 wrote:

@Psybertron Sky's 'box without a satellite' is their streaming Puck. i.e. what you've already got

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But they also want to be able to record so they can 'ad-skip' which you can't do with their streaming service.

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@Invisiblename 

@Psybertron 

You can 'ad-skip' on Stream by subscribing to the Ad skip add on at £5 a month. This will enable you to skip ads on catchup/playlist programmes. Be aware that this will not work on Paramount+ Basic with ads free subscription via Sky.

[Laing1]

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@Sparkymatt100 wrote:

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@Invisiblename wrote:

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@Mark39 wrote:

@Psybertron Sky's 'box without a satellite' is their streaming Puck. i.e. what you've already got

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But they also want to be able to record so they can 'ad-skip' which you can't do with their streaming service.

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@Invisiblename 

@Psybertron 

You can 'ad-skip' on Stream by subscribing to the Ad skip add on at £5 a month. This will enable you to skip ads on catchup/playlist programmes. Be aware that this will not work on Paramount+ Basic with ads free subscription via Sky.

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@Sparkymatt100 i think @Invisiblename was meaning you can't record 

[Chodley]

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@Laing1 wrote:

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@Sparkymatt100 wrote:

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@Invisiblename wrote:

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@Mark39 wrote:

@Psybertron Sky's 'box without a satellite' is their streaming Puck. i.e. what you've already got

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But they also want to be able to record so they can 'ad-skip' which you can't do with their streaming service.

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@Invisiblename 

@Psybertron 

You can 'ad-skip' on Stream by subscribing to the Ad skip add on at £5 a month. This will enable you to skip ads on catchup/playlist programmes. Be aware that this will not work on Paramount+ Basic with ads free subscription via Sky.

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@Sparkymatt100 i think @Invisiblename was meaning you can't record 

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Well, he said the purpose of that recording was to ad skip, which you can stilll do but have to pay extra.

[Psybertron]

We pay for ad-skipping too.  Jeez folks listen to the actual complaint:

All these functions depend on different streaming apps, which the Sky Stream "Puck" gives you access to, but all the controls are via the few buttons on the remote, and all the functions behave differently on the different apps. Catch-up after the programme is uploaded, catch-up delayed during broadcast, pausing, ad skipping, seeking previous content all different with no common menu, and no reliability if you forget which function works which way on which app and which provider the content was originally provided by or if some streaming glitch happens during one of the processes. The number of times we get half-way through something and find we can never recover the rest. It's a dogs breakfast!

The Q-Box is in a different league, one interface, reliable service - and there is no good technical reason why they don't provide it - so lousy service in my book on top of lousy customer service generally. Service designed to lock-in the providers to their consumers eyeballs - Sky adds no value..