Some really basic questions about Sky Q watching/recording/skipping....

[J.mie]

Hi 👋🏻  I’ve had a Humax Freesat box for several years, and have tried, and not liked, the newer Freesat boxes. Sky Q would be an alternative when my Humax Freesat finally dies. (I want a recording satellite box, not streaming TV.)

I have some very basic questions, little things I use constantly on Humax, which the newer Freesat boxes won’t do.

• Whilst watching a recorded programme, is it possible on Sky Q to go and look at the TV Guide & view & edit recordings and pre-program things for the future, or look at settings?

• With either a TV channel or radio one on, you start to watch a recording…. If you stop that recording (rather than pause), does the radio or TV come back on ‘behind’ the stopped recording. And when wanting to restart the recording, can you just press play again.

Newer Freesat boxes make you go through the menus to get back to the recording you stopped!

• And also when watching paused live TV & radio,     and also watching all recordings, are there programmable skip buttons ⏮️ ⏭️, i.e. not just the forward and back scanning ⏪ ⏩, which isn’t very exact? 

Humax lets you set if one press forward, or back, separately, is 30 secs, 1 min or 2 mins. i.e 2 minutes for skipping 4minute ad breaks, simply press skip⏭️ twice.

Thanks for any info 🙂

[nigea99]

Hi @J.mie  please see my  replies in bold

@J.mie wrote:

Hi 👋🏻  I’ve had a Humax Freesat box for several years, and have tried, and not liked, the newer Freesat boxes. Sky Q would be an alternative when my Humax Freesat finally dies. (I want a recording satellite box, not streaming TV.)

I have some very basic questions, little things I use constantly on Humax, which the newer Freesat boxes won’t do.

• Whilst watching a recorded programme, is it possible on Sky Q to go and look at the TV Guide & view & edit recordings and pre-program things for the future, or look at settings?

Yes whilst Watching a recording you can bring up the Recordings menus or TV Guide to set / unset other recordings etc - The recording plays in a mini screen Top Left

• With either a TV channel or radio one on, you start to watch a recording…. If you stop that recording (rather than pause), does the radio or TV come back on ‘behind’ the stopped recording. And when wanting to restart the recording, can you just press play again.

Unfortunately if you exit from a recording there is not a single play button (or other) to restart the recording on SKY Q unlike on older SKY +/HD and you have to navigate back to recordings - although in this instance providing you are not too near the end of an episode there is a Continue section which makes selection only a couple of clicks away (The continue section does, however, have a few quirks and needs to be used with caution e.g. near the end of an episode it might trigger the next episode rarther than the unfinished one)

Newer Freesat boxes make you go through the menus to get back to the recording you stopped!

• And also when watching paused live TV & radio,     and also watching all recordings, are there programmable skip buttons ⏮️ ⏭️, i.e. not just the forward and back scanning ⏪ ⏩, which isn’t very exact? 

Humax lets you set if one press forward, or back, separately, is 30 secs, 1 min or 2 mins. i.e 2 minutes for skipping 4minute ad breaks, simply press skip⏭️ twice.

On SKY Q the best method of skipping is Voice control where you say things like "skip 4 minutes" (any mixture of hours,mins,seconds)

Thanks for any info 🙂

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[MightyQuinn]

Hi @J.mie 

Sky Q has a modern user interface that is dumbed down to the lowest intellect. This means every move is shown on screen and requires multiple inputs to guide you to what you want to do.

It does have a large list of voice commands to use as shortcuts. Sky Q Voice Commands

[stereohaven]

@J.mie 

Judging by your requirements, I'm not convinced a Sky Q box/subscription is what you really need, especially when you are grounded in free to air boxes.

I think you should consider looking at a box that gives you much more control, like the ones offered by World of Satellite running an Enigma 2 build like OpenViX.

I cannot link to the above due to community rules, but Google will direct you. At the very least, they are satellite experts and will be able to give good advice.

[TimmyBGood]

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@J.mie wrote:

 Sky Q would be an alternative when my Humax Freesat finally dies. (I want a recording satellite box, not streaming TV.)

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Perhaps worth noting it's generally believed that subscription satellite television has something under five years left before it ceases to be a thing, so your current box may outlive its transmission.

Sky has already ceased to promote Q (which is now getting close to being a decade old) through its own website.

[J.mie]

Thank you all for the replies! 🙂