Upgrade to Sky Q at no cost

[SkyQ38]

Any help with the following would be appreciated, thank you.

We have received a letter to upgrade to Sky Q, saving £99, as our current set up will no longer be receiving software updates.

Currently we have two separate boxes in our house - a Sky+ HD 2TB box and a Sky+ HD box - and we pay for multiroom.  We can record on them separately and watch them separately.  My understanding is that we will have a new box and a mini box meaning we can still watch in different rooms and record on both but it only stores to the main box. We won't need any more than a main box and a mini, although may need an additional mini in the future.

I am assuming:

* We will need to pay for multiscreen for one box and one mini.

* By taking advanatge of this 'free' upgrade, we would have to take out a new 18 month subscription.  (We have just come to the end of of our conract.)

I am unsure about:

* What size box Sky are offering in this upgrade as I can't get through on the phone and can't find it written anywhere, and what box we ideally need.

* How many mini boxes will run off what Sky are offering 'free'? 

Any guidance would be helpful.  Thank you.

[nigea99]

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@SkyQ38 wrote:

Any help with the following would be appreciated, thank you.

We have received a letter to upgrade to Sky Q, saving £99, as our current set up will no longer be receiving software updates.

Currently we have two separate boxes in our house - a Sky+ HD 2TB box and a Sky+ HD box - and we pay for multiroom.  We can record on them separately and watch them separately.  My understanding is that we will have a new box and a mini box meaning we can still watch in different rooms and record on both but it only stores to the main box. We won't need any more than a main box and a mini, although may need an additional mini in the future.

I am assuming:

* We will need to pay for multiscreen for one box and one mini.

* By taking advanatge of this 'free' upgrade, we would have to take out a new 18 month subscription.  (We have just come to the end of of our conract.)

I am unsure about:

* What size box Sky are offering in this upgrade as I can't get through on the phone and can't find it written anywhere, and what box we ideally need.

* How many mini boxes will run off what Sky are offering 'free'? 

Any guidance would be helpful.  Thank you.

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hi @SkyQ38 

I don't think anyone can say for certain what SKy are offering for this upgrade & I think it can depend on each customer and what can be negotiated.

You are right that the SKY Q multiscreen add on susbcription is needed for the mini box - but a single subscription covers more - although you can only use 2 minis at the same time (only 1 with an older 1TB non UHD Box) - see my notes I link below about recordings & mini boxes

Please may I suggest you read some notes I have made for people considering switching from SKY +/HD to SKY Q which cover some of these points & more

SKY +/HD to SKY Q 

These should, also, help if you wish to 'negotiate' and worth making sure you some points (e.g. which box)  are discussed so you are clear what is being offered

Any further question please ask but as mentioned some (e.g. the actual offer)  may only be able to answered by calling SKY

[TimmyBGood]

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@SkyQ38 wrote:

as our current set up will no longer be receiving software updates.

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Note that Sky+ HD boxes don't actually need any such updates in order to continue to function (the word Sky uses is 'enhancements' which is something of a red herring as those aren't possible on the legacy platform anyway)

[TimmyBGood]

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@SkyQ38 wrote:

* What size box Sky are offering in this upgrade as I can't get through on the phone and can't find it written anywhere, and what box we ideally need.

The default main Q box is a 1TB UHD/HDR unit: this storage is also used by any Mini boxes.

* How many mini boxes will run off what Sky are offering 'free'? 

Typically the 'free' offer would be a main Q box and one Mini box: note that this automatically triggers the Multiscreen subscription supplement monthly cost.

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[nigea99]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@SkyQ38 wrote:

* What size box Sky are offering in this upgrade as I can't get through on the phone and can't find it written anywhere, and what box we ideally need.

The default main Q box is a 1TB UHD/HDR unit: this storage is also used by any Mini boxes.

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Although, as per my notes, this is not always the case so @SkyQ38 do get them to state clearly which box they are offering as we do know sometimes they have used the non UHD boxes or sometimes the 2TB non HDR boxes and insisted afterwards that people pay to upgrade 

If it is clearly stated & agreed then you have something to go back to them if they don't send the correct box

[TimmyBGood]

@nigea99 @SkyQ38 

My guess is that's likely to happen where the subscriber doesn't choose to add the UHD supplement at the time of migrating.

[Thinwhiteduke]

I spoke with Sky at length today to try and get some answers as I have a similar set up to you.

The 'free upgrade' email actually says 'Store up to 370 hours of recordings in HD' which I said implies the 2tb box but I was told the offer was for the 1tb (and not the UHD one unless you are asking for more than the one free mini box). The lady I spoke to did not seem to care that the advert was misleading

to get the same 'coverage' as I have now on 4 tv's (two 2tb sky hd boxes with rf out and magic eyes) I would need to pay 150 for three mini boxes. To get the 2tb I would need to pay an additional £99. The person I spoke to could not answer my question as to what LNB would be provided (I have an 8 port to support freesat tv's) as I'd like the two wide band ports plus 4 legacy if possible. She put me through to the tech team who had no idea what I was asking about, just kept asking me about what isp I am using and assuring me that HDMI cables would connect the sky q to the tv's

so it's hardly a free upgrade for me. It's going to cost me 250 plus probably sourcing my own LNB for legacy

does anybody know if hybrid lnb's are installed with sky q and if so how many legacy ports they have

[nigea99]

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@Thinwhiteduke wrote:

I spoke with Sky at length today to try and get some answers as I have a similar set up to you.

The 'free upgrade' email actually says 'Store up to 370 hours of recordings in HD' which I said implies the 2tb box but I was told the offer was for the 1tb (and not the UHD one unless you are asking for more than the one free mini box). The lady I spoke to did not seem to care that the advert was misleading

to get the same 'coverage' as I have now on 4 tv's (two 2tb sky hd boxes with rf out and magic eyes) I would need to pay 150 for three mini boxes. To get the 2tb I would need to pay an additional £99. The person I spoke to could not answer my question as to what LNB would be provided (I have an 8 port to support freesat tv's) as I'd like the two wide band ports plus 4 legacy if possible. She put me through to the tech team who had no idea what I was asking about, just kept asking me about what isp I am using and assuring me that HDMI cables would connect the sky q to the tv's

so it's hardly a free upgrade for me. It's going to cost me 250 plus probably sourcing my own LNB for legacy

does anybody know if hybrid lnb's are installed with sky q and if so how many legacy ports they have

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hI @Thinwhiteduke 

I believe that the Hybrid LNBs can have 2 wideband +2 legacy or 2 +4 ports but I am not sure whether they still use both.  

I must advise, however, that I think for some time SKY appear to have been fairly reluctant to install Hybrid LNBs & may take some convincing (if you can find those who actually know what they are) 

[oj01]

The important point to note is that assuming your Sky+HD boxes are working fine, then there is no need to change anything. 

[Thinwhiteduke]

Thank you. I asked the guy on tech support who I needed to ask for to get answers to my questions but he couldn't tell me, I just don't think he knew. So I am very reluctant to start any sky q upgrade if I'm just going to end up worse off. Surely it shouldn't be this difficult to get some basic answers from Sky. Even if I could get a categoric 'no' I could buy a fit for purpose LNb and ask the engineer to fit it.

[Thinwhiteduke]

Thanks yes, I understand that. Eventually though I guess my boxes may fail and beyond ebay I may not be able to get a replacement. After 20 plus years I'm sure sky have made enough profit from me to resolve this. But I guess unless I leave, why would they?

[TimmyBGood]

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@Thinwhiteduke wrote:

After 20 plus years I'm sure sky have made enough profit from me to resolve this. 

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Well, they probably aren't going to restart HD box production lines which ceased manufacturing in 2015: I don't think you'll have paid them quite enough for that ; )

The 1TB UHD/HDR box has been the default for Q since late 2019 : of course 'up to' is one of those slippery phrases which presumably encompasses the lowest bitrate and most compressed HD, so real life use may well be different.

The 'free upgrade' isn't going to include anything Sky don't consider standard: as I think I mentioned above that's the 1TB main Q box and one Mini box with no installation fee.  Magic Eye use, while common enough back in the heyday of pre-Q boxes wasn't actually a Sky solution and isn't something they are going to replace with an equivalent for free, and 2TB of storage space just doesn't get offered to new customers: Sky argues that on-demand consumption has reduced the need (and there's no local storage in the new online-only products at all)