Multiscreen
You will need take the "Whole House" add-on, and then a Puck for every TV. They support Wi-Fi and Ethernet.
The advantage of Pucks over the old Sky Q Miniboxes is that all TVs have the same full experience, compared to the older slightly laggy and HD-only minboxes that Sky Q uses.
Price
Be sure that you're taking into account any offers shown on the website which you may not be eligible for as an exisitng customer.
Channels
Sky Stream has a lot of channels, and you can see the whole list here.
Sky also maintain a list of channels that are on Sky Q but are not currently on Sky Stream, you can find that here.
I am not familiar with Freeview's channels, but I suspect there's an awful lot of overlap and certainly all of the core mainstream channels are there.
There is a Freeview antenna port at the back of each Puck. This is only used to keep live TV going if your internet drops as a backup.
Remote Control
The remote control is slightly different from Sky Q, but should feel quite familiar after a day or two. The dedicated fast forward and rewind buttons have been replaced by general left and right buttons, and the interactive buttons (Red, Green, Yellow, Blue) have been replaced by a single button.
The remote now lights up as you pick it up, which allows for easier night-time viewing. However, this does come at the price of battery life and you will find yourself replacing or recharging batteries more frequently than Sky Q's remote.
The biggest change to the remote is the removal of the (R) record button and the addition of the (+) playlist button. (see: "Watching and Recording Content" below).
Watching Live Content
Live TV operates as you will be used to from Sky. You choose a channel, and then it will start playing.
Because it's streaming from the internet there may be a black screen for a second or two whilst it connects, but I've found this to be pretty much the same as the time it takes to switch on Satellite.
One enhancement is that every channel allows you to watch mid-way through but start the episode from the beginning. Some Sky Q channels have that feature, but it is enabled (I believe) universally on Stream.
Recording is now Streaming
You no longer record to a hard-drive like you can on Sky+ or Sky Q. Instead you stream episodes from the internet on-demand.
Content will be streamed from the app that hosts that show. For example:-
- Sky's channels and box-sets play on the normal Sky interface
- Sky cloud recordings (see below) will also play on the normal Sky interface
- Disney, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+ etc. will open in their respective ads, and you'll need subscriptions for these
- Shows from broadcasters with their own apps, like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 will play on their apps
A slight niggle is that each app has a different play bar, so fast-forwarding feels different on each app and you need to get used to each of the nuances. Hopefully Sky can convince app developers to use a standardised play bar in their apps in future.
What if the channel doesn't have an on-demand service?
Sky will record it on your behalf in the cloud as a "cloud recording", and you will see it on your playlist once it's ready. You have 1,000 hours of cloud recording space to use, and can remove things when you're done to clean it up.
What if I don't have the streaming service?
This can be a problem, and you won't be able to watch the content without the service it's on. One example of this is The Simpsons. Sky doesn't seem to have on-demand rights for that show, and so if you want to watch it not-live, you will have to have a Disney+ subscription.
ITVX and Channel 4 have ads, will my playlist shows have ads?
Yes, unless you pay for the "Ad Skipping" add-on (at time of writing £5 per month). This will allow you to fast-forward through ads on these apps too. It will also enable ad-skipping on box-sets (which would otherwise have un-skippable ads, unlike on Sky Q).
There's been some critisism about this add-on, and of course I'd rather it be included in the actual plan but for me this is actually pretty good value because separate subscription to Channel 4+ and ITVX Premium would cost £10 a month (although they do provide more premium shows, rather than just ad-skipping), so all things considered I think it's okay.
Will they stay forever?
No, content is only available to watch for as long as a service has it. Because it's on-demand rather than recorded-from-live it's at the whim of the content holders. In the case of sports, I believe there's quite strict rules about how long it can stay online for before it removes. For most content this won't be a problem, because they tend to stay on apps for the long-haul now (all the services seem to be in a battle to have the biggest library!) but it is a consideration for content like sports and movies which might have rights limitations on them.
Will anything not "record"?
I think there's been some problems where movies are sometimes split into two parts, with news inbetween. Browsing this forum you might come across other stories like this.
I stream mostly from on-demand services rather than thinking about "recording" live shows, so I've not come across problems like this.
How do I add to a playlist?
Find a show anywhere on the Sky menus and press +, it'll add that show or movie to your playlist and all episodes that are available to stream will be ready straight away. When new episodes go live, I believe it bumps to the top of your playlist again (I'm not actually 100% sure about this point).
It's important to note that once you're on a separate app, like iPlayer or Netflix the "+" button doesn't do anything. So if you want to add a show to your playlist, find it on Sky's menu and press "+", rather than searching for it on the individual services. Hopefully in future the "+" button will work on other apps too.
User Interface / EPG
This will feel quite familiar. It's like Sky Q with a facelift. The main change is that the menu that appears on the left side of Sky Q now appear as buttons on the top of the home screen.
It will take a day or two of getting used to Sky Stream's new UI, in much the same way it took time to get used to Sky Q coming from Sky+.
Now that I'm used to it, I think it's a big improvement over Sky Q's. In particular being able to voice search for a show and see all episodes across all services is a big improvement over Sky Q's interface which only showed episodes available from Sky.
Physical Hardware
It's tiny. Because Sky Stream doesn't have a hard-drive it's far smaller than the Sky Q box and minibox. Think of it like a hockey puck.
Internet Quality
This is the big one to consider.
Sky Stream is 100% powered by internet, so you need a good connection and Wi-Fi connection. I'm on fibre to the premises (I think some providers call this "full fibre") and it works flawlessly but like any internet service, if your network is choppy the service will be.
Consider: are you a streamer or a recorder?
If you primarily use Sky as a recording device. Probably stick with Sky Q for a bit longer because there are just enough gotchas in streaming that might trip you up.
If you currently use Sky Q as a streaming device (downloading episodes and using apps), with the addition of Live TV and recording big shows from the main services I think you will probably find Sky Stream to actually be an upgrade because the streaming interface is much improved.
Closing Thoughts
Browsing the web, you might get an impression that Sky Stream is universally disliked and it's a bad product. I know several people who use it, all with great results. A few of us used Q previously and have grown to prefer Stream over Q. Keep in mind that when you see feedback about things online, it's normally coming from people who have experienced problems... the people who it's working fine for are just enjoying the product!
This is not to say there are no problems, because there does seem to be some hardware faults and internet connectivity problems.
Finally, I would recommend watching Sky's videos touring through the UI to see if what they show feels like it would be a good fit for you or not.
Hope that helps. Feel free to @ me if you have any specific questions.
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An ex-Sky Stream customer
