Considering Sky Stream again

[Steve93]

Had Sky Stream last year but went back to Q, then bought Apple TV 4K, we us ATV more than Q now, ATV is very quick, has Stream improved? When we had it it took at age to load a program when our Sky broadband speed is 53mbps. would have thought it would load instantly

I see now the Playlist has been replace by Entertainment OS, is that better?

thanks

[Tim+Adams]

Hi @Steve93 

Stream / Glass depends on broadband speed and WiFi vs ethernet with ethernet performing much better.

I wouldn't say there was such significant difference in the past 6 months. 

Entertainment OS hasn't replaced Playlist.

Entertainment OS is just a fancy label for updates.

Thanks,

Tim

[F1Jon97]

I suppose it depends what you watch.  I dont think Glass or Stream are reliable enough yet for watching live sport or sport on demand, however it is improving as the F1 seems to be getting better.

I went back to Q and was hoping to use Sky Go on Apple TV but currently it doesnt connect to the Q box and doesnt stream in 1080p HD quality.  That's not unusual as most of the free to air TV apps stream 720p as a maximum and have tedious unskippable ads unless you pay for ad skipping.  

For me Q and Apple TV working together is the best solution.  I use Q as a recording box for free to air and Sky content (ah the joy of fast forwarding ads) and use apps such as Netflix, Amazon, F1TV etc on the Apple TV as its a better experience and more open as a platform than Sky is.  I hope for the day Sky Go goes 1080p streaming and connects to the Q box, that way I can have everything mostly on 1 box without switching between the two.

So in summary my advice to you would be to stick with Sky Q.  Who wants to pay £5 a month for ad skipping which hardly works anyway. Sometimes the older tech is the best tech.  🙂

* As a side note: Really what Sky should do is invest in new infrastructure which can have video content instantly available on demand (like Amazon's AWS platform which F1TV uses) and move away from hardware.  Make a Sky Stream app available for multi platforms including Apple TV and then it will be able to compete with the big streamers.

[SlenderRobert]

---

@Steve93 wrote:

Had Sky Stream last year but went back to Q, then bought Apple TV 4K, we us ATV more than Q now, ATV is very quick, has Stream improved? When we had it it took at age to load a program when our Sky broadband speed is 53mbps. would have thought it would load instantly

I see now the Playlist has been replace by Entertainment OS, is that better?

thanks

---

If you're used to the speed of an ATV box then you'll still find Stream to be very slow in comparison. 
I have a 500Mbps symmetrical fibre connection but it makes no difference to the speed of the UI on Stream. It's sluggish at opening apps & can take over 20 seconds to buffer to full resolution on some of them. We use ATV 90% of the time because of this, 

[PSC133]

@Steve93 

There are still glitches with Sky Stream which are well documented on this forum.  But things are slowly improving.  I have 6 pucks and have them connected to smart sockets which are scheduled to turn off at 3 a.m. and back on at 3:30 every day.  
This daily reboot helps to minimise the problems.

Your internet speed will be fine, particularly if your pucks are connected by Ethernet.  For instance, I have 2 balanced internet connections each of 40 Mbps and this works fine for me (admittedly it would be unusual for more than 2 pucks at a time to be showing 4K hdr material.)

Inevitably this all boils down to personal preference.  For me, I strive for the best possible picture and sound, and Sky Stream provides that.  I do watch several Sky programmes in 4K hdr.  

I experimented with an ATV and was quite disappointed by it.  No iPlayer UHD (yet) and the Plex app didn't work properly.  For those reasons I returned it.  Most of my tvs have Nvidia Shields attached which I find superior to the ATV box.

I look forward to the day that Sky improve the hardware of the puck.  Wouldn't it be great if it had a built in hard drive for recordings!   But, as I said,  this all boils down to personal preferences and how many Stream glitches you can tolerate.

[Steve93]

Thanks for all the replies.

Going to stick with what I've got, Q my contract ends at the end of June, this year, I check my options then & ATV, don't think Q will ever connect to ATV,

ATV has its issues, not every program goes onto the UP NOW list, I know Netflix doesn't, also Discovery Plus, especially Helicopter ER doesn't you have to go into the app to watch it, it didn't used to, also Lewis used to take you straight to itvx, now it says Open With & directs me to Amazon Prime & says it's £1.99 pers episode, weird, you have to scroll down to get it free on itvx

[Andygroove]

@F1Jon97 how are you accessing F1TV on ATV? Are you in the UK? I didn't think we could get it

F1 is probably the only reaon I'm sticking with SKY Stream atm.

[Fothergill1]

---

@Andygroove wrote:

@F1Jon97 how are you accessing F1TV on ATV? Are you in the UK? I didn't think we could get it

---

@Andygroove I would be very interested as to how @F1Jon97 gets FITV on ATV.  I have been trying to find a way for ages.

[F1Jon97]

@Andygroove I have an F1TV Access Subscription which is £20 per year or £2.25 per month.  It doesn't give me live races but rather access to the race archive (I like to watch old races after the season finishes).  You do get their wrap around shows and Tech Talk is good, but they put most of it on Youtube anyway.

They have some really nice quality archived races with full seasons from 2004 onwards.  Much better than the old VHS copies floating around on the web and no ad breaks.  It's a shame that F1TV wasn't made available for Sky subscribers and as long as Sky have the rights it never will be (especially that they now have the go onboard with every driver feature which F1TV Pro has).

Going off topic: Its been interesting to see that F1TV seems to be collaborating more with Channel 4, and have taken their commentator Alex Jacques, but are also providing that commentry back to Channel 4 for the highlights show.  Also on F1TV when watching highlights of any session you get Alex Jacques/F1TV commentry as default and also on Youtube.  Now combining this with rumours that Comcast are looking to sell Sky Italia and Sky Deuchland due to lack of growth, thus reducing their purchasing power when the rights renewal comes up, its quite possible that we could see a deal with Channel 4 only + F1TV Pro for the UK after 2029.

In the meantime Sky Sports F1 are doing a pretty good job as far as I'm concerned and my Q box makes sure I get to see everything, so I'm happy.

[Fothergill1]

@F1Jon97 Thanks for the info.  There is an interesting 2 hour programme coming to the documentary Channel and Sky F1 channel on 19th March (7pm & 8pm respectively) which should interest you.  It's called "Villeneuve Pirone - Racing's untold tragedy"  and is about their rivalry in the early 1980s.

[F1Jon97]

@Fothergill1 Thanks I've set it to record 🙂

[Carnoch04]

---

@F1Jon97 wrote:

I suppose it depends what you watch.  I dont think Glass or Stream are reliable enough yet for watching live sport or sport on demand,

---

Really? I know Stream is not great at time shifting sport but I have never had a problem with the live stuff. 

[CardiffMan1992]

@Carnoch04 

Same found Live Sports perfect since i switched to Ethernet.

[F1Jon97]

I had an issue with the Japanese GP last year when watching live.  It kept stuttering, cutting out and reloading the channel.  When I went into the playlist and watched the "recording" version a couple of mins behind live it worked perfectly.

That was on a Sky Stream Puck which was connected via ethernet.