I have had a Sky Stream puck for 5 days now and I have some initial thoughts on it as a product and from the perspective of someone who has done UAT as part of previous roles in the tech industry. I can confidently say having also used an AppleTV 4K, a FireTV and AndroidTV the Stream Puck does beat the latter two but mostly comes up short against the AppleTV 4K, although beating it in one area: Stream support HLG which AppleTV does not. None of the below are absolute deal breakers however if I do keep the stream puck it will likely only be for liveTV and Sky content and keep AppleTV 4K for everything else.
Apologies If these have been brought up already, hopefully if I'm not a lone voice, maybe sky will address those which will deliver a decent return on the CAPEX.
- Software:
Entertainment OS is slow and often ends up hanging. I am not sure if the hardware is underpowered for the OS or if the bulk of the front end is actually streamed to the box much like a Thin Client or Remote Desktop. If it's the latter I'm worried for anyone with a connection less than 1Gbps. If it's the former then seems like the testing phase of the project was lacking. - Apps:
Most seem very slow to load, it's incredibly pronounced on the likes of PrimeVideo and AppleTV+ but none are exactly fast to load. This said, it is nice that when you pop out of watching something on an app it creates a now playing tile which does switch back pretty smoothly. - Voice Search:
I am hoping this improves the more I use it however, it doesn't to the best when it comes to searching in app libraries especially compared to using the text input search function. - Picture Quality:
This is a massive let down, I am paying for the UHD and Dolby add-on but, comparing the same content on various apps between the Stream puck and AppleTV 4K, there is no comparison. HD content on the AppleTV 4K is skillfully upscaled retaining crisp and vibrant pictures however on the Stream puck is what can best be called fuzzy. 4K content on the stream puck looks overly processed and a bit "soft" when you compare this with 4K content on the AppleTV box, it is miles ahead in terms of quality. - Power settings:
I am all for saving money by reducing power consumption of consumer devices. However, I question why there is no way to fine tune the settings, or, at the very least make it content aware. I've noticed if you don't move the remote whilst watching a film, about half way through you get a warning the box is going to sleep. I've dug around in the settings and there seems to be no way to tweak the amount of time before the box goes into sleep mode. I am aware devices like TVs and STBs now have to have pretty good power saving options but common sense would say allow the user some control.
Possible solutions:
- Software:
This is likely the easiest to fix, look at trimming the code down, is it bloated? Can you do the same with less? If the front end is indeed being streamed, can the boxes handle a little more code being executed locally? Or do you need to increase your backhaul to your CDN to ensure a better end user experience. - Apps:
See 1 - Voice Search
This is something which can be fixed with further development, maybe look at leveraging something like Anthropic's LLM to improve search. And, of course, you can work with app providers on improving global search. - Picture Quality:
This may be harder to fix, I suspect it's GPU related so may require new hardware. Of course if this is something which can be fixed with new code then do it! - Power Settings
Another software update would allow you to fix this.
Finally, one option which could fix all of the above in a stroke is leveraging AppleTV hardware. It is a core function within tvOS so not specific to Sky/Comcast but would allow the AppleTV 4K to essentially become the next stream puck, thereby saving on hardware and software development costs. This is something Sky's parent company Comcast do in the US and EE TV does here in the UK. Sky could ship the AppleTV boxes to customers so all they have to do is create an Apple ID if they don't have one already and bang, all the channels, TV guide, on demand etc are already there. Or users could chose to use their own AppleTV box and sign in using their email and password. Obviously there is never going to be a one size fits all option, which I suspect is why there's Sky Glass and Sky Stream. Personally, if I was the product owner, I would ditch the expense of developing expensive hardware and just offer the Stream as a service through a tie in with AppleTV, Having not used Sky Glass I can't really comment but the reviews I have seen so far have not been overly gushing when it comes to picture quality on the Glass although they have improved since the initial release.
The Sky Glass reviews to go to show how much work needs to go into this sort of thing and why, using a piece of hardware that already has good reviews and has the functionality you need seems like a way to improve CSAT whilst reducing development costs and drive more users to your service.
Anyway, none of this is meant to sound like, URGH it's all bloody rubbish, I do quicte like the service albeit, it does still feel like a work in progress. But kudos to Sky for looking to the future and being cognisant that DSAT isn't going to be around forever as more and more folks move over to IPTV solutions as it's easier and doesn't require a dish.
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