Honest / up-to-date Sky Stream review

[TimmyBGood]

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@Hunter2660 wrote:

And as for chargeable ad skipping, well that is the future of streaming I'm afraid as the broadcasters begin to excert more control over their content. 

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Regain control might be more accurate, as they had this before the VCR/PVR/DVR era.

[BenJoBanjo]

Indeed, Sky Stream is not intended nor marketed as an upgrade or in any way superior to Sky Q, it's just a different means of receiving much of the same content. 

The crucial difference which scuppers a lot of customers' experience is that Sky Q is installed and setup by a Sky engineer. It cannot function without a dish, cabling and box installed by Sky. 

Sky Stream on the other hand is entirely in the hands of the customer. Not only must they connect the Stream puck to their TV, they must also provide and maintain a fast and stable enough broadband network in order for it to function. Sky have no control over this part of the equation, and it's where a lot of customers find fault with the service. 

With Sky Q, if you lose satellite signal you book an engineer and they come and fix your dish/LNB/cabling/box. 

With Sky Stream, if you lose network connection it's up to you to test where the issue may lie. It could be WiFi interference, it could be network congestion, it could be jitter, it could be IP address conflicts, it could be any number of things which again, Sky cannot help with. If you have Sky broadband then they can obviously assist in trying to improve the connection, but if a customer has any other ISP then there's only so much Sky can do. 

Many other streaming devices in customers' homes work perfectly fine, but Sky Stream and the Sky OS it runs on are different and require a constant stable connection to Sky's servers to function. If a customer's broadband can't maintain this connection then issues can and will arise.

If you have patience and want the service to function better then it can require a lot of time spent troubleshooting and trying different things. There's no Sky engineer who will come and sort it out for you. You need to put the time and effort into sorting it out for yourself. If this means switching your ISP to a more stable one, then that may be what you have to do, but there's no cast iron guarantee that it will be any better until you try it.

This is largely why, after four years, there continues to be a mix of customers on these and other forums who claim to have either a pretty flawless experience or one that is riddled with issues. 

[Turribeach]

It's true that's a different product but it's being used to replace an existing product and claimed to be better. It isn't better in my opinion. Clearly some people don't care about the missing features, buggy software and weak hardware. There is a reason we have so many car brands and models, not everyone has the same needs. And even with the same needs there are infinite ways of designing a car. In any case I asked chatGPT why the shift to streaming and the removal of DVR options. The reasons are varied but all benefit the broadcaster not the user. 

You’ve noticed a real shift in how TV platforms are designed. Traditional set-top boxes (Sky+, TiVo, Virgin V6, Dish DVR, etc.) were built around recording live broadcast channels. But over the past decade, the industry has moved heavily toward streaming for several reasons:

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1. On-demand replaces recording

• In the past, recording was the only way to “time-shift” — to watch shows later.

• Now, almost every broadcaster and streaming service has on-demand libraries where episodes and films are available immediately after broadcast (and often in advance).

• This removes the need for users to manually schedule or manage recordings.

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2. Content rights & streaming deals

• Studios and rights holders prefer on-demand streaming because they control licensing windows and can monetize better (ads, subscriptions, pay-per-view).

• Allowing permanent user recordings can cut into re-watch monetization.

• With streaming, providers can insert or update ads dynamically, which isn’t possible with a recording.

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3. Cloud DVR replaces hard disks

• Instead of a big hard drive in each home, many providers now offer cloud DVRs.

• Recordings are stored on servers, saving box cost/complexity and enabling access from multiple devices (TV, phone, tablet).

• In some markets, legal frameworks and bandwidth availability made this possible only recently.

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4. Hardware simplification

• Physical hard drives make boxes bigger, hotter, noisier, and more expensive.

• Removing local storage reduces cost and improves reliability.

• This also makes it easier to offer TV services via lightweight streaming sticks (Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV) instead of bulky DVRs.

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5. Changing viewing habits

• Younger viewers are less interested in live TV and more in binge-watching whole seasons or dipping into short-form content.

• Services like Netflix, Disney+, and YouTube never required recording — they’re entirely on-demand.

• Linear channels are declining in importance compared to apps.

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6. Network capabilities have caught up

• Ten years ago, broadband speeds often couldn’t handle multiple HD streams, so recordings were essential.

• Now, fast fibre and 5G make instant streaming reliable for most households.

• This enables “watch whenever” without recording locally.

[Turribeach]

It's true that this is a different offering but your post really is deluded into thinking that the Sky Stream has no software or hardware issues and that all faults are related to the customer ISP / wired network / wifi. The truth is that faults happen at all levels and with the maount of people complaining this is more likely to be a combination of issues most of which fall into Sky (ie software or hardware). You may claim that "with Sky Stream if you lose network connection it's up to you to test where the issue may lie". I wholeheartedly disagree with that. An internet connect device needs to be designed from the ground up to handle disconnections, specially one that uses wifi. Other devices can do this so it's not rocket. Of course I am not saying that's an ideal situation but that is what it means to build reliable and robust products, they need to be able to handle whatever you throw at them. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Turribeach wrote:

In any case I asked chatGPT why the shift to streaming and the removal of DVR options.

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The AI response misses the particularities of the situation in UK & RoI.

a) BSkyB was the pioneering satellite television broadcaster but Sky Group is now owned by the Comcast Corporation which is historically a cable television company.

b) The trio of Astra satellites at 28.2E (not owned by Sky) which are currently providing signal to what's always been a relatively small market reach end-of-life around the turn of this decade when their positioning propellant is exhausted.

c) it appears the combination of a) and b) plus the coincidental national rollouts of high-speed internet access means Comcast is using the two islands as a testbed for their likely future pathway: that's an entirely legitimate business tactic.

[BenJoBanjo]

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@Turribeach wrote:

It's true that this is a different offering but your post really is deluded into thinking that the Sky Stream has no software or hardware issues and that all faults are related to the customer ISP / wired network / wifi. The truth is that faults happen at all levels and with the maount of people complaining this is more likely to be a combination of issues most of which fall into Sky (ie software or hardware). You may claim that "with Sky Stream if you lose network connection it's up to you to test where the issue may lie". I wholeheartedly disagree with that. An internet connect device needs to be designed from the ground up to handle disconnections, specially one that uses wifi. Other devices can do this so it's not rocket. Of course I am not saying that's an ideal situation but that is what it means to build reliable and robust products, they need to be able to handle whatever you throw at them. 

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I'm not deluded. I agree with most of what you say. It's why I'm no longer a Sky Stream customer. I found the Sky Stream hardware, software and entire streaming platform to be problematic and gave up on it. I now get my TV service on much better hardware which I am much happier to pay for. 
I get my Sky programming via the NOW app and it works flawlessly. 
If Sky had "reliable and robust" hardware then I'd still be a Sky Stream customer, but I'm not. I just hang around here to try and help those who are happy to continue trying to improve their service.

There are clearly many customers out there who are happy with the hardware and the service so they need to be supported. If you're not a satisfied customer then just leave, that's what I did.