Is Stream worth it?

[Tarrantino]

I'm out of contract this month. Hanging around to see what Black Friday deals are about. I have Sky Q right now. I do record stuff on Sky Max/Showcase alongside the F1 and sometimes football. Also terrestrial channels with their drams. 

Is Stream about to handle all this. I've seen discussions about the recordings are not recordings as such but cloud viewing. So I'd select the clouds recording of say the live F1 race from earlier in the day? 

How reliable is as Sky Q has been flawless. I know it's slowly being placed. Depends if I can eek out another couple of years on Q v the price. 

[Gincap]

If you're a sports fan then stream is not so reliable. There are many posts here on the limitations for sports viewers. As for other items then it is a streaming service not a recording one plus there are several niche channels missing from stream found on Q. 

There are alternatives Now is 'now' very good and a fraction of the cost. 

if you can visit a store and check it out, plenty on YouTube also. 

Stream/Glass is very marmite. 

[Mister_Dalek]

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@Tarrantino wrote:

I'm out of contract this month. Hanging around to see what Black Friday deals are about. I have Sky Q right now. I do record stuff on Sky Max/Showcase alongside the F1 and sometimes football. Also terrestrial channels with their drams. 

Is Stream about to handle all this. I've seen discussions about the recordings are not recordings as such but cloud viewing. So I'd select the clouds recording of say the live F1 race from earlier in the day? 

How reliable is as Sky Q has been flawless. I know it's slowly being placed. Depends if I can eek out another couple of years on Q v the price. 

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Sky Stream is a bit of a Marmite product. Some love it, some hate it. 

Watching live sport can be problematic after the event. You'll see lots of reports on here of customers saying they've not been able to view an entire match or race, only highlights on demand, so it's not 100% certain you'll get to watch what you want when you want to. 

The only real way to find out if it'll work for you is to try it. Remember that you'll need fast and stable broadband for it to function with any form of stability, and this is your responsibility, not Sky's.

You can cancel within 31 days and revert back to Q if you wish. They won't ask for your Q box back until after the 31 days has elapsed so it can be pretty straightforward to switch back. 

[mikealanr]

Hi @Tarrantino 

Only you can answer that based on your needs! It is a different system. Yes you can cloud record, but some broadcasts don't allow this and send you to the relevant catch up service (e.g. iPlayer and ITVX). It depends on your viewing habits.

The F1 can be problematic and delays have been noted for content not added as cloud recordings becoming available and several hours delay before playback. This has got better over time, but there was a major issue the other weekend.

For me having UHD on each TV and I suffered with lots of disconnections of my Q mini boxes, it is a better system, plus I tend to binge watch content and view very little live TV except sports, I prefer it.

Other things to note is content is delivered by internet and you need 30 Mbps minimum for a stable experience. Also note the channel line up is different than Q.

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/tv-channel-list-sky-glass

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-stream-faqs

Make sure you do your research!

MikeAlanR

[Tarrantino]

Yeah cheers for that. This is part of my research too tbh. I am happy with Q. I'm hoping to switch to UHD as just had a new TV too. If sports is dodgy asa earlier post suggest then this almost makes my mind up straight away. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Tarrantino wrote:

If sports is dodgy asa earlier post suggest then this almost makes my mind up straight away. 

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Q has the huge advantage that as long as the local hardware (dish and box) is functioning properly then a broadcast is going to end up on the hard drive for playback as desired.  When things glitch in the workflow for Glass/Stream, on-demand playback becomes a problem for all users until that's resolved by Sky.

[Mister_Dalek · Accepted solution]

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@Tarrantino wrote:

Yeah cheers for that. This is part of my research too tbh. I am happy with Q. I'm hoping to switch to UHD as just had a new TV too. If sports is dodgy asa earlier post suggest then this almost makes my mind up straight away. 

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If Q has been flawless for you and it does what you need it to then definitely stick with it. I had a single Sky Q box with UHD & HDR which worked perfectly but decided to switch to Stream as we wanted rid of the dish. I gave the Stream puck a year before cancelling Sky completely as it made watching TV a frustrating experience rather than a pleasurable one. 

If you have a stable Sky Q system then there really is no need to switch to Stream. 

[Jporch316]

Just bear in mind that the end of satellite broadcasting is nigh (potentially 2029) and invariably more platforms are moving to streaming platforms over internet 

[Tarrantino]

Yeah I know. I'm not adverse to stream at all. However Q is pretty flawless for me and you'd hope to get the same. Yes you can't record on strea, but you expect to get access to things like the F1 race when you want hours later. 

[HuwRichards]

Don't bother with Sky Stream. I am a previous Sky Q customer and had no faults with it. Sky Stream is problematic and very frustrating.

Iregularly get streaming issues despite having a good Internet connection.

The remote often stops working the tv functions ie volume and tv power on/off.

Regularly when I pause a program there is a high pitch sound playing through speakers, which only stops if you mute it.

The fact of not being able to record tv is also annoying as not always are the programs available on catch up.

Another issue with Stream unlike Q is each program you want to stream you've got to sign-in manually via your tv for each channel. For example iplayer, my5 ect. Whereas with Q you could just search and download that program.

There are also quite a lot less channels on Stream compared to Q, some of them good ones too and a lot less of the +1 channels.

The tv guide is also not as good regarding searching categories. Especially documentary channels, no option to just show documentaries.

And the biggest issue is no tv if your internet is down. Which does happen from time to time.

Personally I don't recommend Sky Stream at all. In my honest opinion Sky Q was far better so I don't see why Sky needed to bring out Stream. I'm guessing the main reason is they can reduce their staffing and save money as Sky Q install usually requires and engineer yet Sky Stream is plug and play.

[TimmyBGood]

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@HuwRichards wrote:

 I don't see why Sky needed to bring out Stream. I'm guessing the main reason is they can reduce their staffing and save money as Sky Q install usually requires and engineer yet Sky Stream is plug and play.

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That's a factor, but the main issue, as widely discussed online, is that the cluster of Astra satellites at 28.2E reaches end-of-life at the turn of the decade, and so far their owner (SES in Luxembourg) has no announced plans to replace them.  Without broadcast satellites, satellite television has a bit of a problem.

[markr34423]

I first got sky stream as part of the black friday sale in 2024, and a lot of things have been frustrating. However sky have improved the box since then, and when you click on playlist, it will tell you if the item / series has been added to playlist or added to playlist and set to record.

Regarding the apps, yes, you will need to sign into them on the sky puck, but that is a one-off hassle. From that point, they are available and pretty well integrated into the search results (tip: use the voice search as it is very good).

The only app I have a real issue with (and this is out of sky's control) is the itvx app. is is slow, unreliable and a complete pain to use.