Sky Q to Sky Stream should I do it?

[Max40]

Currently  content with Sky Q  ultimate + Netflix £38pm ( £9 multi room included)  sky not willing to reduce price even being a 22yr  VIP customer, Thinking of moving to stream TV and perhaps moving away from Sky  but concerned at 78yrs I might find it difficult to get to grips with.  Broadband is with Plusnet 145mbs

Would appreciate any advice...

[AndrewF_UK]

The two biggest differences from Q are that it's internet based and that it's on demand not recording based. 

As long as your internet is fast, you should get a better picture than on Q and you'll notice it's not affected by the weather anymore. I recommend standing where your TV is and on your phone going to fast.com and measuring what speed you'll receive there. The minimum requirement is 25Mbps but imo you really want at least 60Mbps to account for fluctuations and interference. 

The biggest change will be that you can't record. This is replaced by playlist which is like a planner but it's made up of effectively bookmarks to shows from all of the different services. There's pros and cons of this. 

Pros

• You don't need to remember to record
• You can view every episode available there, so if you start a series midway through you can access all of the earlier episodes from the playlist too
• You don't need to hunt around various apps and services to find the content or remember which show is on which service. 

Cons

• On demand content might be on a service you don't own. Sometimes TV channels only have the live tv rights but not on demand. With recording that doesn't really matter, but with on demand it means they wouldn't be able to post it on their service. Take The Simpsons for example, Channel 4 broadcast it but Disney+ has the on demand rights. If you don't have D+ you can't watch on demand. This also affects some films.
• There's no guarantee that episode wil be around forever. Once the service's rights for that content expire it'll no longer be accessible. This isn't a problem for most TV but you'll notice some sporting events etc. having quite short availability windows. 
  
  

It's worth noting that you can sometimes cloud record on Sky Stream. This is where if a show is on a channel without their own app it'll record it on Sky's servers ready for you as long as you added it to your playlist. SkyOS says on screen if this is the case. This is good for, for example, F1 because it means the recording is available often long before the official on demand version is published. 

The menu is also different. It's more of an editorial view and puts live TV and on demand on level pegging. It goes straight to this menu rather than the last channel you watched.

If you had the ad skipping add on you can fast forward through ads on Sky content, and a bunch of the apps like ITVX and Channel 4 without having to subscribe to their respective services.

What I like about it over Sky Q is the better picture quality, more modern interface, ability to find shows everywhere so much easier, quickly streaming on demand content vs downloading it on Sky Q and that I can have them in any room just from WiFi. 

I don't miss recordings at all, but this is probably the thing most people will need to adjust to not having. 

[BenJoBanjo]

@Max40 

My parents (also late 70s in age) tried the switch from Sky Q to Sky Stream and hated it with a passion. It was far too unpredictable for them, glitchy and unreliable. It made watching TV frustrating rather than enjoyable. They got rid of it after a month. 
If your Sky Q works well and does what you need it to then I'd recommend sticking with it, based on their experience.

[nmbailey]

I think you should stick with Q and £38/m isn't a horrendous price - Stream with Multiroom and Ad Skipping is about that. 
If your issue is solely cost have a look at NOW rather than Stream

[Mark39]

@Max40 perhaps give it a go and see how you find it? You have a 31 day cooling-off period, so if you can't get on with it, you can switch back to Sky Q.