Sky Stream keeps turning on

[ms_c_rob]

My sky has randomly started switching itself on last night it did it in the middle of the night and again 3 times today - has anyone else experienced this and can help what to do - there is nothing I can find on the help pages!

[mikealanr]

Hi @ms_c_rob 

Are you using the TV for anything else? The puck supports CEC control so the TV could send a wake signal to the puck, as well as the puck sending a signal to the TV. You could turn CEC control off in the settings on the puck and/or the TV and see if it still coming on. However I would recommend turning your puck off at the mains for a few minutes to clear any temporary faults.

I have four pucks connected to different makes of TVs and don't have this happening, so don't think it's a wide spread issue (e.g. firmware etc). 

MikeAlanR

[ms_c_rob]

Thank you  - I only have one tv with sky attached to it - I'm not sure what CEC is but I will have a look! 

[MCF888]

I had exactly the same thing happen yesterday to one of our two Stream pucks. It had been behaving perfectly before that.

I turned it off at the mains overnight and, so far, it hasn't done it again today.

[KevNewMedia]

Hi @ms_c_rob @MCF888 

Thank you for telling us about this issue.

Can I ask a few questions, please?

• Is the picture coming on?
• Is the sound coming on?
• Is this live TV/On demand content, or from an app?
• The programme that comes on, is it the last one that you were watching?
• What time of day/night is this happening?

[MCF888]

Hi Kev,

In my case, it happened three times in one day, during the daytime.

Picture and sound came on, and it was from live tv. I can't remember whether or not the programme that came on was the last one I was watching as I was slightly freaked out that it had come on again.

It only affected one puck and the other one continued to work perfectly.

Wierdly, the puck was also turning on my tv (a Loewe i55), which it won't do when I want it to and hasn't done so since.

As I said in my last post, I just turned the puck off at the mains and left it over night and, touch wood, it's behaved perfectly well since.

As you're a sky person, can I ask you a quick question, please. We've only just switched over from Sky+ HD after many, many years of happy use of that hardware. One thing I've noticed is that on the Stream platform Paramount + streaming quality is absolutely terrible compared with the quality of picture we used to get through Sky+ HD, particularly when we were watching recordings. A good example is the series A Gentleman in Moscow, where the motion is really jerky and the picture very grainy.

Every other app/product works very well, and we have a very fast broadband connection. Any ideas on how to improve Paramount+?

Thanks.

[Nigelb1972]

@MCF888 if you get a jerky picture which using an app, exit the app by Pressing back until you are fully out. This should force the app to close and then reopen it, and it should be fine. 

I've had this on a couple of apps and it would appear to be a glitch within the app management part of the puck 

[MCF888]

Hi @Nigelb1972 ,

Thanks for the tip.

I've just tried that - as well as exiting the Paramount+ app through its main screen - but it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. 

I know from other hardware (e.g. Apple TV 4k) that sometimes the jerkiness can be down to frame rate incompatability between the source and the tv.

I've tried going through all of the menus in settings on the puck and can't find the equivalent of Apple TV's "match frame rate and audio" setting.

Do you know if that exists somewhere in the puck's settings?

(The TV I'm running this puck through (a Loewe i55) doesn't have the ability to chose that functionality  - it runs "select best rate" as a default.)

[Nigelb1972]

@MCF888 I don't think it does... 

[Padam_Padam]

@MCF888 

Sky Stream unfortunately does not have frame rate or dynamic range rate matching. The only thing you can try is Judder Reduction. This basically switches the output frequency of the puck from 50Hz (with it off) to 60Hz (with it on). Having it at 60Hz does improve the look of native 24 or 30fps content from third party apps such as Paramount+, Apple TV+, Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. 

If you have an Apple TV 4K box then you will get native frame rates from most apps, along with dynamic range matching. 

BTW, we watched A Gentleman In Moscow (in 4K Dolby Vision via Apple TV 4K box) and enjoyed it immensely too. 

[MCF888]

I thought as much....

Thanks.

[MCF888]

@Padam_Padam 

Thanks. That's very helpful.

It improves Paramount+ a lot, but makes Discovery+ worse. Heyho.

I'm sure this must have been mentioned many times on many other threads, but even after having had Stream for just a few weeks I can see it would benefit from importing certain aspects of Apple TV 4k's audio and video functionality.

[Padam_Padam]

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@MCF888 wrote:

@Padam_Padam 

Thanks. That's very helpful.

It improves Paramount+ a lot, but makes Discovery+ worse. Heyho.

I'm sure this must have been mentioned many times on many other threads, but even after having had Stream for just a few weeks I can see it would benefit from importing certain aspects of Apple TV 4k's audio and video functionality.

---

I had hoped the same thing but after having Stream for a year I gave up waiting for it to improve and have since reverted to a couple of Apple TV 4K boxes for all our household viewing. We much prefer the versatility and stability of Apple's (admittedly much more expensive) hardware. 

Sky Stream is built on a budget for the mass market, and Sky's own chief product officer has stated that they can't be bothered messing around with frame rates and such like, so it's a feature that's unlikely to appear any time soon.