Sky stream

[Floydianslip]

@Ziggi Had stream for 18 month now, 4 pucks and not had any issues. Far superior picture quality than Q, connected to a Denon 7.2 receiver via eARC sound is also superb. I don't miss Q or a hard drive full of programmes I never had time to watch either.

Mind I wouldn't have entertained Stream unless I had FTTP, which I do, also use my own router which has excellent WiFi coverage. If things are right Stream is superb.

[Padam_Padam]

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@Floydianslip wrote:

@Ziggi Had stream for 18 month now, 4 pucks and not had any issues. Far superior picture quality than Q, connected to a Denon 7.2 receiver via eARC sound is also superb. I don't miss Q or a hard drive full of programmes I never had time to watch either.

Mind I wouldn't have entertained Stream unless I had FTTP, which I do, also use my own router which has excellent WiFi coverage. If things are right Stream is superb.

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This is the key thing. The vast majority of Sky customers don't. They use the basic ISP-provided router and want simple plug and play with no faffing around with ethernet, WiFi mesh or powerline. Those that switch from Q expect it to work like that - turn it on and use it.

But many forget that with Q an engineer would set up the dish and make sure a viable signal was being received otherwise the product is useless. With Stream, the onus is on the customer to make sure their broadband is up to the job, because without a decent network the product is useless. 

[PSC133]

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@Floydianslip wrote:

@Ziggi Had stream for 18 month now, 4 pucks and not had any issues. Far superior picture quality than Q, connected to a Denon 7.2 receiver via eARC sound is also superb. I don't miss Q or a hard drive full of programmes I never had time to watch either.

Mind I wouldn't have entertained Stream unless I had FTTP, which I do, also use my own router which has excellent WiFi coverage. If things are right Stream is superb.

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I think that one thing that people with slow internet forget to investigate is the availability of mobile broadband.

I'm in a semi-rural location which is currently not listed in the Openreach plans for FTTP and no prospect of any other company venturing near.  I have 6 pucks which I used to run by load balancing 2 FTTC lines averaging 35Mbps each.  (Admittedly it would be unusual for more than 2 pucks to be in use at the same time.). This was quite successful.

A few months ago I noticed that my mobile phone had started to connect to 5g whilst at home and on further investigation, using friends' phones on different networks, I discovered that I had an excellent connection to both Three internet 5g and EE 4g+,  even though their coverage maps suggested that I haven't.

I found the best position in my home to site a decent dual sim router which allows me to lock to a particular mobile broadband tower (Gli Inet Spitz) and now I have a Three internet connection of in excess of 700Mbps with an automatic fallback to EE 160Mbps should there be any Three issues  (which are fortunately rare).  This connection is fine for the pucks and can use all 6 at the same time, should that be necessary, with no obvious glitches caused by the internet connection - just the usual inadequacies of Sky Stream which many people experience.  All my pucks are connected by Ethernet to a central switch.

This setup costs me significantly less monthly apart from the initial cost of the router.

The only thing that I haven't discovered is the exact position of the mobile tower but there isn't one within a mile of me.  I'm very happy.

[Jay0232]

I've read quite a few posts on here about upgrading to Sky Stream. So I want to share my experience with you. 

An existing Sky customer for 22 Years, had Sky Q multi-room which was out of contract, price increased from £57 to £99 a month, which made me think about my options. At first i wasnt even aware of Stream. What I did know was that our viewing habits had changed and that we didn't record anything anymore, the multi-room had given up on our WiFi, and then main Sky Q box frequently also dropped off the network. So we essentially were streaming pretty much everything on our iPads, even Sky Go. 

After being passed around to 7 different agents and a full hour and 35 minutes, spoke to a chap with a strong Welsh accent who was brilliant, he informed me of Stream and how it matched our requirements and would actually cost the same, and we would have 4k on all pucks. I agreed and the devices arrived literally the following day, actually within 12 hours of placing the order at 7:30 the previous evening. 

The devices arrived and within minutes, a simple next, next, finish wizard and boom they were setup, so simple and actually super intuitive. 

I love the playlist that replaces recordings, streaming is quick, picture quality is brilliant, superior to Sky Q for sure. I read a review which said apps open slowly, I think they're much quicker. 

If you don't record anymore, have fairly decent internet, use a multitude of streaming services, then this is the next step for you. Highly recommended. 

[Jay0232]

There are plenty of reviews on Sky Stream, essentially you can simply switch from Q to Stream. What you need to know is how good your internet connection is, remembering that each device if connected to a 4k TV can stream UHD at 2060p definition, so to avoid disappointment allow at least 50MB per stream, I've read it can be lower. Also remember that you can't record anything, instead it's replaced by playlists which rely on catchup services like iPlayer and ITVx - live TV works great, maybe 10 seconds behind terrestrial, for me it's the next logical step for on demand entertainment. 

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Jay0232 

Playlist works both as a mere pointer to content held on apps but also to cloud recording which allows storage of 1000 hours. Cloud storage is used where online content is not yet available 

[Padam_Padam]

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@cookiemonsteruk wrote:

@Jay0232 

Playlist works both as a mere pointer to content held on apps but also to cloud recording which allows storage of 1000 hours. Cloud storage is used where online content is not yet available 

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But be aware that customers have no control over this cloud storage. It's not like a hard drive in the sky to which you can add and delete recordings. It's a hidden part of Sky's servers on which certain playlisted content is temporarily stored. Sky can remove this content at any time if they wish or if there are changes in streaming rights for that content. 

The mythical 1000 hours is never explicitly specified anywhere on the Sky Stream interface and I don't believe there's been a single instance of anyone ever having been told they have exceeded this supposed limit.  

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Padam_Padam 

The main reason something cloud recorded would be deleted from the playlist would be that sky no longer has the rights to show it. The number of hours of cloud storage has been confirmed in the community managers in our hidden forum but if you're anything like me i will delete it immediately after watching so i wouldn't get close to 1000 hours

[Jay0232]

Truth be told, with Sky Q local drive recording, it was only really beneficial when watching on the main screen connected to the main box. Which my family rarely did, we all used Sky Go which more often than not meant the recording couldn't be played. The whole UHD/HD/SD incompatibilities often resulted in downloading in other formats. So for us, playlists that automatically resume on any device at a compatible definition is a massive improvement. The amount of available recording space may be an issue for some people that wish to retain content, but again this isn't something that we do. 

[Padam_Padam]

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@Jay0232 wrote:

Truth be told, with Sky Q local drive recording, it was only really beneficial when watching on the main screen connected to the main box. Which my family rarely did, we all used Sky Go which more often than not meant the recording couldn't be played. The whole UHD/HD/SD incompatibilities often resulted in downloading in other formats. So for us, playlists that automatically resume on any device at a compatible definition is a massive improvement. The amount of available recording space may be an issue for some people that wish to retain content, but again this isn't something that we do. 

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There are still incompatibilities with Sky Stream - if you have playlisted something from a UHD channel and it tries to play back a UHD stream on a puck connected to a HD-only TV, it will not play. If all your TVs are 4K then this isn't an issue of course. 

My own switch from Q to Stream (about 18 months ago) was pretty smooth too. I had no connection issues at all, using symmetrical 500Mbps FTTP broadband. Live TV streams in native 1080i were excellent, pin sharp with great sound quality - probably the best feature of Sky Stream. 

[Floydianslip]

@Padam_Padam 

Pin sharp PQ and great sound is what it should be about, after all those are the main reasons we sub to Stream for. Playlists, Ad skipping etc etc are superfluous for me. Sky will iron out the glitches and annoyances eventually as they did with Q after it was first launched.

[Super+Anthony]

I have recently brought stream and I would have to say, the picture and sound is far superior than Q.

My only issues are you can't go back to the previous channel but instead you have to go to the home menu. The other issue if you put a program into your play list, it looks like you have to watch the whole series, rather than one program

 Generally I prefer it and am glad I done what I did and would recommend stream, but it's down to preference

[TimmyBGood]

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@Super+Anthony wrote:

 The other issue if you put a program into your play list, it looks like you have to watch the whole series, rather than one program

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Playlist will display the series: there's not actually a requirement to watch it...

[Super+Anthony]

It seems to go to continue watching slides and to get rid of it, you need to watch or either forward it for every episode, and then it will go. I also spoke to Sky and they told me the same thing and unfortunately there is nothing else one can do at this stage

Even so, I am happy with stream and is definitely an upgrade from Q

[Fothergill1]

@Super+Anthony The quickest way to get back to the previous channels is to press home as you say but then press the left button and it will show the last few channels you watched.

Getting rid of programmes from the CW rail is my biggest issue with Stream.  It does depend a little on the app you have been watching but generally speaking you don't need to run through all the episodes just select the last episode in the series and run that through to the end.  Mind you it doesn't always work.

I love the streaming platform and wouldn't consider returning to Sky Q but I just wish they would develop a method of deleting items from CW.