Switching to Sky stream

[StevieD54]

Have explored the option of switching to Sky Q from our old Sky HD box in another thread, we are now considering cutting our costs by going for Sky Stream, which the missus sister has, as we're currently paying over £40 a month just for Sky Signature. However, westill have the same problem as I had on the thread I just mentioned. We currently have a wire running from the Sky HD box around the lounge skirting and into the kitchen so we get the same picture in the kitchen as the lounge, and controlled via magic eye. i.e. we don't have multi room. The reason I've avoided going for Sky Q is for this very reason, it would have meant having a Sky Q mini box taking up space on the kitchen worktop and using up another power socket.

So my question is………… is there any way of getting output from a Sky Stream box by utilising the same wire that runs to the Kitchen TV? Or not?

[GD1]

@StevieD54  What you seem to want to do is send a UHF signal to the Kitchen TV, Sky Stream is not able to do that so unless you invest in some kind of HDMI to RF out device, you will need a 2nd Puck for the Kitchen TV with a Whole Home sub (Whole Home will allow up to 3 Glass TV's & 6 pucks under the 1 subscription for an additional £12 PM).

[Angel_Aka]

@StevieD54 

As well as the advice from @GD1 - you'd need to make sure any Stream puck you attach to the kitchen TV is able to receive a fast and stable enough broadband connection in order for the service to function. If the puck can't receive good enough broadband it simply won't work. 

[StevieD54]

OK, thanks both. Thinking aloud here, could I have the following set up I wonder?

Buy a 'HDMI Splitter' that has a single HDMI slot at one end and a double the other end. Attach the single end to the Sky Stream box, then at the double end, one HDMI goes to the Lounge TV and the other goes to an ‘HDMI to RF Out’ device, to which I connect my kitchen TV cable? Or would the splitter only push out HDMI output through one slot at a time?

I believe a HDMI splitter has a USB connection to give it power taken from the 'mother' box e.g. the Sky Stream box in this scenario.

Even if all this were possible, would it compromise picture quality I wonder?

[Angel_Aka]

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@StevieD54 wrote:

OK, thanks both. Thinking aloud here, could I have the following set up I wonder?

Buy a 'HDMI Splitter' that has a single HDMI slot at one end and a double the other end. Attach the single end to the Sky Stream box, then at the double end, one HDMI goes to the Lounge TV and the other goes to an ‘HDMI to RF Out’ device, to which I connect my kitchen TV cable? Or would the splitter only push out HDMI output through one slot at a time?

I believe a HDMI splitter has a USB connection to give it power taken from the 'mother' box e.g. the Sky Stream box in this scenario.

Even if all this were possible, would it compromise picture quality I wonder?

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That's all sounding very messy TBH. 

Stream pucks are simple slave devices which need to receive a signal back from the TV they are connected to via HDMI in order to know what resolutions it's capable of outputting. A splitter, along with an HDMI to RF converter in the way will likely only cause confusion. 

You would also be circumventing the copy protection embedded within the HDMI output from the puck by converting it to RF. 

If you wanted 4K and HDR on your main TV too, then the converter would need to be capable of downconverting the digital 4K HDR signal to an analogue HD signal at best. 

You also won't get any USB power from a Stream puck. They have their own power supply and only output video and audio via HDMI.  

[lettice]

Using any form of hdmi splitter as you mention has been discussed many times on here in the Sky Stream community area with some examples.

Best to do a search on here and read through those posts.

A few other thoughts:
A Sky Stream box is small and does not actually have to be that close to the TV.

Just make sure for best performance your Sky Stream puck is in the open and away from any type of other devices that can cause interference.

You could buy a slightly longer hdmi cable, no more than 3m in length.

That 3 meters is the longest that will provide a reliable 4k signal.

Plus make sure the hdmi cable is listed as high speed.

In the above, that hdmi cable and any extension to the Sky Stream puck would be not much thicker than a trail of coax cable you mention within a cable tidy.

Also, not sure how big your kitchen TV is and how much you are willing to pay, you could replace the kitchen TV with a Sky Glass TV, so just one plug like your current TV, no other cables and no Sky Stream puck.

[lettice]

One other scenario you could consider.

Ive seen many who have Sky Stream and like to hide their kit along in a TV wall with a hanging TV on the  wall etc.

We generally do not recommend putting the puck directly behind the TV, mostly as the Sky Stream wifi gets compromised by the TV with close proximity and sufferers interference and the like.

But for those I have seen doing the above, they successfully manage to have a reliable Sky Stream by having an Ethernet cable from the puck to their router, if that can be done, that ethernet cable could use a similar run as your coax?

Saying that I do know of one who has their Sky Stream puck hidden behind a TV wall above their  wall hung TV and they use a wifi connection and do have a reliable experience. Their Sky router, no mesh is in an adjoining room, It is a large house, so is about twenty feet away through an internal wall and the hidden TV wall. But, their wifi within their house does carry well, so helps.
The puck remote control uses Bluetooth and works very well behind a TV or within most cabinet or hidden walls.

You can for restarts of the puck  use the restart option within the puck settings. Unless on rarer occasions it's completely locked up, but you also can just switch off/on at the plug, so no actually having to play with the puck itself for anything, apart from removing or adding cables.

You will not though be able to use the CEC option for the puck and TV to sync together and/or change the TV volume as that uses IR, so you will need to grab the TV remote for that.

Mind, if it's an LG TV and you have a LG magic remote, that remote can control the Sky Stream puck and the TV. I have an LG TV in my bedroom and love how that works with the LG magic remote.

Anyway, some further thoughts for you to consider.