sky puck review

[N8_DAWG]

after a long arduous time with virgin, virtually no tech support, unless you immediatley pay your bill, even though these was a debit setup for the end of the month.. therefore ..  decided to take a punt with virgin broadband & TV, considering the infrasructure had been upgraded in my street etc.. and the general reviews of them seemed very favourable,  so generally relativley happy with the service broadly speaking, however, the puck seems to have a few issues .. hopefully these can be ironed-out .. these issues are .. 

1. sound just stops when switching between regular TV, and iplayer/ other apps. 

2. does not work correctly with ARC pass-though via TV to soundbar, my much older virgin TV box worked perfectly with this.. 

tv is an LG49UH750V,  soundbar is denon DHT-S216 via ARC/HDMI. i have to use the TV remote to change the volume rather than the sky remote.. frustrating.. 

3. Youtube app lipsync issues, sound constantly lagging behind video

that is pretty much it rly, but i feel like these are very fundamental issues that really shouldn't be there.. i am hoping that some update/firmware will come along for it to help solve these issues as there often can be with relativley new hardware, at least before my wife loses her patience with it, at this point it will then become a problem..

N8

[Steve93]

Are you taking about Sky Stream or the Virgin Stream box (now renamed Flex), I've got both, fairly happy with the Flex box & Sky Stream which is alot slower, have no issues with the apps, effector for itvx which is very slow but works 

[N8_DAWG]

My mistake.. I changed over to sky BB+TV, from virgin .. 

[Steve93]

Ok, no problems 

[Jporch316]

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@N8_DAWG wrote:

after a long arduous time with virgin, virtually no tech support, unless you immediatley pay your bill, even though these was a debit setup for the end of the month.. therefore ..  decided to take a punt with virgin broadband & TV, considering the infrasructure had been upgraded in my street etc.. and the general reviews of them seemed very favourable,  so generally relativley happy with the service broadly speaking, however, the puck seems to have a few issues .. hopefully these can be ironed-out .. these issues are .. 

1. sound just stops when switching between regular TV, and iplayer/ other apps. 

2. does not work correctly with ARC pass-though via TV to soundbar, my much older virgin TV box worked perfectly with this.. 

tv is an LG49UH750V,  soundbar is denon DHT-S216 via ARC/HDMI. i have to use the TV remote to change the volume rather than the sky remote.. frustrating.. 

3. Youtube app lipsync issues, sound constantly lagging behind video

that is pretty much it rly, but i feel like these are very fundamental issues that really shouldn't be there.. i am hoping that some update/firmware will come along for it to help solve these issues as there often can be with relativley new hardware, at least before my wife loses her patience with it, at this point it will then become a problem..

N8

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I'm no sound system expert but reads like the issue maybe with your sound system setup. Maybe try the puck directly through the tv sound and see if the issues you have still persist. This will tell you if it's the puck or the sound setup giving you issues 

[Nigelb1972]

Sounds like a set up issue. I've got stream running through eARC and have none of these issues. Set your audio output on the stream to Digital Dolby Plus and your TV arc/eARC to pass through 

[CoffeeDrinker]

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@N8_DAWG wrote:

2. does not work correctly with ARC pass-though via TV to soundbar, my much older virgin TV box worked perfectly with this.. 

tv is an LG49UH750V,  soundbar is denon DHT-S216 via ARC/HDMI. i have to use the TV remote to change the volume rather than the sky remote.. frustrating.. 

Looking at the manual https://manuals.denon.com/DHTS216/NA/EN/download.php?filename=/DHTS216/NA/EN/pdf/DHTS216_NA_EN.pdf for the Denon DHT-S216, your soundbar supports Dolby Digital but not Dolby Digital Plus. It might be worth settings your Sky Stream puck to output Dolby Digital over HDMI rather than the default Auto setting (which will try and output Dolby Digital Plus by default and then 'step down' to Dolby Digital if the puck believes the devices at the other end of the HDMI cable cannot understand DD+)

Your older Virgin box probably outputted Dolby Digital by default rather than Dolby Digital Plus.

[N8_DAWG]

Thanx for your suggestions .. very much appreciated, will post again with my results.

[N8_DAWG]

so i tried using dolby digital under output options, still having strange issues, i had the box on BBC1, and literally just pressed channel up button on remote [4 bbc2] and audio dropped off completley, then tried resetting the arc connection via TV, nothing, soundbar had all lights flashing, could only resolve by unplugging the mains on the soundbar, then fine.. i'm wondering if the optical connection would be any better, the TV apparently outputs a 5.1 by default though this.. again didn't have this issue with the virgin TV box.. frustrating.. 

[CoffeeDrinker]

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@N8_DAWG wrote:

so i tried using dolby digital under output options, still having strange issues, i had the box on BBC1, and literally just pressed channel up button on remote [4 bbc2] and audio dropped off completley, then tried resetting the arc connection via TV, nothing, soundbar had all lights flashing, could only resolve by unplugging the mains on the soundbar, then fine.. i'm wondering if the optical connection would be any better, the TV apparently outputs a 5.1 by default though this.. again didn't have this issue with the virgin TV box.. frustrating.. 

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Frustrating! You you watch TV through your TV (rather than through the Sky Stream puck): do you get the same audio dropout/dropoff? 

if you already have an optical.cable, it could be worth giving it a try. The optical cable will still carry a 5.1 Dolby Digital signal and won't be subject to any device capability negotiation.