Sky Q

Sky Q – some confusion
17 December 2015

Not wishing to give up its place as the UK’s premiere pay-tv supplier Sky has driven some companies involved in shared antenna systems into a frenzy over its new Sky Q product. A number of system installing members are calling the CAI office for advice on what they should be planning for following enquiries by some housing agents wanting to prepare for the future. The CAI has written to Sky but have yet to receive any formal statement about the new box and the necessary technical specification to make it work in an IRS situation. The CAI has been passed some mischievous letters being circulated to the housing industry containing some very random type statements plumping out their content. With no concrete technical information they are merely aimed to try and make housing decision-makers and landlords consider putting potential business elsewhere. What we do know is that the product is merely at trial and pilot stages as system upgrading will be required and those requirements are being evaluated. For now the CAI member can only install systems to current requirements until such times as marketeers make way for a formal technical statement. The Sky statement will be published as soon as it is available.

http://www.cai.org.uk/information/cai-news/889-sky-q-some-confusion

thatsmyboy wrote: »

Hi folks a quick question.i have a sky + hd box that's about 3 or 4 yrs old. I stopped sky about that long ago and I'm using a free to air box off the sat dish. Any ways I plugged in the box last night and took out the old card and it's only giving me the BBC channels as free view and when I go to the channel 4 channels it's asking for me to insert my card but no point in doing that as service in stopped .. Any ideas. Would it be worth my while getting the free uk sat cardi saw a guy selling them on adverts for 4 yo yos....

ftakeith wrote: »

I have 300 films legally purchased from 'Sky Store buy and keep', Sky send me the film dvd after I purchase from my Sky TV box.

I don't even keep the DVD as I give it away to family/friends/work colleagues

ftakeith wrote: »

Back on the Sky Q topic

Sky Q will make my TV devices more neatly in my main TV room

I have 300 films legally purchased from 'Sky Store buy and keep', Sky send me the film dvd after I purchase from my Sky TV box.

I don't even keep the DVD as I give it away to family/friends/work colleagues

With Sky Q, I could bring the Sky Q box anywhere and connect it to any TV and watch content

Outside of the UK/Ireland, if I download the films to my sky box, I can watch the films
I downloaded some films to the sky store app on my laptop so I watched the films on a german trip
It should work the same on a sky Q box

ftakeith wrote: »

Nothing illegal

I can give away the DVD of any film I purchased from sky store buy/keep

Sky Q – what we know so far

Written on 19 January 2016.

The perpetuating euphoria surrounding Sky’s marketing of ‘Sky Q’ continues to cause reams and reams of media speculation. Here’s what the CAI has found published when it comes to the ‘unofficial biography’ of Sky Q. As yet the CAI has not received any official statement from the Sky Chief Executive or anyone assigned to the marketing of Sky TV regarding how Sky Q is to be sold or installed - or more importantly how anyone on a shared dish system would be able to raise their level of subscription to take Sky Q. All we know is that one day it will launch in the UK as a Sky TV extra option. This month’s ‘Home Cinema’ featured 3 pages of ‘what you need to know’ about Sky Q. A summary of what was in that article.

First of all – you will have a choice from a new product line of 3 boxes. Sky Q Silver will have a dozen tuners and 2TB of hard drive. The standard Sky Q has 8 tuners and 1TB of hard drive. The Sky Mini is simply a multi-room device without tuners or hard drive but works in tandem with the other two boxes via an Ethernet link.

Next – Sky Q is 4K ready – but details are not forthcoming. Sky Q Silver will have a 4K capable HDMI output. One problem here that could hold up uptake will be 4K content – but think in terms of Premier League Football, Hollywood movies and big budget dramas. Sky needs to give BT Sport a fight over Ultra HD.

Thirdly – A product with all those tuners solves recording clashes. You will have to beware of filling up the hard-drive – but it does start to rival Virgin’s 3 tuners, Freeview Play and EE TV.

Fourthly – All these tuners have spawned the phrase ‘Fluid Viewing’. Current multi-room using Sky+HD requires multi-LNB feeds. The Sky Q arrangements using Q Silver or Standard Q allows the additional tuners to feed a Sky Q Mini – or even team up with another Mini. Using WiFi or powerline networking multi-room gets a bit simpler than traditional wiring up of TVs around the home. The other aspect is that Fluid Viewing allows streaming to other devices like tablets.

Finally – You can download recordings onto devices for viewing elsewhere – supposedly the number one request from viewers polled on the subject. Rights issues will hamper this one – but it’s a cool bragging point.

For the technical amongst us all – this product sees a lot of installations starting from ground zero. The old Sky+ has to go. In a DTH system a new LNB is needed to feed the multi-tuner kit. No big deal for a single room viewer but in multi-room homes all the boxes need swapping. Sky Q does not mix with secondary Sky+ boxes.

The new hardware does support Dolby Digital 5.1 via HDMI but any Dolby Atmos for future 4K movies and the next generation audio appears to be on shelf somewhere. Also a new remote control emerges that marks the end of updates to old Sky+ user interfaces. New ways to access all this content had to be considered so updating the old EPG and controllers has not been the chosen path. The old zapper is to be gone. Some will bemoan the day the old remote has to be ditched. It became somewhat of industry standard leader.

What all this means for those in blocks of flats is going to be a longer story than you’ve already read about. As stated at the beginning – we await a Sky statement on how owners of tenanted blocks are going to deal with any demand for Sky Q. This brings us to the final part of the story.

Sky Q is not replacing Sky+HD as we know it. (Just yet…) There will be a subscription premium price tag. As yet no-one knows what that is. But it won’t be simple (we already know the way pay TV operators bundle programming is inherently complex) so expect a considerable increase in your direct debit if you’re desperate for it. Doubtless the home cinemas owners will go for this where money is not a problem.

http://cai.org.uk/information/cai-news/892-sky-q-what-we-know-so-far

galtee boy wrote: »

Is there some kind of attachment that you can put onto the "arm" of the dish, allowing the new SkyQ lnb and the existing lnb to both work off the one dish ?