Sky Q

zg3409

>Just wondering if anyone has any advice >or info on whether it’s worth switching >over?

Sky q is a premium product with a premium price.

The reliability is far higher than with virgin

Downsides, you need a dish on south east side of house, see neighbours for reference. The installations can be a bit cowboy due to contractors. Try to get internet cabled to main box and if possible an internet cable to mini box. This will prevent most issues of picture breakup and slow downloads. You can watch something else on the mini except eir sports without additional payment, and you can watch shows stored on main box. It is not cheap and channels are limited depending on package, but it is leaps ahead if virgin for TV. Internet is better from virgin, in general.

Samuel T. Cogley

sillysocks wrote: »

Have had Virgin Media HD boxes for years. Am fed up with the constant price hikes and also thinking we might go for a change to Sky and get the Sky Q boxes. We’ll need it for two TVs so I think one main box and a mini. By sounds of things we can watch different things on both nights issue. Lately the Virgin boxes have been terrible, freezing, recording incorrectly, cutting off programmed etc so would
Hope the Sky ones are better.

Just wondering if anyone has any advice or info on whether it’s worth switching over? Price might be slightly cheaper with Sky for the first few months but after that not a big difference. Won’t move Broadband as very happy with Virgins offering in our area and work from home so need to keep it reliable.

Brilliant offer on at the moment online with their new entertainment pack. Can't really go wrong for €24. Get the 2TB box if you're getting Multiscreen IMHO.

Sky v Virgin for TV there is no contest. Sky just works, I can't believe Virgin still cuts off shows etc. that's been a problem for years.

Defo stay with Virgin for Broadband at least until Sky Launch FTTH (upto 1000Mbit).

Samuel T. Cogley

galtee boy wrote: »

Am I right in this, current cost of box sets + HD is €17 and Netflix HD with 2 screens is €10.99, total €27.99, whereas with new deal from Sky, the new cost of box sets/HD and Netflix will be €16, so a saving of €11.99 ?

Boxsets = €8
Ultimate Boxsets (with netflix) or whatever it's called €16
HD now a seperate product @ €8


HD/UHD Netflix will be dependant on package, so it's no where near as good a deal as it looks.

sillysocks

Thanks all, need to give them a ring and check out the neighbours satellites. I think they’re usually at the back of the house so that should be fine. Don’t think we’d be able to run a cable to the main box (living room box), but there is one in the room where the mini box would be (office/tv room). If we swapped the boxes around is there a downside to having a mini for the main tv or does it do everything the main one does?

Don’t think we’d need the 2tb box, really don’t watch masses of tv these days - between 3 kids and Netflix there’s only a handful of things we watch and record each week. Will look up the entertainment offer.
Thanks again!

Samuel T. Cogley

sillysocks wrote: »

Thanks all, need to give them a ring and check out the neighbours satellites. I think they’re usually at the back of the house so that should be fine. Don’t think we’d be able to run a cable to the main box (living room box), but there is one in the room where the mini box would be (office/tv room). If we swapped the boxes around is there a downside to having a mini for the main tv or does it do everything the main one does?

Don’t think we’d need the 2tb box, really don’t watch masses of tv these days - between 3 kids and Netflix there’s only a handful of things we watch and record each week. Will look up the entertainment offer.
Thanks again!

Mini box doesn't do UHD only the 2TB box does. For the sake of €35 (the difference between a 1TB and 2TB) you're mad not to do it at time of purchase.

2TB gives you
-Voice search
-Record 6 shows
-The ability to add another mini at a later date
-Two connected tablets instead of one
-Ultra HD (with a mini)

I know a few people that got caught out with 1TB boxes and then ended up paying to upgrade becuase they either wanted the extra feature or wanted more than one mini box. Netflix with all the bells and whistles will be good value for people with the 2TBs, Multiscreen and Sky's Boxsets than it will be subbing on it's own.

sillysocks

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Mini box doesn't do UHD only the 2TB box does. For the sake of €35 (the difference between a 1TB and 2TB) you're mad not to do it at time of purchase.

2TB gives you
-Voice search
-Record 6 shows
-The ability to add another mini at a later date
-Two connected tablets instead of one
-Ultra HD (with a mini)

I know a few people that got caught out with 1TB boxes and then ended up paying to upgrade becuase they either wanted the extra feature or wanted more than one mini box. Netflix with all the bells and whistles will be good value for people with the 2TBs, Multiscreen and Sky's Boxsets than it will be subbing on it's own.

Ok thanks for that! Assumed there’d be a higher monthly charge for that box or it’d be more than the 35 eur so probably worth getting alright!

ahbell

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Boxsets = €8
Ultimate Boxsets (with netflix) or whatever it's called €16
HD now a seperate product @ €8


HD/UHD Netflix will be dependant on package, so it's no where near as good a deal as it looks.

Seems like Ultimate on Demand includes Box Sets and Netflix in HD as standard, no need for the HD add-on. UHD costs extra (as it currently does on standalone Netflix)

https://www.sky.com/shop/tv/sky-q/apps/

Jofspring

Got sky q installed today. 2TB Sky Q and Sky Mini Box. Installer put booster box in hall to help with mini box upstairs.

The internet connection between my main box and the router is continuously disconnecting though which is having a knock on effect to the mini box. It's so frustrating already. From looking online a lot of people have been having the same issues with Sky Q disconnecting from router. Sky usually blame the ISP. Phones, tablets, laptops all connect just fine to the router so it's not the problem there.

I have cat 5 wired in the house, I need to change one broken faceplate though to allow sky connect to the router. Is it worth going down the wired route? For some reason sky don't give a lot of info on this.

I don't have a lot of time to be fiddling with it so just want to know is it worth trying to get it wired (as in will it work) or should I just give back the mini box and stick with the main box for TV and save myself a lot of hassle?

coley

Wired all the way!
I have cat5 to Q box and one mini, wireless off on both.
Initially had them wireless but was hopelessly unreliable.
Definitely worth fixing the broken faceplate.
-Coley.

jeffk

I hard wired the main one and keeps ignoring it and going back to wireless...

heroics

coley wrote: »

Wired all the way!
I have cat5 to Q box and one mini, wireless off on both.
Initially had them wireless but was hopelessly unreliable.
Definitely worth fixing the broken faceplate.
-Coley.

This. We had problems with ours at the start and I was going to get rid of it until we wired it no problems since. The engineer (I use that word loosely) from sky actually set up 2 booster boxes one of them on the kitchen table and left saying it was working.

There is an engineers menu to turn off the WiFi on the mini. I think it is Go in to home menu, scroll to "Settings" but do not select it, then 0, 0, 1, and select, and that is installer menu where wifi can be turned off

Jofspring

Ya he left saying it was sorted.

When he initially arrived he said the boxes are really far away from each other so will struggle to connect. The booster will help. It did until 5 minutes after he was gone. Thought it was the mini box was the problem but then noticed the main box keeps disconnecting from the wi-fi. I suggested to him would it be worth connecting both using the cat 5 and he said no that's now how it works. It won't help.

Going to try wire both boxes and hopefully that sorts it.

jeffk

Ah the old sky engineers wink wink

Put the boxes into their own separate plug helps
Don't put anything on top of the boxes
Don't have them under tv units
Your not on sky broadband do be issues

Basically pick excuse from their script and use it to say the paying customer is wrong

Jofspring

Have both boxes wired now and can't see any major problems. Network connection in settings says connected, but it pops up on the mini box at the top of the screen when I try to do a few bits saying I don't have an internet connection but it will keep trying. I have the wi-fi turned off on both sky boxes and have been able to download tv shows, watch recorded shows and pick up shows recorded on the main box so I'm assuming it's working fine despite the warning message.

jones

Sky Q updated the other day to version 80.xx was expecting big features such as Netlfix but theres nothing extra that i can see. If anything they seem to have taken things from it (the scheduled to record option no longer displays)

Johnboy1951

Jofspring wrote: »

Have both boxes wired now and can't see any major problems. Network connection in settings says connected, but it pops up on the mini box at the top of the screen when I try to do a few bits saying I don't have an internet connection but it will keep trying. I have the wi-fi turned off on both sky boxes and have been able to download tv shows, watch recorded shows and pick up shows recorded on the main box so I'm assuming it's working fine despite the warning message.

Maybe there is some means of suppressing that message somewhere.
Nothing in menus?

sillysocks

jones wrote: »

Sky Q updated the other day to version 80.xx was expecting big features such as Netlfix but theres nothing extra that i can see. If anything they seem to have taken things from it (the scheduled to record option no longer displays)

Might not help but when I was onto sales yesterday about sky Q they said Netflix would be coming in November.

jones

I know this isnt necessarily the correct thread but just wondering have many Q owners bought the soundbox? I'm tempted for sittinroom

icdg

Netflix launches 1st November.

robwen

jones wrote: »

Sky Q updated the other day to version 80.xx was expecting big features such as Netlfix but theres nothing extra that i can see. If anything they seem to have taken things from it (the scheduled to record option no longer displays)

Have just noticed this the scheduled to record & the delete menus gone from recordings, what's the thinking behind this, please tell me it's not permanent or have these options been moved somewhere else that I'm not seeing??

jspuds

robwen wrote: »

Have just noticed this the scheduled to record & the delete menus gone from recordings, what's the thinking behind this, please tell me it's not permanent or have these options been moved somewhere else that I'm not seeing??

Have a look here
https://www.sky.com/help/articles/what-s-new-with-q

rushfan

robwen wrote:

Have just noticed this the scheduled to record & the delete menus gone from recordings, what's the thinking behind this, please tell me it's not permanent or have these options been moved somewhere else that I'm not seeing??

Same with mine. Scroll down to & select "Manage " , should give you options for Scheduled, delete, etc

Fann Linn

robwen wrote: »

Have just noticed this the scheduled to record & the delete menus gone from recordings, what's the thinking behind this, please tell me it's not permanent or have these options been moved somewhere else that I'm not seeing??

Scheduling and Delete still working in this house and in the same location.

harr

Anyone else notice an improvement in picture Quality ... definitely HD has improved and ultra definitely seems better,
Not sure if it was the sky Q update or if the TV had an update also.

Sleeper12

harr wrote:

Anyone else notice an improvement in picture Quality ... definitely HD has improved and ultra definitely seems better, Not sure if it was the sky Q update or if the TV had an update also.

I'm watching on a hdr 4k TV & haven't noticed a better quality picture. As far as I know sky still don't broadcast in full HD

OfTheMarsWongs

rushfan wrote: »

Same with mine. Scroll down to & select "Manage " , should give you options for Scheduled, delete, etc

Just discovered this earlier. Old location for scheduled was more convenient.

blink44

Hi all, looking for a bit of advise. Currently have Sky + in 3 rooms of the house. Interested in sky q but genuinely worried about the mini box and how it might perform reliably given that it’s not wired to the dish. One bedroom in particular in the house is like a WiFi dead spot, have tried countless times using airport extremes and powerline adaptors but haven’t been able to crack it yet. Virgins hub 3 seems to crash and seize up ever time I try to put it in modem mode so I can use my 2 airports as routers. But basically I get shouted at when the internet isn’t performing well in that room I don’t think it would go down too well if the tv wasn’t working either.

Any advise, tips or similar experiences would be appreciated. Is sky q out of the question until I crack the WiFi dead spot?

galtee boy

blink44 wrote: »

Hi all, looking for a bit of advise. Currently have Sky + in 3 rooms of the house. Interested in sky q but genuinely worried about the mini box and how it might perform reliably given that it’s not wired to the dish. One bedroom in particular in the house is like a WiFi dead spot, have tried countless times using airport extremes and powerline adaptors but haven’t been able to crack it yet. Virgins hub 3 seems to crash and seize up ever time I try to put it in modem mode so I can use my 2 airports as routers. But basically I get shouted at when the internet isn’t performing well in that room I don’t think it would go down too well if the tv wasn’t working either.

Any advise, tips or similar experiences would be appreciated. Is sky q out of the question until I crack the WiFi dead spot?

From reading this thread and other forums, it does appear that the Q mini boxes do give a lot of trouble with connectivity, unless your WiFi is very good, so that wifi blackspot room of yours, sounds like a no no. However, I have SkyQ, but no mini boxes, so perhaps someone here who has mini boxes, can provide more details of their experience. The fact that the mini boxes are wireless and be easily moved around the house is brilliant, provided they work properly of course.

fman

Powerlines would probably be the best if you could get them to work. Is it the house wiring or whatever causing issues?
The other options like WiFi extenders or even Google WiFi could help but would need to do a fair bit of research to make sure all the sky stuff ended up on technically the same WiFi network.

blink44

fman wrote: »

Powerlines would probably be the best if you could get them to work. Is it the house wiring or whatever causing issues?
The other options like WiFi extenders or even Google WiFi could help but would need to do a fair bit of research to make sure all the sky stuff ended up on technically the same WiFi network.

Iv no idea tbh, we get great speeds in most rooms in the house but the front bedroom the speed just drops down to barely anything. I know the virgin hub 3 is the main cause of issue, with the old cicso modem that worked perfectly with the airport extremes, one connected to the cisco and the other wired to the front room seemed to blanket the house in great WiFi, the hub 3 just doesn’t seem to like playing with other equipment. Maybe I’d be best just hiring some network wizz to come fix it up.

Either way reading about connectivity issues with the mini boxes does make me paranoid. Maybe sky + is better for my piece of mind. It was mostly the ability to watch the sky planner on the iPad was the only feature I really desired.