Sky Q with non mini box

stesaurus

I currently have Sky multiroom and 3 rooms in total. I'd like to make use of UHD from a Sky Q box, if possible?
I don't want to upgrade and be under contract again. Also one of my boxes is used in a granny flat so it's a large distance away from the main box. So a mini box won't work.
What I'd like to do is buy a 2nd hand Sky Q box and pair it to my main card. Then change the LNB to a hybrid.
Will this work or are Sky only interested in making people switch to those mini boxes?

Johnboy1951

stesaurus wrote: »

I currently have Sky multiroom and 3 rooms in total. I'd like to make use of UHD from a Sky Q box, if possible?
I don't want to upgrade and be under contract again. Also one of my boxes is used in a granny flat so it's a large distance away from the main box. So a mini box won't work.
What I'd like to do is buy a 2nd hand Sky Q box and pair it to my main card. Then change the LNB to a hybrid.
Will this work or are Sky only interested in making people switch to those mini boxes?

I doubt there are any used Sky Q boxes for sale, as Sky retains ownership of those boxes which must be returned when you cancel your contract.

stesaurus

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I doubt there are any used Sky Q boxes for sale, as Sky retains ownership of those boxes which must be returned when you cancel your contract.

There's a few but that probably means they don't have the rights to sell them. So Sky may block it, not sure

icdg

OP, leaving aside what you are trying to do is against the terms of service and completely unsupported by Sky (who won’t install both Sky Q and Sky+HD in the same set up), it might not even work for what you want, if UHD is your goal. That’s because you need to also have a Sky Q multiscreen (Sky Q experience if you live in the UK, it’s just a different name for the same thing) subscription to get UHD content.

Ask yourself how much you really want UHD and whether it’s worth the amount of trouble you seem to want to go for it. Sky’s UHD content is limited to Premier League, Formula One and a small amount of cricket, some movies, and a limited amount of US first run shows. I have it and all I’ve watched in UHD are Premier League games and even then I struggle to see the picture improvement.

Mundo7976

As with icdg, is it really worth the hassle for what is essentially a few extra pixels!
Most uhd tvs have upscalers which will get you close to the picture quality you’re after. While Q is brilliant itself, for what you’re after it wouldn’t be worth the hassle.

stesaurus

I hadn't been interested until a recent GoT episode. One in particular was pretty unwatchable due to darkness and poor 720p picture on a large screen.
I'm paying a lot of money for Sky with HD but I needed to resort to other illegal methods to watch a higher definition version of the episode.
It's ridiculous really.
I'm well aware of why Sky went down the mini box route which don't come with their own cards. There should be some leeway with unusual setups that won't work with WiFi extenders.

Mundo7976

That wasnt skys fault, HBO made it that way deliberately, its been well written about

Sleeper12

icdg wrote:

Ask yourself how much you really want UHD and whether it’s worth the amount of trouble you seem to want to go for it. Sky’s UHD content is limited to Premier League, Formula One and a small amount of cricket, some movies, and a limited amount of US first run shows. I have it and all I’ve watched in UHD are Premier League games and even then I struggle to see the picture improvement.

Agreed
I have sky q & UHD. I also have a good quality Sony TV. There is a very little difference between upscaled HD & Sky's 4K on my TV. 4K is a waste on Sky Q imo. The real major advancement in picture quality is HDR and as yet Sky don't broadcast in HDR. On the other hand Netflix & Amazon prime video have shows & movies in 4K and HDR for a few years now.

As already mentioned you will need to subscribe to Sky Q multi room to get 4k content.

Sleeper12

stesaurus wrote:

I hadn't been interested until a recent GoT episode. One in particular was pretty unwatchable due to darkness and poor 720p picture on a large screen. I'm paying a lot of money for Sky with HD but I needed to resort to other illegal methods to watch a higher definition version of the episode. It's ridiculous really. I'm well aware of why Sky went down the mini box route which don't come with their own cards. There should be some leeway with unusual setups that won't work with WiFi extenders.

Shows like GOT aren't in 4K on Sky Q anyway. Its the exact same quality as regular Sky HD boxes

stesaurus

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Shows like GOT aren't in 4K on Sky Q anyway. Its the exact same quality as regular Sky HD boxes

Didn't realise that, I can't see listings for their UHD channel so just assumed they'd show their major shows.

stesaurus

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Agreed
I have sky q & UHD. I also have a good quality Sony TV. There is a very little difference between upscaled HD & Sky's 4K on my TV. 4K is a waste on Sky Q imo. The real major advancement in picture quality is HDR and as yet Sky don't broadcast in HDR. On the other hand Netflix & Amazon prime video have shows & movies in 4K and HDR for a few years now.

As already mentioned you will need to subscribe to Sky Q multi room to get 4k content.

They will eventually broadcast in HDR and I assume their Q box is hardware capable.
Their standard HD boxes will be left behind going forward.
Looks like I'll need to find a new solution

stesaurus

Mundo7976 wrote: »

That wasnt skys fault, HBO made it that way deliberately, its been well written about

Yeah yeah it was deliberately dark but there was a massive difference between a version I sourced myself and the broadcast version. Whatever encoding they used meant it was a mess to watch directly on the Sky HD box.
When you're paying for a product like Sky you really shouldn't be able to source a better version quickly and easily.

icdg

stesaurus wrote: »

Didn't realise that, I can't see listings for their UHD channel so just assumed they'd show their major shows.

The reasons they don’t have listings for their UHD channel is because there isn’t one in the conventional sense. UHD programmes are offered in two ways, the first and most obvious is that on certain programmes, say a Premier League match or F1 race, a pop up will appear on the screen “Press Select to watch in UHD”. This goes away after a few minutes but you can still access via red button. That will bring you into the UHD feed of the event or programme. The other way is that certain on demand programmes will be marked as available in UHD and you can choose to download them in that format.

Sleeper12

stesaurus wrote:

Didn't realise that, I can't see listings for their UHD channel so just assumed they'd show their major shows.

They don't have a UHD channel so all you have in UHD is a selection of movies (if you subscribe to the movie channels) and some box sets. Most of the UHD boxsets are Sky produced TV series. There aren't very many of them & most of the Sky produced programmes I wouldn't be bothered watching. You won't find many US 4K content on Sky. Netflix & Amazon have a bigger selection of UHD.

They'll get there in the end but Sky are lagging in the 4k and HDR department.

Samuel T. Cogley

Sky started blocking SkyQ kit back at the beginning on the year. Second-hand stuff is supposedly useful only as a door stop.

Marcusm

stesaurus wrote: »

I hadn't been interested until a recent GoT episode. One in particular was pretty unwatchable due to darkness and poor 720p picture on a large screen.
I'm paying a lot of money for Sky with HD but I needed to resort to other illegal methods to watch a higher definition version of the episode.
It's ridiculous really.
I'm well aware of why Sky went down the mini box route which don't come with their own cards. There should be some leeway with unusual setups that won't work with WiFi extenders.

You could cable it from another box (mini, router or q)