I was just browsing the Sky Ireland website and it has a banner for Sky Stream. It states to phone Sky for further information
Interesting points, and you certainly do get the feeling of software controls rather than hardware controls, with a big of lag in the response times.
I've noticed in the past week or so that they're putting just one advert in many of the ad breaks. So by the time you pick up the remote and fast forward, the feckin ad is nearly over anyway, and you spend more time rewinding to find the end of the ad, start of the show! So I'm tempted to actually watch the ad, despite my allergy to ads otherwise. Sneaky feckers.
I don't have that problem watching RTE or C4 stuff, when you can press to skip the entire ad break, and it restarts at the right place.
Thanks very interesting living with it kind of review.
The bit about the pucks really hit me because it seems to be repeating mistakes from Q. The minis seem to be the bare minimum to get things working under perfect conditions.
It's strange too since the pucks don't need to be a whole lot more than firesticks, Chromecasts etc.
Thanks @KildareP - great honest review. I suspected the hardware on this was underpowered. I'm used to the very responsive Apple TV hardware, so I would certainly get frustrated by this.
I'll be sticking with the Now TV app for premium content, and my own solution for FTA content.
Have had this close to two months now. I probably won't be keeping it once the 12 months are up.
We bought it originally to get live TV where we had no connections to aerial or satellite and didn't want to run any.
(1) Playlist is not a PVR - I understood that from the get go, and it wasn't a massive use case for us anyway when looking.
Until Call The Midwives launched a new season over Christmas. It's added to Playlist, but currently, only Episode 1 is available on catch-up despite them being on Episode 3 on broadcast. Going to BBC through catch-up and it only shows one episode. Other half NOT impressed.
Even on RTÉ and Virgin content, it can take 24-48 hours after broadcast for content to appear, despite the content being available on the respective players (only RTÉ player is accessible from Sky Stream) almost immediately after transmission. Until they show available to the Sky Stream system, you won't see them in playlist nor can you play them (unless, in RTÉ's case, you go to the RTÉ player app directly).
(2) The "pucks" are clearly built to a cost. Everything is sluggish, laggy, it regularly stops responding to remote commands for several seconds and then "catches up". It's on version 24 of software already and was originally shipped with version 9 - whether they've had 23 previous versions or not I do not know. With the latest update, if you press too many remote buttons while it has gone into its unresponsive state, it seems to cause the puck to reboot completely which means 20-30 seconds staring at a black screen. Jumping between live TV, recordings, or third-party apps is incredibly clunky slow, and generally you'll be thrown back to the homescreen at some point along the way.
(3) Channel hopping too fast can also cause problems. If you jump channels too quickly, you'll land on a channel along the way to be told "Please wait for this programme to load" except it doesn't. Go channel up or channel down either side, no problem. Try and watch the problem channel - nada. This seems to have started only with the latest update.
(4) Live programming has also started to be interrupted by "Please wait for this programme to load" for 10-15 seconds every 2-3 hours with the latest update. Never noticed it before and we'd the darts on for hours on end over Christmas. I've seen suggestions on their forum to wire it by Ethernet to rule out WiFi, except there are people reporting the issue remains while on Ethernet as well and that wiring by Ethernet can actually create more issues (one of which is that the puck doesn't appear happy if it's not connected to WiFi and will complain repeatedly if you have it wired only).
All in all, it appears to still remain a beta trial product, on vastly underpowered hardware, with a lot of quirks left to work out.
I have this now about 4 months and am happy enough with it. The Playlist feature can be a bit erratic and it’s difficult to organise it, and I suppose you never know how long something is kept on the players which are used to load this Playlist, but I guess the extras on offer outweigh this negative of not having regular recorder. The 2 free cinema tkts a month in Vue are nice!! I will have to arrange something with Sky before the 12 months are up as the monthly price then would be far too high.
In broad terms, I'm liking the Sky Stream. I've got the remotes configured to switch on/off the LG tv, and manage volume, so I can put away the LG remotes, which won't be needed for day to day purposes.
It's a fairly substantial culture switch, moving away from scheduled TV and channels, to a more content based approach, choosing what you want to watch and when you want it. The lack of recording hasn't bothered me really, though there was one BBC series that I couldn't pick up.
There's a few inconsistencies in the interface that could certainly be improved. It's a slight PITA that they keep advertising their current 'hot' programmes, even after I've watched those particular series. Something that was a bit more 'aware' would be an improvement.
It's a bit strange how the standard up/down buttons to step through the channels work in the reverse direction after you click into the program information.
It's a bit strange how to fast forward the adverts in the main player requires single press, or a few presses to get to x6 or x12 x 30, whereas in the Channel4 player it requires a press-and-hold to skip the ads.
It got a bit confused between Fargo the movie and Fargo the TV series, both available on Prime. I had to actually go into Prime to choose the series, as it wasn't available through the main Sky interface, where only the movie could be seen.
In general, it's working for me, and saves me the effort of getting a dish with FTA services put in.
Same. There seems to be a delay of 24-48 hours for Playlist to pick up episodes on RTÉ and Virgin, grand for RTE as the RTÉ Player app is directly accessible but Virgin Media you have to just wait it out.
We had an odd one last night, looking for the Inside Penneys show, which broadcast on RTE around 8.30.
We went looking on the Sky Stream about 9.30pm, and I was impressed that the voice recognition picked up 'Penneys' as Penneys and not pennies. It found the show listing, but there was nothing available to watch.
However, we went into the RTE Player by choosing another RTE show, did a search inside the RTE Player, and the show came up as available to watch.
Looks like some kind of discrepancy between the Sky listings and the RTE Player.
They are both working now again. Both MOTD that is .
I can add MOTD to my playlist, and it remains there. When I click in, I can play the most recent episode.
Just got sky q installed and it's nearly as bad as stream. I've already had a few errors when I click on the demand stuff. No simple catch up option like virgin offer seamlessly on their tv service. Looks like this will also be getting returned in the next week unfortunately
Match of the Day not being available on catch up is really annoying as it was available up until about two weeks ago.
It was great to be able to watch it at a time that suited if you missed the live broadcast.
Hopefully this is an issue that can be resolved soon.
On the whole, we are in our second month of using Sky Stream and can honestly say we are finding it to be a really good service overall. We had a FTA box and it was fine but you really do notice how much better the entire UI and experience is with Sky.
Match of the day is a strange one. I checked and it is downloadable from catch-up on Sky Q so that shouldn't be any weird rights issue.
One of those oddities that sky takes an age to resolve.
I keep adding match of the day to my play list but it's never there when I go in . Yet match of the day 2 episode is always there each week . wtf . Still having to use dodgy box to watch back sat nite motd
Most pay tv providers will not allow that. I am a fan of the Apple TV too, but I have seen enough comments on eir TV on these forums to know that love isn’t universally shared - a lot of hate for the Apple Remote in particular (which I personally love) which is why eir now ship their Apple TV’s with a more traditional remote.
But an Apple TV based solution would not solve the recording issue, as it doesn’t have a HDD.
Seems people are not loving this device, especially if you depend on the ability to record reliably. That would not bother me too much as I rarely record, but some friends & family do, and it absolutely would not work well for them.
It's a shame they don't allow BYOD (bring your own device). I use Apple TV devices around the home, and from what I understand the Sky Stream device is somewhat sluggish and underpowered in comparison.
My experience is different. I tested the live pause yesterday, and it lasted longer than five minutes, on C4. What channel did you find the five minute limitation on.
I've also added C4 and Sky shows to my playlist, and both work flawlessly. The only one I had difficulty with was one particular BBC show. I was able to add it to the playlist, but I couldn't play it back on demand, or use the 'watch from start' facility.
They have a marketing company that dont give up ringing you until they have you roped in. My biggest issue with them is that they promised me that I could record all home stations, including BBC etc. I asked if they have ITV and he said yes, UTV... In the end, pure dishonest. Fact is they try and connect your playlist to all the TV players. The only one that somewhat works is RTEPlayer (although News doesn't link for some reason). Sky News works. You can add a BBC program but then when you try and play, nothing happens because you cant link to BBC IPlayer in Ireland. If you pause Live TV, the pause only lasts about 5 mins before it restarts again. Only real benefit I got is Netflix which I never had before. This works well but only on one device.
I cancelled mine after 5 days, have sky q being installed next week. We had the puck connected via ethernet but the box kept saying it had no wifi connection
Anyone else having issues with Sky Stream at the moment? Internet is working fine but box keeps dropping out (ethernet connection)
Have added 3 programmes to the playlist over the last couple of days.
1 BBC, 1 TG4 and 1 Virgin.
None of them are there.
Joke.
That playlist setup is a bit of a mess. Unnecessary complication of something that should be so simple to sort out
Playlist has disappeared
tried turning on and off at the mains
nothing happening
any other solutions?
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The 0333 number worked for me a couple of weeks ago, calling them from Ireland.
Thanks for sharing the other number.
I think the 0333.. number is their UK number. They still haven't perfected targeting for Ireland.
Yeah that number is a joke, this is the one I used 0818719819
And now the phone number for Sky seems to be completely unavailable - tried calling it from two different networks, and getting 'number unavailable' on both. WTF like...
If you'd still rather get in touch, contact us on 03337591556. Please be aware we receive a lot of calls every day, so call wait times will vary during busy periods and opening times will vary by department.
I see that Sky have updated their help texts to say; "If you have linked the wrong Netflix account to your Streaming TV (Sky Glass or Sky Stream) account, you'll need to contact Netflix directly to update it."
This suggests that I'm not the only one with this problem. It doesn't seem to make ANY sense to be referring the problem onto Netflix - How could Netflix be expected to control the account on a Sky box? Really looks like they're pushing this off onto someone else....
This was an issue I had originally, albeit trying to redeem Discovery+. The Stream box shipped with an ancient version of firmware (QS009).
The below seems a bit finicky but it does work to get the firmware to update (QS023) and working pretty smoothly since.
To run a software update:
Switch the Sky Glass or Sky Stream puck to standby.
Switch it off at the mains and unplug it.
Plug it back in and switch it back on at the mains.
Leave the Sky Glass or Sky Stream puck powered on for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, switch the Sky Glass or Sky Stream puck to standby again.
Switch it off at the plug and switch it back on again. There’s no need to unplug it this time.
Press the Home button on the Sky remote.
After a few seconds, the Sky logo will show on screen as the TV or Sky Stream puck starts back up. The software version will now be updated to the latest version.
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