Sky Q ?

[tigerburnie]

I've had a letter offering a free Sky Q box, now I am of the "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" persuasion and immediately think "what's the catch". Anyone taken the plunge on this deal yet? I have a fairly basic package with the company, no sport, no movies, no Netflix, so really cannot see what they are up to.....................cynical?...........................me?............................

[spamcan61]

I've not seen this specific offer, but when I changed Sky package about a year ago they pushed the Sky Q box pretty hard, although I refused it. I guess they're gradually trying to.migraye their user base off satellite on to streaming as it's presumably cheaper for them to 'broadcast' that way.

[RFS]

The Q box is not free with any deal. It's always the property of Sky and if you cancel your contract with Sky then the Q box has to be returned. It's still satellite-based, not streaming-based - that's Sky Glass.

 

We upgraded to Sky Q from HD+ about 18 months ago and it's brilliant. Actually got a deal that worked out less than we had been paying previously. Have a couple of mini-boxes for the kitchen and bedroom as part of the deal. The Q box manages all the smart features (iPlayer etc) and feeds the main TV and miniboxes with the output, so you no longer need a smart TV. Our main TV stopped streaming iPlayer after about 9 months due to a software glitch of some sort, but Panasonic were not interested in fixing that as they'd moved on to the next year's model. Plus all the new apps are missing too from this TV. Now no problem with Q.  And we can record up to 5 programs simultaneously!

[AndrueC]

I've had Sky Q almost since it came out. There are a couple of advantages to the box over the Sky+ units and a couple of disadvantages. For me the biggest gain was the ability to record up to six programmes at the same time. I never watch live TV and most of my viewing is in the 9pm to 11pm slot so I often need all six options. The On Demand side of things is pretty slick and integration with Netflix et al is nice and pretty cost effective.

 

Things you lose:

• Slow motion replay.
• Bookmarks.
• Reminders

I don't miss any of those.

 

The fact it's more graphical is nice but there are a couple of disadvantages:

• You can't switch off the small picture in the Guide (at times it will go away but when there is space for it it will be there). I leave my box permanently tuned to channel 401 because I don't have the sports package and at least then the small screen is either just showing a silent 'You must subscribe...' message or whatever I'm currently playing back.
• The page up/down key only works on the programme guide. There are plenty of other times when it would be nice to have it. A classic example is if you want to find the latest episode of a long running series. Lord help you if you ever want to find the latest episode of Wheeler Dealers for instance.
• My biggest bugbear. when exiting playback you are unlikely to be returned to the recording selection page (sometimes you will but not often). Most likely you will end up at the main menu which forces you to then navigate back through your recordings to find what you've just been watching so that you can delete it. This has been a bug since day one and Sky are just that useless at fixing bugs.

But the UI does the job and despite the age of my box (must be over six, maybe seven years by now) rarely crashes.

 

If it ever does fail then it won't cost me anything. Sky Q boxes remain the property of Sky so they will get you back up and running without you have to pay a penny. On the other hand that will mean you lose all your recordings which is a bit annoying. I don't archive anything (I'm a strictly, record, watch, delete person) but because I don't watch live TV it would be very frustrating having an empty box.

Edited November 7, 2023 by AndrueC

[john new]

The most irritating, but minor issue, is the loss of the ability to switch channels, for example to check on a sports score in the advert break on something else. On the old box it was a single button press.

 

Other than that  more than happy with ours after several years of use. Don’t want to switch away from satellite to internet as ours is still not yet available as a fibre option so a bit flakey.

[RFS]

31 minutes ago, john new said:

The most irritating, but minor issue, is the loss of the ability to switch channels, for example to check on a sports score in the advert break on something else. On the old box it was a single button press.

 

Do you mean selecting a different channel and then switching back? You can use the right navigation button to switch back to the previously selected channel. 

[J. S. Bach]

Sounds to me like the Vast Wasteland got vaster!

[Metr0Land]

Only a couple of drawbacks after changing 18 months ago.

 

a/ I later found they'd extended contract to 1yr from date of new box - didn't matter in this case but was a bit sneaky.

b/ For various reasons I used to find it useful on old box to record manually from eg 1am-4am on given channels - this option seems lost now on Sky Q.

 

(Ref losing old saved progs - this seems to be a given with any set top box - Freeview, Sky, Youview etc)

[AndrueC]

6 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

b/ For various reasons I used to find it useful on old box to record manually from eg 1am-4am on given channels - this option seems lost now on Sky Q.

Ah yes I'd forgotten that. Also we have lost the ability to manually tune so now can't watch a channel unless it's listed on the Sky EPG.

[njee20]

I actually much preferred the UI on the Sky+ box, and I liked that you could move recordings from box to box via the HDD, and you could use a device to send the signal to another TV (eg the bedroom), Sky Q requires you buy mini boxes and pay for multi-room,  but Sky Q is still good, and better on balance IMO.  

[AndrueC]

There was a simplicity to the old UI and it was well thought out with respect to buttons on remotes. The Sky Q UI is mostly okay but suffers from usability issues that Sky are unwilling or unable to address. For instance they way it handles button focusing is poor and non-standard and at times hard to even distinguish.

 

Actually one new feature they added which was very welcome is 'Skip 30 seconds'. I seem to remember that old Sky+ boxes only had FF/RW.