Sky Q

galtee boy

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Nope. How long have you had yours in?

I don't have SkyQ and based on what I'm reading here and in the UK forums, I'm glad I didn't get it, it seems riddled with bugs. It has the potential to be the Rolls Royce of pay tv systems, but it obviously needs a lot of tweaking and it's surprising of Sky that they let it out on the market until it was 100% ready. I had Sky+HD since it was launched and the most I had to reboot the box was 2 or 3 times in 10 years.

jeffk

Got ours installed today, thanks to here and various sites I was ready, we got a new dish and hybrid lnb(old box was used via magic eye, so might as well have it connected as new mini is connected to tv that used magic eye)

Issues on the mini, taking ages to load a channel, sputtering when it did load, then won’t give me an EPG past today. You’ll need a booster (which of course he didn’t have) I’ll be back this evening with it (still waiting)

We got two remotes for the main box (button and non-button navigation), the engineer said because some people can’t use the non button one

• Plus, and minus 24 hours in the guide is now fast forward and rewind button, clever, but should be on the bottom like the old yellow red etc. button hints where
• I miss the reminders, handy to use it like a tv guide or basically to remind you
• I preferred the old mini window to search for shows etc
• No option to turn off the big blue Q
• Record button should be record and then press twice is series link

MarkAnthony

galtee boy wrote: »

I don't have SkyQ and based on what I'm reading here and in the UK forums, I'm glad I didn't get it, it seems riddled with bugs. It has the potential to be the Rolls Royce of pay tv systems, but it obviously needs a lot of tweaking and it's surprising of Sky that they let it out on the market until it was 100% ready. I had Sky+HD since it was launched and the most I had to reboot the box was 2 or 3 times in 10 years.

Riddled is overstating it a bit, it's 95%, perhaps more there but it is at the early adopter stage. I have a bit of interest in tech so I'm willing to admit I'm a bit biased based on having hardware from Dev kits to new release cards you expect to take a few weeks/month for the drivers to be tweaked but Sky IMO had it ready to go on mass release when it did.

A testament to them is how perfect the mature product they have is. I'm not aware of any other company in the field that has that. To fair fair again, there's been no push to upgrade AFAIK. If you prefer a mature product that needs rebooting once every three years as opposed to once every 3 weeks that's perfectly reasonable.

My issues are:

Loosing sat signal - 30 second fix every few weeks.
Recordings - box is being replaced, really shouldn't have to be but meh service is free.
Interface is a bit janky.

The wifi system, watch in any room and various other features make it a clear winner for me, but horses for courses.

@JeffK the extra remote is handy for a hidden mini. I don;t really like the bluetooth remote but it's useful in the kitchen!

jeffk

Onto sky looking for my booster

Has anyone got rte player? On hold and they said about having it on sky q, i cant find it

helimachoptor

its gone live today

jeffk

helimachoptor wrote: »

its gone live today

Got an email saying its here as well thanks.

Just waiting on it appear now

jones

I'm currently paying €90 a month for 2 sky hd boxes (one 2TB HD box and regular HD box) for multi-room and HD as well as sports and movies and general channels. I have a magic eye from one of the boxes to the bedroom.

I was originally very interested in sky Q thinking I might get a newer set up for the same money but even with getting rid of multi room/HD sky were charging me €104 for the same set up on sky q. Are multi room and HD sub both scrapped when going with sky Q?

Two questions: My broadband isn't great - about 8mb - I might be totally missing the point but as it uses wifi is it using the broadband bandwidth or is it just the wifi channel its using? Basically will I see a slow down on my other internet connected paraphernalia?

As regards the magic eye i currently have upstairs I'm assuming it will not work with sky Q?

Thanks,

Jones

MarkAnthony

Multiscreen and HD are scrapped. You pay a 'activation fee' for the boxes upto 4 additional boxes. IIRC it's €99 for your first 2 boxes (Silver+mini) then + €99 for another mini. Only the main box and 2 other boxes can be watching TV at anyone one time.

Wifi is just for downloads, if anything you'll see a bit of a speed up in areas covered by the boxes as they work as boosters.

AFAIK magic eye's dont work with Q.

jones

MarkAnthony wrote: »

Multiscreen and HD are scrapped. You pay a 'activation fee' for the boxes upto 4 additional boxes. IIRC it's €99 for your first 2 boxes (Silver+mini) then + €99 for another mini. Only the main box and 2 other boxes can be watching TV at anyone one time.

Wifi is just for downloads, if anything you'll see a bit of a speed up in areas covered by the boxes as they work as boosters.

AFAIK magic eye's dont work with Q.

When you say scrapped does that mean that the "normal" sky will stop being charged for them as well or just the sky q price includes MR and HD?

MarkAnthony

jones wrote: »

When you say scrapped does that mean that the "normal" sky will stop being charged for them as well or just the sky q price includes MR and HD?

Sky+HD (normal Sky) will continue to merrily take your cash for MS and HD.

Sky offer two different models now: SkyQ without additional subscriptions but with activation fees and Sky+HD with subscription fees.

In addition to both products there are still premium subs for Sports and Movies but BOTH platforms can avail of any discounts on these products. SkyQ on the other hand has been positioned as a no discounts platform, how long that lasts is debatable.

Sparko

I've lost TV3 HD on Sky Q - 103 has just vanished. The SD channel is still there on 200 something. Have rebooted box and it's still gone. Anyone else missing 103?

EDIT - A second reboot and it's back. Nevermind!

Marcusm

Sparko wrote: »

I've lost TV3 HD on Sky Q - 103 has just vanished. The SD channel is still there on 200 something. Have rebooted box and it's still gone. Anyone else missing 103?

Mine too; bizarre.+1 is still there as is the standard def.

Sparko

Marcusm wrote: »

Mine too; bizarre.+1 is still there as is the standard def.

Mine is back, I rebooted the main box again and the miniboxes too and it reappeared.

I'd honestly not miss the channel but my mother can't live without her Vincent Browne!

Headshot

All these issues really put me off.

I may go for it when 4K comes out but not now.

Any idea when sky are starting 4k?

Avada

Headshot wrote: »

All these issues really put me off.

I may go for it when 4K comes out but not now.

Any idea when sky are starting 4k?

Rumour is start of the premier league season

jeffk

Jesus sky q, sky or the people asked to put it in are a mess

• Mini box lags, lucky if you can get tomorrow on epg
• 4 phone calls and a boards private message to sky reps the day after install an engineer comes out at 7 with booster
• Almost 2 hours of mostly having a go at it (including telling me to factory reset my virgin media router, there is issues with the internet and it keeps going off), says its ok and almost runs out door, leaving me to finish updating mini and then main one after match
• Go to watch match, recording starts 30 minutes in and I see the score
• Then the mini stops working
• 25 minutes onto sky, ill ring the installation people tomorrow at nine and be back to you, can’t be sure if someone will come out tomorrow to fix it

What a mess, latest virgin router with top package in hall, main box beside it in sitting room and mini above it, but still issues

beercr8te

jeffk wrote: »

Jesus sky q, sky or the people asked to put it in are a mess

• Mini box lags, lucky if you can get tomorrow on epg
• 4 phone calls and a boards private message to sky reps the day after install an engineer comes out at 7 with booster
• Almost 2 hours of mostly having a go at it (including telling me to factory reset my virgin media router, there is issues with the internet and it keeps going off), says its ok and almost runs out door, leaving me to finish updating mini and then main one after match
• Go to watch match, recording starts 30 minutes in and I see the score
• Then the mini stops working
• 25 minutes onto sky, ill ring the installation people tomorrow at nine and be back to you, can’t be sure if someone will come out tomorrow to fix it

What a mess, latest virgin router with top package in hall, main box beside it in sitting room and mini above it, but still issues

I had trouble too with my install last week, I kicked up a fuss about it on the talk to sky ireland forum here, at the time I had a vodafone service and modem and i had connection issues due to modem not assigning an IP address to the minis even with boosters used.

The engineer was out of his depth clearly and had also turned up with one mini box missing to add insult, the sky reps managed to sort it out after the installation firm would not sort my problem out and a very experienced engineer was sent to sort it out the next day, he arrived with equipment to interface with modems and show the network operating. I now have sky broadband with sky q hub and have no issues.

I have read on the sky.com forums that some people have activated the built in powerline feature the boxes have by entering the installer menu and report that their systems work perfect now with their modems.

techdiver

Has anyone just hard wired all boxes and disabled wifi?

Did you get any improvement/stability?

jeffk

techdiver wrote: »

Has anyone just hard wired all boxes and disabled wifi?

Did you get any improvement/stability?

According to one of the latest sky customer care reps, if its not on their broadband there will be issues :rolleyes:

MarkAnthony

jeffk wrote: »

According to one of the latest sky customer care reps, if its not on their broadband there will be issues :rolleyes:

That's a shame, most people seemed to get it running pretty well on Virgin. I did wonder if that was going to have a 100 hit rate right enough, good to get some balanced feedback.

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

According to one of the latest sky customer care reps, if its not on their broadband there will be issues :rolleyes:

Make absolutely no sense....

I wish communication from companies was clear and accurate. If they don't know the answer, don't bull**** it, just say I don't know.

jeffk

MarkAnthony wrote: »

That's a shame, most people seemed to get it running pretty well on Virgin. I did wonder if that was going to have a 100 hit rate right enough, good to get some balanced feedback.

Just comes across as sales speak to me, our service wont work with the fastest and best service out there

I'm hitting 30Mbps on WiFi where the mini box is, so that's not enough

jeffk

You want to be a fly on the wall since I got it in Wednesday

Engineer you need booster
Sky customer care, you where lucky to get one as non sky broadband customers don't get them

techdiver

A lot of the issues I'm seeing too is caused by the sky wifi mesh. I'm on Virgin broadband and the Sky Q Silver box can only see the 2.4Ghz channel of my router (Asus AC87U), so it is limiting itself to the 2.4Ghz speed. The Q boxes then broadcast a 5Ghz hotspot for each of them to connect to, but this is pointless as the silver's maximum speed is limited to what it can get from the 2.4Ghz channel. So for instance say I have 2 minis streaming + a on demand show downloading, you will start to clip off the top of available bandwidth to the silver.

Now, one question I have, is does the streaming data from the Silver go wifi direct to the boxes over the 5Ghz mesh, or does it route through the 2.4Ghz channel that the Silver is connected to? (I suppose I can check my router traffic later when I get home to answer this....)

The workaround is to use wired connection, but they have also only fitted 100mb ports on these boxes!! Crazy! I'm still leaning towards going wired though as 100mb wired will be more stable than 2.4Ghz wifi especially when multiple devices could be sharing the channel space.

jeffk

Then sky should either include powerline adaptors or make it work in the boxes

I turned wifi off and wouldn't work, people on sky forum said it did for them

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

Then sky should either include powerline adaptors or make it work in the boxes

I turned wifi off and wouldn't work, people on sky forum said it did for them

Did you do it though the installer menu?

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You need to enable Ethernet there too I think. I haven't tried it yet myself though.

jeffk

techdiver wrote: »

Did you do it though the installer menu?

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You need to enable Ethernet there too I think. I haven't tried it yet myself though.

Yes I tried that, i assumed(wrongly?) the boxes done all the work.
I'm guessing you'd need to connect a Ethernet cable from the box to a plug and then repeat the other end?

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

Yes I tried that, i assumed(wrongly?) the boxes done all the work.
I'm guessing you'd need to connect a Ethernet cable from the box to a plug and then repeat the other end?

Yeah, if you disable wifi you would need to hard wire all boxes.

MarkAnthony

techdiver wrote: »

Make absolutely no sense....

I wish communication from companies was clear and accurate. If they don't know the answer, don't bull**** it, just say I don't know.

To be fair that's pretty much what they've said. It's a third party product we can't fix it. The customer is entitled to rescind the contract and to be fair to Sky I've never heard of them locking people into contracts when they can't supply the service.

jeffk wrote: »

Just comes across as sales speak to me, our service wont work with the fastest and best service out there

I'm hitting 30Mbps on WiFi where the mini box is, so that's not enough

Again not really. The engineers are no doubt measured on successful installs. They just can't get it up and running. I doubt there is a conspiracy here. Do Sky want you on their broadband, of course they do, but Sky are the masters of soft sell. Furthermore loads of people seem to be up and running on third party broadband.

Sky seem damned if they do and damned if they don't in a lot of ways.

jeffk

techdiver wrote: »

Yeah, if you disable wifi you would need to hard wire all boxes.

I heard power-line and just assumed plug boxes in and sends the signal, when you think of it it doesn't make sense

jeffk

MarkAnthony wrote: »

To be fair that's pretty much what they've said. It's a third party product we can't fix it. The customer is entitled to rescind the contract and to be fair to Sky I've never heard of them locking people into contracts when they can't supply the service.



Again not really. The engineers are no doubt measured on successful installs. They just can't get it up and running. I doubt there is a conspiracy here. Do Sky want you on their broadband, of course they do, but Sky are the masters of soft sell. Furthermore loads of people seem to be up and running on third party broadband.

Sky seem damned if they do and damned if they don't in a lot of ways.

Tablet,phones,chromecast,laptop,andorid box all work fine on my wifi.
Put in sky q, all of a sudden said broadband isn't up to scratch

Router in hall,main sky box beside hall in sitting room,mini box above main box,short of having them in the same room you cant get much closer

MarkAnthony

jeffk wrote: »

Tablet,phones,chromecast,laptop,andorid box all work fine on my wifi.
Put in sky q, all of a sudden said broadband isn't up to scratch

Router in hall,main sky box beside hall in sitting room,mini box above main box,short of having them in the same room you cant get much closer

It's the Sky mini box that isn't up to scratch. How do you think it's gonna go for the 20 something lad in Ballsbridge in his first/second job that tells you that?

It works in the majority of cases. In my case I couldn't get Virgin equipment to work properly between floors. Sky come along and now I've great broadband coverage.

Unfortunately no product is perfect and you can't please everybody.

beercr8te

For the 5Ghz wifi mesh network with wifi hotspots to be enabled you need the sky q hub that comes with sky broadband. The sky q system works perfect since I got sky broadband and sky q hub installed, had problems when I had my broadband service with vodafone.

MarkAnthony

beercr8te wrote: »

For the 5Ghz wifi mesh network with wifi hotspots to be enabled you need the sky q hub that comes with sky broadband. The sky q system works perfect since I got sky broadband and sky q hub installed, had problems when I had my broadband service with vodafone.

That would be a criticism I'd level against Sky tbh. There should be an option to bridge the Sky hub into third party networks.

beercr8te

MarkAnthony wrote: »

That would be a criticism I'd level against Sky tbh. There should be an option to bridge the Sky hub into third party networks.

I agree.

techdiver

I've just successfully hard wired my silver and one mini and everything is working fine. Going to see how it goes over the next few days.

jeffk

techdiver wrote: »

I've just successfully hard wired my silver and one mini and everything is working fine. Going to see how it goes over the next few days.

Maybe that's something that sky will have to look into, but then defeats the marketing campaign and tech spiel of any room/wire free boxes

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

Maybe that's something that sky will have to look into, but then defeats the marketing campaign and tech spiel of any room/wire free boxes

The problem is the reliance on wifi for a one size fits all approach. Different homes will have different issues with wifi. Although my wifi is good there is always the issue of contention especially when they don't enable 5ghz for non sky broadband customers.

jeffk

techdiver wrote: »

The problem is the reliance on wifi for a one size fits all approach. Different homes will have different issues with wifi. Although my wifi is good there is always the issue of contention especially when they don't enable 5ghz for non sky broadband customers.

Again im hearing different.

According to the installer(who im begging to think has been throw in the deep end as the face of installs with basic training and hopefully it wont go wrong)the boxes use both wireless bands, now you say non sky broadband customers don't get 5ghz?

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

Again im hearing different.

According to the installer(who im begging to think has been throw in the deep end as the face of installs with basic training and hopefully it wont go wrong)the boxes use both wireless bands, now you say non sky broadband customers don't get 5ghz?

The boxes are capable of both and they broadcast a (useless to non sky broadband customers) 5ghz hotshot. But the connection between the silver and your router is only capable of connecting to the 2.4Ghz band (for non sky bb customers), which means with 3 sky q devices running simultaneously you will be relying on the throughput of your routers 2.4Ghz band.

Also the engineers are essentially satellite installers and are not network engineers.

jeffk

Can you turn on 5 in the engineer mode? I seen it in there, cant be that easy?

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

Can you turn on 5 in the engineer mode? I seen it in there, cant be that easy?

It's already enabled. I tried all combos, it won't connect. I've read elsewhere that this is happening for everyone.

byte

techdiver wrote: »

It's already enabled. I tried all combos, it won't connect. I've read elsewhere that this is happening for everyone.

A shambolic carry-on if true.

jeffk

Had an engineer out today

• Anything that’s happening to setups is recorded and used to fix bugs etc
• A software update coming July 21st or so
• Said about not using 5Ghz, more or less laughed it off saying he doesn’t know why non sky people can’t use it
• The latest Virgin Media routers are ok for setting up, loads of issues with the older ones
• Also the Vodafone ones are near impossible to setup
• If there’s issues, plug out the main box, hold in power, put in plug (the old hard update mechanism)
• Said a lot of people are saying about reminders
• Also agreed the new system for typing in Wi-Fi passwords, searching etc isn’t great

robert muldoon

I must be one of the lucky ones, I got a sky q install 2 weeks ago and all is going quite well, had a few probs but mostly due to the fact that there is no instruction manual with the silver box so I had to query most things thru the Internet and the Sky Q team. I live in the country and DONT have any landline broadband so I use a Vodafone 4G dongle which gives me up to 10mbs download at a fairly consistent rate . I will have Imagine wireless fibre in August minimum 30mbs download with 20gbs data per DAY ,I will do any downloading at the moment ,catch up etc during daytime as its safer

helimachoptor

jeffk wrote: »

Had an engineer out today

• Anything that’s happening to setups is recorded and used to fix bugs etc
• A software update coming July 21st or so
• Said about not using 5Ghz, more or less laughed it off saying he doesn’t know why non sky people can’t use it
• The latest Virgin Media routers are ok for setting up, loads of issues with the older ones
• Also the Vodafone ones are near impossible to setup
• If there’s issues, plug out the main box, hold in power, put in plug (the old hard update mechanism)
• Said a lot of people are saying about reminders
• Also agreed the new system for typing in Wi-Fi passwords, searching etc isn’t great

I've a VF router and it's worked fine for months, I've needed one reboot, my mini is used more than my main tbh

techdiver

I'm a few days post ethernet wiring my silver and one of my minis, whilst leaving 2 of the other minis using wifi.

Thus far I have seen no signal drop from the hard wired mini, but it still does happen occasionally on the minis using wifi. I have 2 more powerline adapters on the way. I think that will resolve at least one of my issues.

So in short, my investigation has shown that:

Wifi = Bad
Wired = Good

To be honest this is always the way with all devices connected to the internet, despite what Sky say!

peteeeed

sky q 4K is coming 13th august and no extra charge

http://www.stuff.tv/news/sky-puts-4k-in-q-13-august

more details of end of july update

flangemeistro

peteeeed wrote: »

sky q 4K is coming 13th august and no extra charge

http://www.stuff.tv/news/sky-puts-4k-in-q-13-august

more details of end of july update

Great so now all we need on top of a €150 upfront payment and a €136 monthly subscription is a €1500 TV.

Unless you want to see a fleas ball hair on national geographic then 4K is totally unnecessary and will go the same way as 3D TVs and curved TVs.

peteeeed

flangemeistro wrote: »

Great so now all we need on top of a €150 upfront payment and a €136 monthly subscription is a €1500 TV.

Unless you want to see a fleas ball hair on national geographic then 4K is totally unnecessary and will go the same way as 3D TVs and curved TVs.

i'll let you know when my 1500 tv arrives