Sky Q

MarkAnthony

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.

No it won't. There are other way more effective techs out there to improve the viewing experience but they are not being implemented because the consumer can understand the concept of more dots, hence the industry will keep increasing resolution and consumers will keep buying it.

icdg

Announcement of Sky Ultra HD:

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10500323/124-premier-league-games-live-in-ultra-hd-with-sky-q-silver

Johnboy1951

techdiver wrote: »

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!

It will be interesting to see if there are many complaints about 4K over Wifi in the future.

Kensington

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It will be interesting to see if there are many complaints about 4K over Wifi in the future.

It seems only the Sky Q silver box is capable of 4K.

The mini boxes are not.

Johnboy1951

Kensington wrote: »

It seems only the Sky Q silver box is capable of 4K.

The mini boxes are not.

More limitations!

At least the Wifi won't be a problem so

techdiver

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

It will be interesting to see if there are many complaints about 4K over Wifi in the future.

Kensington wrote: »

It seems only the Sky Q silver box is capable of 4K.

The mini boxes are not.

Yeah, the wifi should have on bearing on 4K (apart from download speeds of On Demand content).

I think the way forward is to definitely hard wire at least the main silver box. I'm going to test that scenario tonight and re-initialise the mesh then as it seemed in my setup it wasn't using the mesh and everything was routing though my main router. I don't hold out much hope though, that why I have a couple more powerline adapters on the way so I can hard wire all boxes.

I know I shouldn't have to do resolve these issues myself, but over the years my experience has been that I am more capable at resolving my own technical issues than any "engineer" that is sent out to me unfortunately. I am an IT professional though...:D

Kensington

techdiver wrote: »

Yeah, the wifi should have on bearing on 4K (apart from download speeds of On Demand content).

I think the way forward is to definitely hard wire at least the main silver box. I'm going to test that scenario tonight and re-initialise the mesh then as it seemed in my setup it wasn't using the mesh and everything was routing though my main router. I don't hold out much hope though, that why I have a couple more powerline adapters on the way so I can hard wire all boxes.

I know I shouldn't have to do resolve these issues myself, but over the years my experience has been that I am more capable at resolving my own technical issues than any "engineer" that is sent out to me unfortunately. I am an IT professional though...:D

Love to hear how you get on with the powerlines.

The only way I can get all the boxes talking to each other initially using Ethernet powerline adapters is by not enabling wifi/hotspot feature on them. If I enable wifi it refuses to work - can browse EPG and go up and down channels but black screen for video and no sound.
Even at that when the Ethernet works well if there's so much as a momentary blip on the powerline adapters the whole mini streaming just falls over and stops working until I reboot everything.

Never in my life have I had to reboot something so much (and I work in IT :-) )

techdiver

Kensington wrote: »

Love to hear how you get on with the powerlines.

The only way I can get all the boxes talking to each other initially using Ethernet powerline adapters is by not enabling wifi/hotspot feature on them. If I enable wifi it refuses to work - can browse EPG and go up and down channels but black screen for video and no sound.
Even at that when the Ethernet works well if there's so much as a momentary blip on the powerline adapters the whole mini streaming just falls over and stops working until I reboot everything.

Never in my life have I had to reboot something so much (and I work in IT :-) )

I'll update when I get everything sorted.

techdiver

Ok, here is a snapshot of where I was from beginning to where I am today. Some of the tips below might help others, especially when Sky is not your broadband provider and you are not connecting to a Sky Q Router.

1) When originally setup entirely by wifi the Silver is connected to the main router (Asus in my case).
2) Using the WPS to connect all the minis also connected them to the Asus router. All traffic going from the Silver to the Mini's was being rou

I then decided to connect my main silver and 1 mini via wired ethernet connection. This resolved the drop out issues on the mini that was wired, but the other minis still suffered from issues ans it was still using the same 2.4Ghz channel as all my other devices.

Last night I decided to re-initialise the whole system. I decided the following:

1) Still leaving the Silver via wired connection and WPS the minis to it.

The results were interesting. Now once every mini was connected the connected network name changed from my Asus router to the name of the Sky Q Silver box. It also resulted in the mesh being properly utilised! I.E. None of the streaming traffic was going through my router it was going via direct wifi from the boxes to each other. In the few hours last night after doing this I have have no issues with either drops out of TV Guide going missing.

So my diagnoses is this:

If you don't have Sky broadband the Silver will only connect to 2.4GHz wifi. Each box will then use WPS to connect but will in turn (and this is the critical point!) only connect to the same router for all traffic, essentially making the wifi mesh useless! The only way to get the mesh to work correctly is to hard wire the silver box and re-initialise the WPS setups. You will then notice every box will have a network connection name identical to the Silver box as opposed to whatever your 2.4GHz wifi network name is.

Johnboy1951

I wonder the result if the router Wifi was turned off during the initial set up. Would the boxes then have used their own wifi?

techdiver

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I wonder the result if the router Wifi was turned off during the initial set up. Would the boxes then have used their own wifi?

Could try it, although you obviously need it on to connect to the silver. I have a hunch though that the silver just shares out the connection to the minis tough.

I still think since the Silver is restricted to 2.4GHz it is better to hard wire if possible. The minis might work fine using the mesh as long as distance isn't too great.

winston_1

Kensington wrote: »

Love to hear how you get on with the powerlines.

Best not to use them. They are nasty things that cause interference to other nearby users of the RF spectrum.

Kensington

techdiver wrote: »

Ok, here is a snapshot of where I was from beginning to where I am today. Some of the tips below might help others, especially when Sky is not your broadband provider and you are not connecting to a Sky Q Router.

1) When originally setup entirely by wifi the Silver is connected to the main router (Asus in my case).
2) Using the WPS to connect all the minis also connected them to the Asus router. All traffic going from the Silver to the Mini's was being rou

I then decided to connect my main silver and 1 mini via wired ethernet connection. This resolved the drop out issues on the mini that was wired, but the other minis still suffered from issues ans it was still using the same 2.4Ghz channel as all my other devices.

Last night I decided to re-initialise the whole system. I decided the following:

1) Still leaving the Silver via wired connection and WPS the minis to it.

The results were interesting. Now once every mini was connected the connected network name changed from my Asus router to the name of the Sky Q Silver box. It also resulted in the mesh being properly utilised! I.E. None of the streaming traffic was going through my router it was going via direct wifi from the boxes to each other. In the few hours last night after doing this I have have no issues with either drops out of TV Guide going missing.

So my diagnoses is this:

If you don't have Sky broadband the Silver will only connect to 2.4GHz wifi. Each box will then use WPS to connect but will in turn (and this is the critical point!) only connect to the same router for all traffic, essentially making the wifi mesh useless! The only way to get the mesh to work correctly is to hard wire the silver box and re-initialise the WPS setups. You will then notice every box will have a network connection name identical to the Silver box as opposed to whatever your 2.4GHz wifi network name is.

How is it stability wise after a day, 2 days, 3 days?

Even when I connected everything over Ethernet after a day it all fell over again anyway and was back to my mini marathon about the house rebooting everything.

I take it you're also not on sky BB, that might be my next attempt to try...

R.F.

I'm on the full package + multiroom and was looking into getting the HD upgrade and then noticed SKY Q full pack isn't too much difference in price

Does SKY Q include normal HD in the package?

Does multiroom work as normal with that extra mini box included?

Is everyone experiencing lag issues with this box?

If I also changed my broadband pack to sky would this fix the issue, as I believe the mini box acts as a booster?

muffler

R.F. wrote: »

I'm on the full package + multiroom and was looking into getting the HD upgrade and then noticed SKY Q full pack isn't too much difference in price

Does SKY Q include normal HD in the package?

Does multiroom work as normal with that extra mini box included?

Is everyone experiencing lag issues with this box?

If I also changed my broadband pack to sky would this fix the issue, as I believe the mini box acts as a booster?

HD is included as standard with the Sky Q box. I assume the mini boxes would be the same but Im not sure on that one as I dont have the system installed myself.

Depending on what type of multiroom you are used to, you will find that the mini boxes cant record like some multiroom boxes that people have set up that way (i.e. Sky+ box with twin feeds). The mini boxes do however allow you to watch any thing you have recorded on the main box.

muffler

R.F. wrote: »

I'm on the full package + multiroom and was looking into getting the HD upgrade and then noticed SKY Q full pack isn't too much difference in price

Does SKY Q include normal HD in the package?

Does multiroom work as normal with that extra mini box included?

Is everyone experiencing lag issues with this box?

If I also changed my broadband pack to sky would this fix the issue, as I believe the mini box acts as a booster?

Forgot to say. Just in case you weren't aware Sky have their own talk to forum here on Boards. There are quite a few threads about the boxes and if you cant get a definitive answer the reps are online from 1 - 5 on weekdays

zg3409

R.F. wrote: »

If I also changed my broadband pack to sky would this fix the issue, as I believe the mini box acts as a booster?

The best way of connecting everything is using computer ethernet cables, both to the broadband box and the main box and multiroom.

Accessing normal channels does not use your broadband speed, but things that use an internet link, such as on demand services need a half decent broadband. Broadband speed depends on your phone line quality.

Sky's broadband uses a phone line, and is slightly more compatible with all the boxes. However even with Sky's broadband, any wireless can have interference from neighbours and blocking of signals due to thick walls. 5Ghz is very affected by thick brick walls.

A way to link boxes without wires, is to use powerline adapters. These are extra pieces of hardware that use your house wiring. You can use them with any internet provider. They are still not as good as a wired cable. The installers may or may not agree to use these if they have any.

In terms of providers UPC/Virgin Media is normally considered the best, where available. Nearly all other providers use your phone line, so speed depends on phone line quality and distance from the house to the nearest phone cabinet (Fibre powered).

If you have UPC I would not switch to Sky broadband, as it would probably be slower. If you could install computer cables between all boxes that would be best, long term. Even the best wifi system can have problems and if there are bugs in the system even cables won't help. Having a computer connection in every room is handy in the future. The cables can be ran on the outside of the house. If you want reliable recordings you might want to wait for bugs to be fixed.

In relation to HD, note without the HD pack you can still get some channels HD for free like BBC, RTE, etc. assuming your box is HD capable.

beercr8te

R.F. wrote: »

I'm on the full package + multiroom and was looking into getting the HD upgrade and then noticed SKY Q full pack isn't too much difference in price

Does SKY Q include normal HD in the package?

Does multiroom work as normal with that extra mini box included?

Is everyone experiencing lag issues with this box?

If I also changed my broadband pack to sky would this fix the issue, as I believe the mini box acts as a booster?

I found I saved 44 euro a month upgrading to Sky Q silver multiroom over my old set up, you have to haggle. I had wifi issues with the system when i was with vodafone for broadband, it did not matter what was done to get it working (even boosters made no difference) I had connection drops constantly between modem and Sky mini boxes (due to IP's not being assigned from modem to boxes) and also between the boxes themselves.

Luckily I made the decision before installation to switch to sky for broadband and received Sky Q hub a few days after the Sky Q installation and all works perfect now, not one issue since and the Sky WIFI mesh network is all over my house with hot spots enabled I have excellent wifi signal and speed around the house. Perhaps other providers modems work better or are more compatible than my vodafone modem did, that's just my story.

There was a Firmware update for Sky Q a while ago that was meant to resolve issues with non sky modems, i guess they need to work harder, hopefully the built in powerlines in the boxes will be officially enabled in a future firmware update, but you can do it from the installer menu from what i've read.

mdfire

Just out of interest what is the current firmware? I havent upgraded in quite a while and im on version 21L

beercr8te

mdfire wrote: »

Just out of interest what is the current firmware? I havent upgraded in quite a while and im on version 21L

21L is still the current version, no doubt we'll see a new one before August 13th for the UHD service.

You can check what versions is current and all previous version on this site:
https://skyepginfo.co.uk/Firmware/Firmware.php

jeffk

mdfire wrote: »

Just out of interest what is the current firmware? I havent upgraded in quite a while and im on version 21L

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=100324362&postcount=695

ffocused

Here is a link which will show you the latest firmware for Sky Q and lists the improvements of each one.
https://skyepginfo.co.uk/Firmware/SkyQ.php

techdiver

Big firmware update released.

No details of fixes, but new features are mentioned here:

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Community-Blog/Something-new-is-coming-to-Q/ba-p/2497515

Haven't had a chance to test it out yet, so don't know if any reported issues are fixed.

ffocused

'Other channels' now work on mini box.

techdiver

ffocused wrote: »

'Other channels' now work on mini box.

Do they??

Brilliant! That's great news!

techdiver

ANother thought. I wonder can we now tune in the SES 4K promo channel? Since 2160p is now enabled on the Silver....

ffocused

Bluetooth remote has had the touchpad sensitivity dialled down & it is now usable. (or the batteries in mine are on the way out!)

Cannot see any other differences except UHD but I don't have a UHD TVs to test it with.

helimachoptor

I would expect quite a big improvement in mini box connectivity from the fix.

techdiver

helimachoptor wrote: »

I would expect quite a big improvement in mini box connectivity from the fix.

To be honest I'm not sure there will be. I wouldn't hold my breath. If the signal to the minis is weak there is very little they can do with that apart from boosting the Tx power (which would break regulations).

I have re-initialised the wifi mesh on mine again, although i have left the Silver connected via ethernet. It "seems" stable at the moment, but I haven't given a good test yet. I have noticed that the minis or the mesh is very susceptible to wifi interference even from different channels/frequencies.

I had 2 different wifi routers set up in roaming mode with the same ssid. The Sky Q mesh operated separate to this, but any time we maxed out the second wifi router it would cause a connectivity issue with the sky q minis. The are not crossing channels or anything, so I'm really at a loss at the moment and need to perform more tests over the weekend.

MarkAnthony

ffocused wrote: »

Bluetooth remote has had the touchpad sensitivity dialled down & it is now usable. (or the batteries in mine are on the way out!)

beercr8te

Installed this 3am, now thank god the whole system is running in UHD so menus are razor sharp now all we have to wait for is the content to come, i'll be trying out the ses astra demo later, i already have it set up on my tv for months, i urge anybody with a UHD tv to try this demo on their sky q silver box,

SES Astra 28.2 UHD Demo

Satellite: ASTRA 2E

Frequency: 12.441 GHz

Polarisation: Vertical

Symbol Rate: 29.5 MS/s

Modulation: DVB-S2 QPSK

FEC: 3/4

ffocused

Is channel 279 (Insight) in UHD for anyone with a capable tv?

It is marketed as a UHD channel so I would assume it is or will be in UHD on Sky.
It has a few half decent programmes on it too.

mossie

beercr8te wrote: »

Installed this 3am, now thank god the whole system is running in UHD so menus are razor sharp now all we have to wait for is the content to come, i'll be trying out the ses astra demo later, i already have it set up on my tv for months, i urge anybody with a UHD tv to try this demo on their sky q silver box,

SES Astra 28.2 UHD Demo

Satellite: ASTRA 2E

Frequency: 12.441 GHz

Polarisation: Vertical

Symbol Rate: 29.5 MS/s

Modulation: DVB-S2 QPSK

FEC: 3/4

Cannot tune this in, comes up no channels found'

Gerry Wicklow

ffocused wrote: »

Is channel 279 (Insight) in UHD for anyone with a capable tv?

It is marketed as a UHD channel so I would assume it is or will be in UHD on Sky.
It has a few half decent programmes on it too.

Insight UHD is FTA on 19° and encrypted on 28°. Presumably so Sky can screw you for even more money.:mad:
BTW they have a very limited selection of programs so far.

steveon

ffocused wrote: »

Is channel 279 (Insight) in UHD for anyone with a capable tv?

It is marketed as a UHD channel so I would assume it is or will be in UHD on Sky.
It has a few half decent programmes on it too.

Insight UHD is being added to guide fairly soon August perhaps when the UHD part is launched mostly for sports..

There is also a new firmware update for the Sky Q box been launched

http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2016/07/21/first-software-update-for-sky-q/

helimachoptor

Sky uhd content doesn't start til mid August

beercr8te

mossie wrote: »

Cannot tune this in, comes up no channels found'

Just managed to try it, same result, it will probably work when we get the next update just before August 13th. This channel works and looks perfect on my HU8500 tv using its satellite inputs.

Loafing Oaf

Hi guys, anyone know if it's possible to record the 'additional channels' on Sky Q?

techdiver

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Hi guys, anyone know if it's possible to record the 'additional channels' on Sky Q?

No Sky seems to have actively blocked any interaction with the additional channels apart from tuning them in. You can't even quick toggle between them, you have to go out the whole way through the menu to change the channel. Very annoying.

Loafing Oaf

techdiver wrote: »

No Sky seems to have actively blocked any interaction with the additional channels apart from tuning them in. You can't even quick toggle between them, you have to go out the whole way through the menu to change the channel. Very annoying.

Plus you can't watch them on the mini-box as far as I can see...

digiman

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Plus you can't watch them on the mini-box as far as I can see...

Since the software upgrade this week it is now available.

Loafing Oaf

digiman wrote: »

Since the software upgrade this week it is now available.

Oh so you can cheers. Now if I could only get my mini-box connect back to my wi-fi so I can watch anything at all...:rolleyes:

robert muldoon

I am getting Imagne LTE fibre broadband installed in a couple of weeks and am wondering if there are any issues with Sky Q as I live out in the sticks, I have to use Vodafone 4g dongle at the moment but it has its limitations

mdfire

robert muldoon wrote: »

I am getting Imagne LTE fibre broadband installed in a couple of weeks and am wondering if there are any issues with Sky Q as I live out in the sticks, I have to use Vodafone 4g dongle at the moment but it has its limitations

Ive Sky Q and a crappy 1.5mb internet connection. Your tv signal still comes via satellite and the multiroom is the internal network. I just cant use the on demand stuff which downloads...well i can but its not worth the wait

robert muldoon

mdfire wrote: »

Ive Sky Q and a crappy 1.5mb internet connection. Your tv signal still comes via satellite and the multiroom is the internal network. I just cant use the on demand stuff which downloads...well i can but its not worth the wait

Why don't you get the Vodafone 4G dongle, however you would need to be able to get 4G or 3 mobile also has the facility, my Vodafone gives me download of up to 20 mbs but data is only 30GBS per month but you can get add ons up to 150 Gbs but it gets very expensive I think 3 mobile s unlimited

Loafing Oaf

robert muldoon wrote: »

I am getting Imagne LTE fibre broadband installed in a couple of weeks and am wondering if there are any issues with Sky Q as I live out in the sticks, I have to use Vodafone 4g dongle at the moment but it has its limitations

Does anywhere in Kildare really count as 'the sticks' anymore?

robert muldoon

Loafing Oaf wrote: »

Does anywhere in Kildare really count as 'the sticks' anymore?

As far as broadband is concerned , it's very much in the sticks

robert muldoon

When I use the home button, it defaults to Top Picks and I have to scroll up to TV channels .surely this can't be right, my question is: Can this default be changed?

techdiver

robert muldoon wrote: »

When I use the home button, it defaults to Top Picks and I have to scroll up to TV channels .surely this can't be right, my question is: Can this default be changed?

It is by design and no, annoyingly you can't change it!

jeffk

Has anyone got a Sky Q booster?

Changed the name of my wifi,now cant get it to connect,tried WPS method on router to it,then main box to it,then mini box to it,then all boxes to it

I get the feeling it might be a waste of time and better off just not using it