Sky Q

jca

jeffk wrote: »

We are getting this next week

Having issues with a refurb box (they won’t give new ones), the HDMI port seems to be knackered. Was quoted €60 to get someone to look at it a replace port or likely another refurb.

Then the big sell started (or so I thought) about this, said I’ll let them go. For €20 more upfront we get Sky Q with two new boxes. save €14 a month (more than paying the €80 back) and then drops down to €2 saving after 18 months

I’ve the magic eye setup for the parents and picture and sound isn’t HD, so be great that this setup will give them better picture/sound

Just buy a box on DD, threaten to cancel and enjoy the savings. Certainly better than using loaned equipment for 18 months.

jeffk

jca wrote: »

Just buy a box on DD, threaten to cancel and enjoy the savings. Certainly better than using loaned equipment for 18 months.

We just had a refurbished box from seirra(who i assumed tested it) break in couple of months, almost guarantee that or worse off a second box on any site.

I wont go elsewhere for TV and Im saving money, so contracts doesn't bother me. Same with my BB, 18 months with Virgin, grand im not going anywhere. Might as well get something for staying with them.

jca

jeffk wrote: »

We just had a refurbished box from seirra(who i assumed tested it) break in couple of months, almost guarantee that or worse off a second box on any site.

I wont go elsewhere for TV and Im saving money, so contracts doesn't bother me. Same with my BB, 18 months with Virgin, grand im not going anywhere. Might as well get something for staying with them.

Why won't they replace the box? I'm on a years contract but I'm getting a €104 package for €69 for 9 months of that contract and at the end I can renegotiate a new deal or go FTA etc. None of these options are available at the end of the skyQ 18 month contract. I'm in contract with VF for BB only in the hope siro come to town and give me ftth, although that could change as VM are doing Trojan work here and it looks like they could have the jump on all the competition.... Interesting times we live in eh??

jeffk

jca wrote: »

Why won't they replace the box? I'm on a years contract but I'm getting a €104 package for €69 for 9 months of that contract and at the end I can renegotiate a new deal or go FTA etc. None of these options are available at the end of the skyQ 18 month contract. I'm in contract with VF for BB only in the hope siro come to town and give me ftth, although that could change as VM are doing Trojan work here and it looks like they could have the jump on all the competition.... Interesting times we live in eh??

I haven’t a clue, something about we don’t give out new boxes to replace broken ones. I had untold issues with on demand and keep on and on at them, best I got was a refurb, €40 or so and a remote from serria and no call out fee. Not great consider I am over 15 years with sky.


But then I wouldn’t change over, if I moved out I use other methods to watch tv, but the parents are older and brother isn’t that tech minded, so sky is as easy a point and click and watch tv.


Yeah the broadband is amazing now, I was on an internship and had better BB than a big logistical company, its crazy where we have come from since the green eircom routers

techdiver

jeffk wrote: »

I haven’t a clue, something about we don’t give out new boxes to replace broken ones. I had untold issues with on demand and keep on and on at them, best I got was a refurb, €40 or so and a remote from serria and no call out fee. Not great consider I am over 15 years with sky.


But then I wouldn’t change over, if I moved out I use other methods to watch tv, but the parents are older and brother isn’t that tech minded, so sky is as easy a point and click and watch tv.


Yeah the broadband is amazing now, I was on an internship and had better BB than a big logistical company, its crazy where we have come from since the green eircom routers

Considering that Sky now retain ownership of the Sky Q equipment does that mean that they will replace faulty boxes for free in the future?

jeffk

techdiver wrote: »

Considering that Sky now retain ownership of the Sky Q equipment does that mean that they will replace faulty boxes for free in the future?

Id hope so ,seen as its theirs and now our own property. Id assume they will go all out to prove its not broken or you done something to it before replacing it

Avada

techdiver wrote: »

Considering that Sky now retain ownership of the Sky Q equipment does that mean that they will replace faulty boxes for free in the future?

Yes it does.

Re the refurb boxes. They'll only give new boxes to replace faulty ones after a third service call iirc.

Dave_Dublin

techdiver wrote: »

So I got Sky Q installed yesterday . . .


The Bad/Missing features:


Manual Tuned channels are not available on the mini's. This is quite annoying as the likes of ITV HD, Channel 5 HD can only be viewed in the main room.

I hate that too -- I've already had to move the main box (drilled holes + extended the cables) because we needed ITV in the other room.

The menu system is all there on the mini boxes for "other channels" whereas other features that are main-box-only don't even show up on the mini box menus.

Persistent asking for pin and no ability to disable it... It also asks for the pin every time you want to go to manually tuned channels.

Re: asking for PIN for "other channels" -- the only way to disable that is to have "Family" settings turned OFF

It's in the Parental section of the settings menu : Hide adult channels etc.

If any of them are ON, the PIN is requested for "other channels" just in case a "hidden" channel is tuned in manually to bypass the PIN

techdiver

Dave_Dublin wrote: »

I hate that too -- I've already had to move the main box (drilled holes + extended the cables) because we needed ITV in the other room.

The menu system is all there on the mini boxes for "other channels" whereas other features that are main-box-only don't even show up on the mini box menus.





Re: asking for PIN for "other channels" -- the only way to disable that is to have "Family" settings turned OFF

It's in the Parental section of the settings menu : Hide adult channels etc.

If any of them are ON, the PIN is requested for "other channels" just in case a "hidden" channel is tuned in manually to bypass the PIN

The side effect of that is any program 12 and above will ask for the pin regardless I think. I'll test again when I get home.

techdiver

techdiver wrote: »

3. I've encountered one issue already with the mini loosing connection to EPG and Menus. I can still flick through the channels and they load fine though. It was late last night so not sure will it still be the same issue today.

This happened again last night. After about 30 minutes it resolved itself. Has anyone else encountered this?

I've been reading it can be to do with the standby mode of the silver box. I'll have to test further.

Max Q

techdiver wrote: »

This happened again last night. After about 30 minutes it resolved itself. Has anyone else encountered this?

I've been reading it can be to do with the standby mode of the silver box. I'll have to test further.

It's a well known bug apparently. Head over to the Sky helpforum and if you search you'll find info on it. Apparently it started happening after the hour change to Daylight Saving Time. It usually happens around midnight but seems to sort itself out during the night. I'm sure they'll fix it with a software update eventually. It's disappointing how slow Sky are in fixing these issues.

techdiver

Max Q wrote: »

It's a well known bug apparently. Head over to the Sky helpforum and if you search you'll find info on it. Apparently it starting happening after the hour change to Daylight Saving Time. It usually happens around midnight but seems to sort itself out during the night. I'm sure they'll fix it with a software update eventually. It's disappointing how slow Sky are in fixing these issues.

Yeah, from looking at those forums, these issues were reported at launch. That is ridiculously slow to fix such and issue!

mossie

techdiver wrote: »

Considering that Sky now retain ownership of the Sky Q equipment does that mean that they will replace faulty boxes for free in the future?

Yes. I've had a faulty box replaced free of charge.

techdiver

Had another strange issue last night on the main box.

I did a check for a software update. It said it successfully installed and update and had to reboot. When it came back up, it said I have no satellite signal. I had to plug it out and then back in and it ran through initial setup again and then the satellite signal came back, but no EPG. I left it alone and watched something else from my media server in the meantime. I came back a few hours later and it was working again.

The other thing is even though it claimed it did a software update, the version is exactly the same. It's a very buggy system, especially for something that has been out since March.

Another silly observation I have is regarding some FTA HD channels not on the EPG. Example Channel 4 HD is not on the EPG, but you can download all the catch up material in HD from the Channel 4 player on the box?? Another thing is surely at this stage they can replace all SD versions of the CHannel with HD versions if available on HD boxes. I understand the need for SD variants on the old boxes, but this should be an easy change. Even symlink the SD to the HD and auto zap to the HD channel if the SD is selected. It would declutter the EPG and improve the user experience.

Kensington

It will always allow you do an update, it will always say update in progress and it will always say the update was successful. Regardless of whether there actually is a new update or not.

I also lost satellite signal for a time late last night, as well as that, came home yesterday evening to find the main Sky Q box wouldn't show any live TV - no warnings or messages or anything, could navigate menus and recordings, but no picture/sound for live TV.

It must have hung at some point early that day as well as all of my recordings for yesterday and late the night before hadn't been recorded. Still showing as Scheduled. After a reboot they all changed to Failed.

For such a great system to use it has far too many bugs and issues and inconsistencies that detract from it, I've rebooted my Sky boxes more times in the last 10 days than in the entire 14 years I've been using Sky TV.

Personally my 14-day cooling off period ends tomorrow and sadly I think I will have little choice but to make use of that option. Maybe in another year or so they'll have ironed out the bugs.


Re: Channel 4 - this has always been the case. 4HD not available on live TV but on-demand is. Can only assume this is because Channel 4 does not have a HD variant of the version which carries the Irish advertising (so they do not want to lose out on advertising opportunity) whereas 4OD has no ad's at all so no issue there.

beercr8te

Had the system installed with 2 miniboxes this week, the first installer made a balls of a job so a second installer had to come out to do a proper installation which was perfect. No issues so far and no connectivity issues between miniboxes and main sky q unit even with heavy wifi traffic in the house, although I guess the fact I switched to sky broadband and got the sky q hub has ensured a good connection, as my old modems wifi was much slower and weaker. The engineer showed me the the sky q wifi mesh network in action on his tablet and I have to say the quality of the wifi is very good, no boosters were needed even though there are a number of walls between the main box and the miniboxes.

I have to say the new layout is very nice on the menus and the extras like transferring films and programs onto tablet for later viewing offline is very handy, especially with kids. It is early days yet and I have read some people have had problems with their set ups, I was apprehensive about the system but decided to try it, so far so good. For anybody thinking about getting the system, I would recommend it from my own early experience with it.

techdiver

Lost the TV guide at midnight again last night. It's a bit of a joke that this hasn't been fixed yet to be honest. It came back exactly at 1am.

beercr8te

techdiver wrote: »

Lost the TV guide at midnight again last night. It's a bit of a joke that this hasn't been fixed yet to be honest. It came back exactly at 1am.

We lost the guide at same time and it cameback at the same time as you, looks like it affects everyone.

techdiver

beercr8te wrote: »

We lost the guide at same time and it cameback at the same time as you, looks like it affects everyone.

Yeah, there is a huge ongoing thread over on sky help forums (it's the single largest thread on the Sky Q section). The answer claims Sky are aware and are working on the issue, but there is little or no official information on when this will be resolved. It's not great really.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/No-TV-Guide/td-p/2448048

helimachoptor

would expect they'll fix that issue relatively soon.

xabi

beercr8te wrote: »

Had the system installed with 2 miniboxes this week, the first installer made a balls of a job so a second installer had to come out to do a proper installation which was perfect. No issues so far and no connectivity issues between miniboxes and main sky q unit even with heavy wifi traffic in the house, although I guess the fact I switched to sky broadband and got the sky q hub has ensured a good connection, as my old modems wifi was much slower and weaker. The engineer showed me the the sky q wifi mesh network in action on his tablet and I have to say the quality of the wifi is very good, no boosters were needed even though there are a number of walls between the main box and the miniboxes.

I have to say the new layout is very nice on the menus and the extras like transferring films and programs onto tablet for later viewing offline is very handy, especially with kids. It is early days yet and I have read some people have had problems with their set ups, I was apprehensive about the system but decided to try it, so far so good. For anybody thinking about getting the system, I would recommend it from my own early experience with it.

I thought the mini boxes didnt use your broadband to talk to the main box, only for downloading content. Sky Q has its own wifi network between boxes.

beercr8te

xabi wrote: »

I thought the mini boxes didnt use your broadband to talk to the main box, only for downloading content. Sky Q has its own wifi network between boxes.

You are correct, they do have and use their own 5Ghz wifi mesh network to communicate between mainbox and mini box, however, i have sky broadband with sky q hub too which boosts and uses the same wifi network, so all data between you sky boxes and other devices, laptops, consoles etc use this same network. The Sky q hub really makes the difference, previously i had the network set up without it and connectivity between boxes even with sky boosters was poor, for some reason, the vodafone modem would not assign an IP address to the mini boxes but would for the main sky q silver box.

So far the network has handled everything we have thrown at it, but its still early days.

mossie

techdiver wrote: »

Yeah, there is a huge ongoing thread over on sky help forums (it's the single largest thread on the Sky Q section). The answer claims Sky are aware and are working on the issue, but there is little or no official information on when this will be resolved. It's not great really.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Q/No-TV-Guide/td-p/2448048

I was told that by one of the reps on the Sky Ireland board weeks ago and still no solution. Pretty frustating to be honest. Apparently disabling HDMI control helps a little.

Headshot

Just curious, what would the broadband require for Sky Q be?

beercr8te

Headshot wrote: »

Just curious, what would the broadband require for Sky Q be?

You need an ASDL or Fibre connection and if you plan to use the on demand service a lot, a truly unlimited download allowance, if you are getting miniboxes in addition, the system works best with the new sky q hub that comes with sky broadband, I was in the process of switching to sky broadband when I got my sky q installed and I was with vodafone at the time, there was a problem with the vodafone modem not assigning IP addresses to the mini boxes and keeping a steady connection to the sky q silver box. After my switch over to sky broadband a few days later I used the sky q hub and everything worked perfect, but I've read of people using powerline adapters and the connection between boxes being good too. I hope this is of help.

techdiver

Headshot wrote: »

Just curious, what would the broadband require for Sky Q be?

There are 2 parts to the answer.

Firstly for the boxes to work simply for tv you need a decent wireless router. I use a different router than the one supplied by Virgin Media as their one is crap and has a weak wifi signal.

If you are using on demand services you need either an unlimited download cap or a very high one. The speed of your services will dictate how quickly you can watch on demand services.

You don't need to have Sky broadband for it to work. But you will need a decent setup all the same. My Virgin Media broadband with an after market router works perfectly.

ffocused

4 months in & my hard drive is on the way out already!
I can hear it getting stuck in seek loops intermittently & this morning I could not play anything from it.
On screen message said 'this feature is unavailable due to a problem with your hard drive' when I tried to watch any recordings.
A reboot fixed it for the moment.
I expect to be using the free engineer visits & replacement box 'feature' shortly.

MarkAnthony

HDD failures are pretty common in all deployments of the tech, nothing to be too worried about frankly.

Headshot

who manufactures the hard drives and can they be upgraded?

Headshot

Headshot wrote: »

who manufactures the hard drives and can they be upgraded?

As you don't own the Sky Q box you probably can't touch it.