Sky Stream has arrived in Ireland

Is anyone experiencing audio sync issues? I have a Sonos Beam connected via arc. It's very noticeable. Fire cube works perfectly for comparison.

Considering sky stream - offer is 50 per month for combined [TV+500Mb Internet] (+10 for Cinema maybe) - have a few questions - be grateful if anyone who has system can answer….

1. What is the hardware for SKY broadband like (not the tv puck) - Sales guy said would be using Virgin Media Fiber network. Want to know if I would need rewire the house as its currently VirginMedia via coax from road, through the walls to the VM box in center of house and from there to personal network switches. A link to a photo of the internet box they supply would be great to see if it has ethernet ports as we prefer ethernet for our devices when possible over wifi.
2. Can we 'record' and timeshift BBC now? Some posts here seem say different things. Not my thing - but a requirement from family here is to watch bbc strictly, jungle, celeberity ice etc. type shows etc. later that night after they air. Would that be possible with stream?
3. If we "Record" I understand its just a link to the on demand - can we fast forward etc easily - past adverts even?
4. After 12 months and we loose the paid for "Fast Forward adverts" feature - does this we have watch adds in recordings also then? We cannot manually skip forward past the adverts??

Thanks!

What is the hardware for SKY broadband like (not the tv puck) - Sales guy said would be using Virgin Media Fiber network. Want to know if I would need rewire the house as its currently VirginMedia via coax from road, through the walls to the VM box in center of house and from there to personal network switches. A link to a photo of the internet box they supply would be great to see if it has ethernet ports as we prefer ethernet for our devices when possible over wifi.

Sky broadband is usually SIRO. If your sales guy is right then no change is required. If SIRO is needed the install guy will take care of it. The modem/router is pretty good

Can we 'record' and timeshift BBC now? Some posts here seem say different things. Not my thing - but a requirement from family here is to watch bbc strictly, jungle, celeberity ice etc. type shows etc. later that night after they air. Would that be possible with stream?

If we "Record" I understand its just a link to the on demand - can we fast forward etc easily - past adverts even?

No, there is no recording facility on Sky Stream, see posts above for what recording has been replaced with

After 12 months and we loose the paid for "Fast Forward adverts" feature - does this we have watch adds in recordings also then? We cannot manually skip forward past the adverts??

Again, there is no recording facility. The "fast forward adverts" is for the on-demand/catchup content and costs €6 a month to skip the ads after 12 months

Eir is the only streaming provider that has unrestricted recording working properly for BBC and UK channels. Sky, Vodafone, and VM all have restrictions. BBC don't have ad's (except their own trailers), but you can fast-forward normally through the recordings on Eir. RTE don't allow any of the streaming providers to do cloud recording, forcing the use of RTE player or catch-up for playback. All the TV providers are trying to force customers away from their legacy hard-drive boxes to streaming, so you will likely have to move at some stage - but if you want proper recording, you might want to stick with your legacy box on coax cable or move to Eir. Sky are using the retirement of satellite and VM are using the retirement of copper coax cable to encourage customers to move to streaming.

I don't need cloud recording, regular recording works fine. Perhaps a stream recorder box will be next in line, wasn't there sky before sky+ for example? Think stream+ might be the next step

They are completely legal, as long as the recorded material is for personal use only you will not be in trouble for using one. However I can't seem to find one no matter how hard I look. Let me know if you find one

Dare I say, we could resurrect our old VHS or DVD recorders?

Mind you, you might have to purchase an HDMI to scart/composite adapter.

Coming back to Sky Stream itself. Can you get a sky stream box alongside SKY Q or are you only allowed to run the one system in your premises?

Also, does the SKY stream box have any geo-tag/geo-location security measures akin to the phoneline connection on boxes of yesteryear?

We had stream and q in the one household, we tried it under one account and had the q under another

Not sure about the security measures, are you suggesting there's a potential to bring your q to your holiday home?

Thanks for the feedback. Do you mean you had two separate names/addresses on paper for SKY Q and stream respectively?
I have no doubt that the boxes will work in the 1 premises, from a practical standpoint.
I'm just thinking of the paperwork issue and if you need to/can work around it.

No the 2 names were in the same address, we had 2 separate account numbers

In terms of security measures, Yes, I would be interested in possibly bringing a sky stream box to a holiday home and still use it as normal or is there some kind of geo-tag/lock that restricts it to your billing address?

In theory it should work as stream works using any broadband providers connection (you don't need to be with sky broadband to use sky stream, you can be with Vodafone, Eir, Pure or maybe even one of the mobile broadband crowds) and I didn't notice anything specific about geo-location in the menu or the settings. However I would be very slow to give a definite answer as the only real way of knowing is to try it and see does it work

A little off topic, so apologies in advance, but a cheaper option might be to buy an old games console second hand and use Sky Go on that. Does Sky Go work with Apple TV also?

I've plugged mine in at another address and it worked without problems. In theory it should work anywhere within the EU as it is a paid streaming subscription.

Considering this, is it allowable for Virgin Media/Vodafone to restrict their streaming subscription services to their own router? Like should you be able to watch them anywhere in the EU?

Would you recommend eir over sky stream service? I assume you need fibre broadband to stream any of the tv providers or can you stream sky with the ordinary broadband?

The UHD sports on sky stream is absolutely outrageously good

There was meant to be a deal when saorview launched that we would get BBC on it and NI would get RTE on Freeview but that never materialised in the end

RTE and TG4 might be available on that new streaming service in NI, not mainland UK of course, but I guarantee you, the Virgin Media channels won't be.

You have to watch the ads, but you can fast forward through them. But the biggest problem with Sky Stream is that it more or less doesn’t work with the BBC player. All others seem to work ok, however playlist will only remain however long the program or film stays on the player.

60HZ will work fine and you’ll have great picture

Wasn't sure where to post this so apologies if this is the wrong place. Was thinking of going back to sky q as a new customer after a few years with virgin and I see they still charge €10 pm for HD(free for the first two months). Anyone know how likely they are to give it free for the year to a new customer?