Sky Q list of failings v sky plus

I think sky would ignore them. Issues are there but most people live with them or don't notice. What sound settings do you have captain on sky q? I have dd+ so get atmos on football. Thats where sound drop outs happening in the main.
 
I agree with Captain, there are no issues with my box. Definitely not a case I can't see them either 🤣🤣
 
I think sky would ignore them. Issues are there but most people live with them or don't notice. What sound settings do you have captain on sky q? I have dd+ so get atmos on football. Thats where sound drop outs happening in the main.

If everyone was suffering these issues, I don't think they could ignore them Kev, don't forget that Sky is a mass market operation with millions of subscribers. I'm not denying they exist, but like with everything else the people with issues are the most vocal, while you don't hear from the majority who are OK.

I have DD+ enabled and don't get any dropouts using that or anything else. But the issue of sound dropouts is a longstanding one preceding Sky Q, most of the complaints used to be about dropouts on 5.1 Sky Cinema back in the day.
 
Reading this makes me depressed for the future! I have a couple of Virgin V6 boxes and am saddened to read about all the issues that the new offering from Virgin has. It would seem they have released this far too early and quite a lot of people are asking to go back to their old system as there are a lot of missing features and usability issues.

It would seem that both Virign and Sky are going down the same route of removing features, making the user experience far worse (more button presses) all for the sake of making it look pretty. With the new Virgin offering you can't even undelete something if you've deleted it by mistake, also the series links (which are great on the V6 box) are a shambles in my opinion.

I really don't want to have to go to the next generation of either system if they don'e improve them both significantly!
 
Sky Q isn’t without its problems and the length of time it is taking to fix them is unbelievable. It also wasn’t that ground breaking when it was introduced. Apart from 4K, DirectTV in the US was doing it all years before.
The Wifi system is a joke and no replacement for a proper MESH system. Countless people experience audio drop outs. Many experience the box reporting a perfectly good TV isn’t HDCP compatible and need to reboot the box. Both possibly linked to fact HDMI output is at the lower end of spec so marginal with some TVs. No sign of Sky getting round to fixing either. Which would imply a hardware issue, except still reported in latest boxes.
But 4K much better than HD and HDR is great albeit too limited in Sky channels.
The con when I subscribed was I needed to take a mini box in order to get 4K. A box that sits there unused,
 
The sole reason I haven’t upgraded from Sky HD to Sky Q is because I would have to pay extra to have one of their stupid mini boxes to watch in the bedroom whereas with Sky HD the RF 2 and magic eye is a perfect solution for me. I’m not interested in HD upstairs. I’m not interested in watching 2 things at once as it’s only the wife and myself and if we do then one watches terrestrial while the other watches the sky recording. I’m not interested in recording more than 2 things at once. If that scenario occurs then I’ll either watch the third programme on terrestrial or download it on catch up. I’m also not interested in UHD and Dolby Digital is perfectly adequate for surround.
 
While I see many complaints about Sky in its various flavours one issue that has plagued me since the very beginning even with analogue boxes is the lack of discrete power on/off codes!

I still can’t believe (in better) that in this day & age Sky still don’t provide discrete on/off codes instead having just the basic power toggle on/off.

The other issue that plagues me (but maybe part of the blame lies with LG or Marantz in my case) is the problem where if the Sky Q box is turned on when the AV receiver has a different input selected. When I then select the Sky input I might get a brief flash of audio & video before the screen goes black but for all intents & purposes the input is dead until such times as I physically unplug the Sky box from power and reboot.

I suspect it has something to do with the HDMI handshake but that’s only guesswork on my part.

This only affects Sky Q as I can merrily switch between all other inputs with abandon and all works as it should.

Just wanted to air my own grievances with Sky while I’m in the mood...thanks for listening!

-=Glyn=-
 
As I say, I don't have audio drop outs. Neither do i have lip sync issues or picture break up. The ring main "issue" is a non issue for me, I don't miss bookmarks, and I use a Harmony remote.

You are also incorrect to say that switching "Eco" off prevents firmware updates. I just switch the box into standby as normal when not watching - updates are received without problem.

I appreciate you have issues and as I say I do agree that Sky could and should be much better than it is, but I fear you are losing perspective on it. If you think about it logically, if everyone had the same issues as you, do you really think that Sky would be able to ignore it?
Yes! And they are ignoring it.

So I’m also incorrect as you have no issues. So because you don’t have or notice these things nobody else who does have a problem is allowed to say so? Couldn’t possibly be anyone else who’s disgruntled in the world with the sky Q, because you don’t have a problem with it. Wow!

Perspective is , as you SO rightly say , is absolutely key.

So let’s look at that. Most people looking at Q that i meat ask is it better than plus. So they are mostly existing customers. And as the title of this thread the perspective is, v sky plus.

From sky’s POV they want to sell Q, what’s the best way to do that? Well stop selling sky plus for one. So what’s the choice? Q and that’s it. So why bother ? they aren’t trying to get market share in great chunks like they where with plus.

And they want new customers. Big carrots for them. Existing customers get very little in my experience. It’s a stitch up I’m afraid as said earlier it was almost impossible to see what uhd content was available.
Why do people think that announcing, with great glee and delight, that we are “delighted to announce the arrival of hdr....” years after the completion, that that is a good thing? Why? It’s not good? They are YEARS behind the competition. Years! Netflix has acres of hdr content. Sky give 3 docs in hdr as a fanfare ( but do so discretely and dont flag the programme as hdr so you can’t find it unless you know already) and you think a further 30odd films is something to behold? Really? Now if this was happening two years ago, maybe. And as I sit here Ally Mcoist has gone under water again. Btw!

So do you want sky Q?

As an existing plus owner/No uhd tv then no obviously. Defo stick with plus it’s far easier to use.

If you do have a uhd tv then it’s still debatable. If your tv is good it will upscale better than q will give you uhd. The improvement in uhd simply isn’t worth the agro. And by agro I mean hours on the sky phone system trying to get a human to answer your questions. To agree a contract. To agree an install date. And once installed after months waiting your back on the phone diagnosing faults and a re visit date, and that’s if they fix it. If they don’t, repeat the whole system again.

I haven’t mentioned though, that your only aloud one uhd input to the property. Only the main tv is aloud uhd. One. One uhd tv. If you have an annex. Tough luck, one uhd subscription per address. A cinema as well in uhd. Forget it, not on sky. Two uhd TVs. One in the bedroom maybe, not allowed uhd on sky. Mini box only. And the lag on the minis is poor.

It may be that an update has allowed updates to be installed more efficiently, as q14 has arrived on my box now. I didn’t have to faf around doing it manually. However the box was several updates behind a couple of months ago until I switched it off.
It’s interesting you choose to pick up on that, but ignore the fact the minis don’t work if the main box switches off in eco mode. And who orders a mini box you can’t use when ever you want? Dont you remember the adverts ? Pause and pick up recordings where ever you want. Provided you switch off the other box first. Really? Are you sure?

It may not bother you. But you think it’s ok to sell a product on that premis? Here’s sky Q. Uhd( a waters down uhd spec) DD+ ( with impossible lip sync issues and random drop outs) . Pick up and leave recording where ever you want( but you have to switch one box off before you can watch it on another if you want more than 2 mini boxes) . Record 6 things at once. ( well that’s good but why do I need that when everything is available on demand now?)

One thing I do like, the mini tv is also available in the info banner or whatever it’s called at the bottom of the screen, if you choose max 5 recordings. That works well. 🙄

Put it this way, if there’s a movie on sky I want to watch, I’ll check every other platform and watch it on there first any day of the week. Netflix on the tv app is far better quality than Q in any format.

Sky need to make sure they keep the sports on sky over their competitors or they really are in trouble.

I’d also suggest they need to look at internet only based tv service and drop the hardware altogether. Before the fire stick generation swallow them up entirely 🤐
 
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The con when I subscribed was I needed to take a mini box in order to get 4K. A box that sits there unused,
Me too. But they have now changed their packages so their is separate UHD charge (as there should have been from the start). Why they linked 4K capability with having to take an (unrelated) mini box was one of the most Stupid things Sky ever came up with!

I have recently taken a new contract where I have UHD for I think £4 a month, and scrapped Sky multiscreen which I never used. I did have to return the mini box but they sent a pre paid pack out for me to post it back with. Fortunately I had kept the mini box, because i could have easily have chucked it out!
 
While I see many complaints about Sky in its various flavours one issue that has plagued me since the very beginning even with analogue boxes is the lack of discrete power on/off codes!

I still can’t believe (in better) that in this day & age Sky still don’t provide discrete on/off codes instead having just the basic power toggle on/off.

The other issue that plagues me (but maybe part of the blame lies with LG or Marantz in my case) is the problem where if the Sky Q box is turned on when the AV receiver has a different input selected. When I then select the Sky input I might get a brief flash of audio & video before the screen goes black but for all intents & purposes the input is dead until such times as I physically unplug the Sky box from power and reboot.

I suspect it has something to do with the HDMI handshake but that’s only guesswork on my part.

This only affects Sky Q as I can merrily switch between all other inputs with abandon and all works as it should.

Just wanted to air my own grievances with Sky while I’m in the mood...thanks for listening!

-=Glyn=-
HDMI CEC on ?
 
Sky Q is a step forward. It's progress.

I do find the number of button presses to navigate things a bit odd, but it's darn easy to use and just works. I've got it hooked to my Sony A8 OLED and it works just fine. More 4k and HDR material will come.

The Virgin TiVo box is an abomination in comparison. My wife refuses to have it in the house - it's the user interface. Ugly mess
 
Yes! And they are ignoring it.

Perspective is , as you SO rightly say , is absolutely key.

So let’s look at that. Most people looking at Q that i meat ask is it better than plus. So they are mostly existing customers. And as the title of this thread the perspective is, v sky plus.

From sky’s POV they want to sell Q, what’s the best way to do that? Well stop selling sky plus for one. So what’s the choice? Q and that’s it. So why bother ? they aren’t trying to get market share in great chunks like they where with plus.

And they want new customers. Big carrots for them. Existing customers get very little in my experience. It’s a stick up I’m afraid as said earlier it was almost impossible to see what uhd content was available.
Why do people think that announcing, with great glee and delight, that we are “delighted to announce the arrival of hdr....” years after the completion, that that is a good thing? Why? It’s not good? They are years behind the competition. Years! Netflix had acres of hdr content. Sky give 3 docs as a fanfare and you think a further 30odd films is snorting to behold? Really? Now if this was happening two years ago maybe. And as I sit here Ally Mcoist has gone under water again. Btw!

So do you want Q?

As an existing plus owner/No uhd tv then no obviously. Defo stick with plus it’s far easier to use.

If you do have a uhd tv then it’s still debatable. If your tv is good it will upscale better than q will give you uhd. The improvement in uhd simply isn’t worth the agro. And by agro I mean hours on the sky phone system trying to get a human to answer your questions. To agree a contract. To agree an install date. And once installed after months waiting your back on the phone diagnosing faults and a re visit date, and that’s if they fix it. If they don’t, repeat the whole system again.

I haven’t mentioned though, that your only aloud one uhd input to the property. Only the main tv is aloud uhd. One. One uhd tv. If you have an annex. Tough luck, one uhd subscription per address. A cinema. Forget it. Two uhd TVs. One in the bedroom maybe, not allowed. Mini box only. And the lag on the minis is poor.

It may be that an update has allowed updates to be installed more efficiently, as q14 has arrived on my box now. I didn’t have to faf around doing it manually. However the box was several updates behind a couple of months ago until I switched it off.
It’s interesting you choose to pick up on that, but ignore the fact the minis don’t work if the main box switches off in eco mode. And who orders a mini box you can’t use when ever you want? Dont you remember the adverts ? Pause and pick up recordings where ever you want. Provided you switch off the other box first. Really? Are you sure?

It may not bother you. But you think it’s ok to sell a product on that premis? Here’s sky Q. Uhd( a waters down uhd spec) DD+ ( with impossible lip sync issues and random drop outs) . Pick up and leave recording where ever you want( but you have to switch one box off before you can watch it on another if you want more than 2 mini boxes) . Record 6 things at once. ( well that’s good but why do I need that when everything is available on demand now?)

One thing I do like, the mini tv is also available in the info banner or whatever it’s called at the bottom of the screen, if you choose max 5 recordings. That works well. 🙄

Put it this way, if there’s a movie on sky I want to watch, I’ll check every other platform and watch it on there first any day of the week. Netflix on the tv app is far better quality than Q in any format.

Sky need to make sure they keep the sports on sky over their competitors or they really are in trouble.

I’d also suggest they need to look at internet only based tv service and drop the hardware altogether. Before the fire stick generation swallow them up entirely 🤐

I didn't "pick up" on mini's not working if the main box is switched off in Eco mode, because I already pointed out that Eco mode is an irrelevance, just don't enable it. Problem solved.

As you will note from elsewhere in the thread I am far from a Sky fanboy, and am happy to criticise when I see issues. However, I just do not recognise your experience of taking hours to sort things out or all the technical issues you are having -particularly as some such as the Eco mode switch off are self inflicted.

I totally agree that they are well behind the curve on HDR, as they were on UHD, and their meagre offering is nothing to celebrate. They also do need to introduce a dish free internet only service - I understand this is something that Sky Italia have been trialling/using for a few years now, so why Sky are again dragging their heels on it, who knows.
 
Sky Q is a step forward. It's progress.

I do find the number of button presses to navigate things a bit odd, but it's darn easy to use and just works. I've got it hooked to my Sony A8 OLED and it works just fine. More 4k and HDR material will come.

The Virgin TiVo box is an abomination in comparison. My wife refuses to have it in the house - it's the user interface. Ugly mess

The problem is though (in my opinion) the new Virgin system has given the users a pretty interface but now it's many more button presses to achieve the same thing as the old V6 box. It's like a lot of websites - make everything look pretty but there's more clicks required just to do simple tasks. Sonos also did the same with their software.
 
Re updates

Most other manufacturers have a product support page so each time there’s an update you can look up what’s been improved.
For example Apple list the main items and lessor list of bug fixes etc.


Does anyone know if sky do the same?

I looked but couldn’t find anything. But then it would be totally out of keeping with sky’s Narcissistic mentality to actually inform customers what’s happening with the service they pay for, so I didn’t look that hard
 
I totally agree that they are well behind the curve on HDR, as they were on UHD, and their meagre offering is nothing to celebrate. They also do need to introduce a dish free internet only service - I understand this is something that Sky Italia have been trialling/using for a few years now, so why Sky are again dragging their heels on it, who knows.
Sky announced that plans to rollout 'dishless' Q in the UK have been shelved indefinitely in one of their quarterly reports last year.
 
the number of clicks to get to the part of setup to turn 4k on/off (if you have a good 4k tv, it can be better to let the tv upscale the HD picture) is ridiculous.
 
Sky announced that plans to rollout 'dishless' Q in the UK have been shelved indefinitely in one of their quarterly reports last year.
Did they say why ?
 
the number of clicks to get to the part of setup to turn 4k on/off (if you have a good 4k tv, it can be better to let the tv upscale the HD picture) is ridiculous.

Agreed. "Native" output as per available on Sky HD was much better IMHO, but apparently the great unwashed didn't like the momentary black screen while switching resolutions.
 
Re internet

New and exiting customers need to know this. The sky Q boxes are advertised with a hot spot feature. Iirc as a mesh system? A very good idea. And I’m assuming the amount of data transfer these boxes manage the WiFi must be pretty good spec if it’s installed correctly.

However, and as anyone who knows sky at all will suspect , there’s a catch (...there’s ALWAYS a catch with sky) the WiFi only works with sky’s broadband. Something they promised would not happen at launch, iirc.

So like me, now I know some people won’t fathom this if they don’t have the problem themselves 🙄 if you live in a rural area, like me, there’s a chance you won’t be able to get decent phone line based broadband. So like me, you won’t be able to get sky bb at all. Even if you wanted to. And given skys bb is Bt phone line based I know from experience you won’t get a decent service anyway unless your on Bt. Bt get better service from open reach, bad lines are prioritised to Bt customers. Not officially, oh no. We treat all costumers the same sir, scouts honour.
Bull snorts! We had a Bt engineer leave his notebook behind I’ve seen the notes of who’s lines is who’s and their provider info. Don’t believe a word of it. We be had our own unfathomable experience on this too

So, if you want the sky mesh/Hotspot feature or whatever it’s called, you can’t have it unless you take skys bb as well as the tv. And then they’ll be after you to take the phone service as well. And before you know it, with line rental, your bill is way bigger than you ever bargained for.


We can only get Gigaclear here. Unfathomable as that may be to some. So a 300mb connection that can’t be distributed by the sky box WiFi and the sky box WiFi can’t be turned off if you want the minis to work, last I heard ? So sky ha e no intention of distributing anything unless they get their pound of flesh
 
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I've come from 450mbps Virgin Tivo to 5mbps Sky Q. But the broadband speed isn't a fair comparision.

I love the fact that the Sky Q boxes act as hotspots. And they have given me 2 extra hotspots for my house (1860's over 3 floors), and they even hardwired the UHD box outside the house to a 2nd HD box. So the service and install is great. And i haven't had to pay for an expensive hub/mesh system separate to Sky and maintain that. (i do have a bonding router and 4g - no 5g yet - sim card router to make life bearable)
Plus i can move the boxes from room to room as needed to watch TV (not really need apart from in 1 room which doesn't have one as we're at the limit). With Virgin it was cables everywhere and BT can't do more than 2.

But the biggest issues for me are the in use flaws. Starting with guide button. Where is it? 4 key presses to select a guide and then you have to hit okay twice for full screen. and you can't bring up a mini EPG at the bottom of the screen. It's one channel by channel..Then when you fast forward unlike Virgin when you hit play you have to go rewind manually unless you are a gamer. With Virgin went back a few seconds to account for the delay in pressing the button. And recording etc. Someone at Sky should go try out Virgin's EPG and how easy it is to record stuff etc. It's only software so not difficult to replicate. But the lack of a guide button the remote is weird (unless i'm seriously missing something!)

I can't compare the picture quality as i've bought my first OLEDs so there is no comparison.
 
I've come from 450mbps Virgin Tivo to 5mbps Sky Q. But the broadband speed isn't a fair comparision.

I love the fact that the Sky Q boxes act as hotspots. And they have given me 2 extra hotspots for my house (1860's over 3 floors), and they even hardwired the UHD box outside the house to a 2nd HD box. So the service and install is great. And i haven't had to pay for an expensive hub/mesh system separate to Sky and maintain that. (i do have a bonding router and 4g - no 5g yet - sim card router to make life bearable)
Plus i can move the boxes from room to room as needed to watch TV (not really need apart from in 1 room which doesn't have one as we're at the limit). With Virgin it was cables everywhere and BT can't do more than 2.

But the biggest issues for me are the in use flaws. Starting with guide button. Where is it? 4 key presses to select a guide and then you have to hit okay twice for full screen. and you can't bring up a mini EPG at the bottom of the screen. It's one channel by channel..Then when you fast forward unlike Virgin when you hit play you have to go rewind manually unless you are a gamer. With Virgin went back a few seconds to account for the delay in pressing the button. And recording etc. Someone at Sky should go try out Virgin's EPG and how easy it is to record stuff etc. It's only software so not difficult to replicate. But the lack of a guide button the remote is weird (unless i'm seriously missing something!)

I can't compare the picture quality as i've bought my first OLEDs so there is no comparison.
One of the main failings with Q is the remote. Plus had
TV guide / box office/ devices/ interactive
As specific buttons on the remote.
The number of button pushes needed to replace those really makes it tedious to use.
Along with afore mentioned combined pause and play button the shortcuts are limited to long cuts, i presume in favour of a cheaper remote to manufacture.

And yet ....
the red green yellow blue buttons are present. Afaict these have no use? I’ve never had to use them I’m sure.
One suggestion I saw was to apply the guide button as a short cut to one of the colour buttons. 🤷🏻‍♂️
Seemed a good idea unless there’s a use for them


Re PQ, a way to compare uhd is to get the same content on screen and switch between sky and the app on the smart tv.

So oblivion on sky v oblivion on Netflix, and switch between the two.
Or YouTube on the sky platform v the same video on the YouTube app on the smart tv.

On my tv the pan and scan flicker is worse on Q, with less detail generally. Although being fare I haven’t dont that test since the latest Q14 update.
 
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Re internet

New and exiting customers need to know this. The sky Q boxes are advertised with a hot spot feature. Iirc as a mesh system? A very good idea. And I’m assuming the amount of data transfer these boxes manage the WiFi must be pretty good spec if it’s installed correctly.

However, and as anyone who knows sky at all will suspect , there’s a catch (...there’s ALWAYS a catch with sky) the WiFi only works with sky’s broadband. Something they promised would not happen at launch, iirc.

So like me, now I know some people won’t fathom this if they don’t have the problem themselves 🙄 if you live in a rural area, like me, there’s a chance you won’t be able to get decent phone line based broadband. So like me, you won’t be able to get sky bb at all. Even if you wanted to. And given skys bb is Bt phone line based I know from experience you won’t get a decent service anyway unless your on Bt. Bt get better service from open reach, bad lines are prioritised to Bt customers. Not officially, oh no. We treat all costumers the same sir, scouts honour.
Bull snorts! We had a Bt engineer leave his notebook behind I’ve seen the notes of who’s lines is who’s and their provider info. Don’t believe a word of it. We be had our own unfathomable experience on this too

So, if you want the sky mesh/Hotspot feature or whatever it’s called, you can’t have it unless you take skys bb as well as the tv. And then they’ll be after you to take the phone service as well. And before you know it, with line rental, your bill is way bigger than you ever bargained for.


We can only get Gigaclear here. Unfathomable as that may be to some. So a 300mb connection that can’t be distributed by the sky box WiFi and the sky box WiFi can’t be turned off if you want the minis to work, last I heard ? So sky ha e no intention of distributing anything unless they get their pound of flesh

Maybe your cheap HDMI cables are the source of a lot of your Sky issues. Or is that "unfathomable" ? ;)
 

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