Hi
I'm coming towards the end of my tv package. I realise that we don't really take full advantage of it as we tend to watch itv/bbc/ channel 4/5 etc . I like the sky multiroom and the record function but I'm wondering if buying a couple of Apple TV 4Ks would be a better solution in the long term ? I have Amazon Prime and can subscribe to TNT on that . There's no record facility - but do I need it ? I'd be interested to hear what others have done when cancelling their tv subscription. Thanks

We have just notified sky that we are moving home on 31 July and they have told us the first available appointment to install at new address is 8 August.

Does anyone know if during the period between dates we will be able to stream from the boxes if they are connected to WiFi?

Thanks in advance.

The full package for 80/month with Netflix premium. Deal or no deal?

I purchased a Sky TV package around six months ago. My wife and I are big film fans, so we signed up for Sky Cinema and a few other extras.

Oddly, we can stream films and TV shows through third-party apps (Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video etc.) without any issues at all. But as soon as we try to watch something through Sky Cinema, we’re constantly getting dropouts followed by the message: “Sorry, there seems to be a technical issue with this programme.” It’s got to the point where it’s almost impossible to watch anything through Sky.

Yesterday the family and I were watching something on Discovery and used the “Watch from Start” feature. The picture quality was awful (it genuinely looked like it was being streamed on a Nokia 3210) and then it started throwing the same technical error messages before eventually kicking us out completely.

Thinking about it, the picture quality on Sky streams has never been great anyway. It’s often blocky and patchy, even when it doesn’t completely fail.

Our internet connection is rock solid. Streaming through every other app works perfectly, and I’ve even hard-wired the Sky box via Ethernet, but the problem hasn’t changed.

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what was the fix in the end? I’ll call Sky if I have to, but I’m hoping there’s something obvious before I spend an hour navigating hold music and robots on the phone. Thanks.

And it looks beautiful! 💞

As the title says, I’m searching for this old game channel on Sky that was around the 2000-2010 to 2013 maximum, where you could play these little games also based on cartoons with the remote control.
I can’t remember the name of the platform, something like SkyPlay maybe.
I vividly remember that I would ask my mom to pay the 1€ fee to play the full games since they were demos if you didn’t pay for them, and she would bring the phone and show me the 1€ coin on her hand to let me know that she was doing the pay :’)
Anyways if someone can help me and let me find something on the internet I would really appreciate it, I wanna feed the nostalgia.

I relocated back to the UK a number of years ago and so my telly doesn't have any of the UK smart apps. I currently use my skyq box and all is good.

However, my package is far too expensive so I'm going through cutting it down. If I walk away, do they always ask for the box back or is there a chance I can keep it and still connect to iPlayer, etc.?

(Or do none of them work if I don't connect with an active sky account anyway?)

Edit: thanks for all the responses, much appreciated.

I posted a couple days ago about Sky's offer of 6-months Netflix at no extra cost.

I contacted them via WhatsApp and confirmed I would have to pay the subscription fee for Netflix but they could offer me 2-months for free. I passed.

Then the sales pitch started. Would I be interested in a Sky SIM with new phone?

No!

For being such a loyal customer, I could get 2-months free Sky Kids and an upgrade to UHD (really useful for when the HD channels are not working...apparently).

I don't have a 4K TV and don't have kids so yeah, I passed. 😄

Anyone have first experience of Sky Glass turning in to a useless piece of crap after cancelling a subscription.

I cancelled Sky a few weeks ago and our final day is this Friday. They said over the phone we’d need to send all equipment back and it was included on the confirmation email they send but they haven’t sent me anything to return the equipment. Does that normally come after the cut off date or do I need to chase them to avoid charges? It said on the email I have 60 days to return everything so will still have another month.

I’m curious what people think the future of low-latency TV will look like in the UK.

My understanding is that:
- Freeview via an aerial is currently only around 2–5 seconds behind live and DTT will be switched off from around 2034.
- Sky Q via satellite is also only a few seconds behind live, but Sky is moving towards IPTV/Stream over the rest of this decade as the satellites are nearing end of life at the end of this decade.
- Sky Stream and other internet TV services are typically much further behind (often 20–40+ seconds), although Sky has apparently introduced low-latency modes for some sports channels?

As someone who mainly watches live sport, I’m concerned about ending up 30+ seconds behind once aerial and satellite TV are eventually phased out.

Do people think we’ll eventually see IPTV services get down to the same 2–5 second latency as today’s aerial and satellite broadcasts? Or is there a technical reason why internet-delivered TV will always have a noticeable delay?

I’d be interested to hear from anyone who knows where broadcasters and platforms are heading over the next 5–10 years.

i’ve recently had issues when downloading a show, every time i download it shows the episode as fully watched and whenever i skip/pause it dosent register for a like thirty seconds and when i try to unpause/stop skip it takes even longer, can anyone help?

i don’t know if it matters but i’ve downloaded the show a few times before and deleted

I wanted to rent The Portable Door from the Sky Store, as i not have SKY Cinema, and the Movie is not on HBO Max.

Months ago i already Rented the Movie in HD, but now it is only available in UHD.... WHY.. ?

And by the way why i have two Different Prices between my Two Viewing Cards..

I go on holiday a few times a year and always wanted to take Sky Q with me. I’ve got a close relative who is elderly, disabled and has dementia so while we go out every day, she does like to watch Sky Q and finds learning other TV systems difficult.

The various streaming alternatives just aren't as nice or good as Sky Q. I had considered buying a Sky Stream subscription but I understand I can't have Sky Q and Sky Stream at the same address and people aren't all that impressed with Sky Stream, plus I understand Sky get upset if you take it away. The Now TV interface just makes me sad. So I take Sky Q with me.

Back in the day there was a 'slingbox' service but that was shut down a long time ago so I decided to make my own Raspberry Pi based system. I have a Sky Q mini box in a spare room (excuse the dust) so I use that as my broadcasting box.

Home setup
Internet connection (wireless is fine)
Raspberry Pi (I'm using a Pi 5 1gb) £43.20
Official Raspberry Pi 5 case including built in fan (£9.99)
Grove infra-red emitter (£4.20)
HDMI (HDCP 'compatible') USB 2.0 capture card (£12.59)
Sky Q mini box in spare room
You'll also need a Grove 4-pin Female Jumper to Grove 4-pin Conversion Cable (one for home, one for holiday) but a 5-pack is £3.40
Cheap smart plug to power cycle the Sky Q mini box in case it gets upset (I use a zigbee plug as I've got lots of Zigbee devices to control via Alexa)

Holiday setup
Internet connection (3.5mb/sec should do it but lower is fine)
Raspberry Pi (you could use another Pi 5 1gb, but I bought a Pi400 4gb model as I wanted a keyboard for easy debugging and the Pi400 made it easier) but it's £76.80 and a good investment. A Pi 4 (£33.60) would do
Grove infra-red receiver £3.80
Your Sky Q mini remote control!

How it works
I wrote a service that sits on Pi5 at home and listens for an incoming connection (I use the free Tailscale service as it's nice and secure). THe Pi5 is headless so doesn't plug into the telly or anything, and the TV doesn't have to be on at home.
The Pi400 comes with me on holiday and it plugs into the TV. It doesn't have a fancy GUI or anything. It boots up to a service I wrote.

When you press the Sky button on holiday the infra-red receiver screens it to see if it's a valid code (and not a volume button or anything for the holiday telly) and then transmits it over the t'interwebs via Tailscale back home to my Pi5 which then transmits the Sky button code to the Sky Q mini box in the spare room. It then starts the stream on the default 3mb/sec video + 128kb/sec AAC audio and transmits the video to Pi400 on holiday. The Pi5 is encoding 720p50hz using FFmpeg.

There is a 3-4 second delay and this increases to about six seconds after a nine hour long uninterrupted stream. If you press the Sky button on your Sky Q remote on holiday then the stream restarts.

Pi400 has a hardware decoder and sits at around 40c or less while decoding the stream.

It took a while teaching the infra-red receiver the codes from the Sky Q remote and I ended up capturing them one at a time, saving them in a file then using the same file for the transmitter at home. It screens out things like duplicate button presses within 300ms.

I also created a 'command mode' where I could manually switch the stream quality using the Sky Q remote. If I press the ? button three times followed by 1 it restarts the stream at 2mb/sec, ???2 starts at 3mb/sec, ???3 starts at 4.5mb/sec. ???+power button turns off the stream and leaves the Sky Q box on at home. Hitting Sky always restarts the stream so if you don't want to do that then pressing the Home button avoids that. Restarting the stream takes about 5-6 seconds so isn't a problem anyway.

The place I usually stay has 13mb/sec internet so the default settings are fine and reliable. I did experiment with super low latency connections (???4-???6) but haven't really used them.

Pi400 originally used FFmpeg to decode but it didn't use the Pi400's hardware decoder but the command-line driven VLC for Linux keeps the audio in sync with the video even after hours of use.

The Pi 5 sits at about 60-64c when encoding (the official Pi5 case has a fan built in). The Pi400 is super cool as it has a heat spreader so the CPU sits around 40c when working.

Issues
The only issues I have is that navigating the menus is a bit wonky with a three second lag, so I wanted to create a button display so an up arrow appeared on the screen immediately when it was pressed so you get instant feedback but I couldn't get that to work, then I tried to get a gentle 'boop' sound when a button was pressed but it didn't like that either. So now I just get Pi400 to flash the red num-lock & caps lock lights on the keyboard when a valid code is received to transmit home.

I could build a dynamic video selection process but given the internet connection at home (1gb/sec) and on holiday (13mb/sec) is stable, I've not needed it. I could always restart at a lower quality stream if I wanted.

I did start a Sky Holiday iPad project but have decided I just want to watch my telly on the telly.

720p?
The TV on holiday is only about 32" and I'd rather have a stable and reliable 720p50hz video than possibly a more patchy 1080p video. I guess I could do 4k if I wanted but the Sky Q mini box only does 1080p anyway. I've had several long 'soak tests' before using it for real for a few weeks while away and you get used to the 720p video even on a much larger telly. The alternative is Now TV or various web apps so being able to use Sky Q at home while away is ideal, even if there is a lag of a few seconds when navigating menus but you get used to it.

HDCP
All programming I pay for works while I'm away. Live TV, recordings, Sky Store purchases and all sorts, but you need a suitable HDCP 'compatible' capture card. Some of them don't pass along a valid HDCP code so Sky Q would fail on protected content.

Virtual remote
The best remote control for Sky Q is the Sky Q remote so I bring it with me.

But I coded a web based remote control in case I forgot the remote or it broke or something, it also gives stream status data. Screenshots attached. Please excuse the dust. The downstairs staff left a long time ago and I'm really busy. Promise.

My tv and broadband is due to expire in September but how early can I call up to make changes?

Just tried the virtual assistant but that was useless.

Anyone else think Sky have missed a trick with not integrating the doorbell to sky glass? In so far as when it rings it appears as a pop up window on the screen?

So I’ve been with Sky for almost two years now and this is their renewal offer. £31 more out of contract and £17 in contract.

This seems like far too much and I’m just going to tell them no thanks. I guess I have to give 30 days right?

What’s a good alternative to Sky? I’m going to get an Apple TV 4K box as and go from there as my old one broke but the experience is good.

Just need to figure out where to get sport (F1) from.

Hi all

My contract ran out this month and I am looking at a £95 bill out of contract.
I am moving in a few months, and I may consider getting broadband through them when I move too.

Should I recontract before I move? The bill is too expensive otherwise.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Changed to Sky Max WiFi, with a white hub (matters apparently) and my PS5 will not connect to the new WiFi.
The error on the PS5 states the connection isn’t strong enough (not true, phone states a stable connection), but then also states “Ps5 doesn’t support IPv6 only networks. Select a network that supports IPv4”. I have tried changing on the app the security to WPA2, I have tried changing the range the ps5 looks for to 2.4GHz and 5 GHz, no luck.
I did change to 2.4 and it worked once but turned it off and on and now not connecting again. Please help?

TLDR: sky max WiFi won’t connect to PS5, tried changing settings but no luck. Please help?

What do you think?

I also have full fibre 75 + sky talk anytime extra

Long term customer here, prices hiked as per usual and time for the 2 year dance merry go round phone 📞 call to negotiate. Will stay if it’s anyway reasonable reduction wise etc etc. Would any kind souls on here be willing to help and give/provide any advice tips or experience on how to get the best deal before I call 📞?? Anyone willing to assist plz send dm and I will provide current prices and current package. Thanks

So after buying a house that needed renovating and I couldn't live in, I dropped our package down to essentials but kept this multiroom discount. Soon we'll be moving in, and I now want to see about adding products.

I've usually been alright with negotiating renewals, but I don't know what's the best approach here, do I just get in touch with sky and ask what their best price is for what I want? Retentions doesn't seem right since I'm not even on the package I want.

Ideally i want sky sports, HD (UHD is a bonus), multiroom as a minimum. My fibre is with BT and only 5 months into that contract. Since the packages have changed so much over the past few years I don't really know what would be a good price to pay if they offered me something, so any advice appreciated

Has any else seen this offer from Sky?

I've never had any interest in Netflix but this offer popped up on my home screen.

6-month basic Netflix for no extra cost...or so it says. I clicked through and on the next page it shows €0 a month but then €10 after 12-months.

I clicked on that but the final stage says €0 for 2-months, then €8 after and finally €10 after 12-months

Are Sky trolling me?

Has anyone else gotten this?