[TV] OT: Any Sky satellite TV experts out there?

[Fungus]

Rather than pay a so-called "expert", what I would do is to buy a new dish, some bolts, a drill, a ladder and roll of the wrong type of cable then spend several hours not knowing what I'm really doing but, being a bloke, knowing it must be a piece of piss and that if I stare at it for long enough the knowledge will appear like some sort of Damascene revelation before falling off the ladder with a cry of "bollocks" and declaring it irretrievably broken.
While the wife heads off to buy a compression bandage you can "get a man in" who will charge you five pounds to adjust it and a further fifty five for knowing how to adjust it.

Been there a few times. Quicker and easier just to get the expert to drive over from Damascus in the first place.

 

[Arthur]

Definitely "play the game" with sky. I've actually found them to be ok in the past.

I moved house recently and cancelled with every intention of signing up again at my new place but hoping they'd do me a deal for Sky Q. That didn't happen but I did end up getting about £40 a month off my bill which I was happy with. They offered me free moving as part of the package but as the place I was moving into had a dish I said it wasn't required. Turns out the dish at the new place was only for freesat so only had one LNB. So rang them back up and they tried to charge me £200 for something they'd offered free a week previously. When I pointed this out they were good as gold and had an engineer there two days later to swap the dish over.

Whilst on the subject of Sky Q. My box is starting to play up a bit so thinking of upgrading. Anyone have it? Worth the money for the Ultra HD?

 

[GOM]

That's exactly what they said. Handy when "my" equipment (which they provide and I pay rental for) goes wrong and they think that justifies stiffing their customer for a callout charge. Anyway, I've had 2 or 3 callouts over the years for one reason or another, and never paid for any of them.

I have never had to pay for a call out either, but the equipment is yours, given as a freebie when you sign up or upgrade, which is why if it goes wrong in the first year it is fixed for free under guarantee. You do not pay rental for it, you pay for the TV service.
This is the opposite of Virgin, they proudly boast as part of their sales that the equipment is theirs and so there is no repair charges as a comparison to Sky.

I believe there may be a change to this with some of the new sky q boxes and dishes

 

[Easy 10]

I have never had to pay for a call out either, but the equipment is yours, given as a freebie when you sign up or upgrade, which is why if it goes wrong in the first year it is fixed for free under guarantee. You do not pay rental for it, you pay for the TV service.
This is the opposite of Virgin, they proudly boast as part of their sales that the equipment is theirs and so there is no repair charges as a comparison to Sky.

I believe there may be a change to this with some of the new sky q boxes and dishes

Well, whether its mine or theirs is all semantics isn't it. They can call it what they want, but its a device they supplied me with that enables me to pay them rental, subscription, TV service or whatever for their services. Its not like I can use it for anything else, or sell it on. Its suits for them to say that its "mine" so that they can stiff me when it goes on the fritz.

As for Sky Q, I'm glad I didn't bother as I've heard there are many reliability issues (a mate of mine has had several faults on his). And seriously, who would ever want or need to record 6 shows simultaneously, whilst watching a 7th ? There's not even enough decent things on TV to ever need to do that.

 

[Arthur]

As for Sky Q, I'm glad I didn't bother as I've heard there are many reliability issues (a mate of mine has had several faults on his). And seriously, who would ever want or need to record 6 shows simultaneously, whilst watching a 7th ? There's not even enough decent things on TV to ever need to do that.

Nor me. It was more the quality of the Ultra HD and whether the miniboxes work ok I was asking about.

With the Ashes starting in a month or so I want to be able to watch the cricket in bed and can't be arsed to run a bit of coax through the loft.

 

[The Oldman]

Nor me. It was more the quality of the Ultra HD and whether the miniboxes work ok I was asking about.

With the Ashes starting in a month or so I want to be able to watch the cricket in bed and can't be arsed to run a bit of coax through the loft.

If you have BT Sport on Sky then you can watch BT Sport on a laptop/pad/phone.

 

[Arthur]

If you have BT Sport on Sky then you can watch BT Sport on a laptop/pad/phone.

I'm fully aware of that but I'd rather watch it on the **** off great big telly I have.

 

[Easy 10]

Nor me. It was more the quality of the Ultra HD and whether the miniboxes work ok I was asking about.

With the Ashes starting in a month or so I want to be able to watch the cricket in bed and can't be arsed to run a bit of coax through the loft.

I very much doubt my eyes will be able to discern the difference between HD and Ultra HD these days

 

[Nitram]

Had the Sky Q silver for a couple of months worth the upgrade. Works extremely well with the mini boxes. (Had to reboot the miniboxes on odd occasion, but this takes only a few minutes).
UHD can't say I notice a huge difference and it only plays HD on the mini boxes. Usual nonsense in negotiating with Sky to get it though, but got 40% off package on a18month contract including Sky Fibre so deals are to be had despite them saying no deals on Q packages.

 

[Chijeff]

I have the Sky Q box on a new set up, having recently moved house.
Very pleased with it, works very well for me. Have a wife who hates all sport, silly women.
Have set up a spare bedroom as a 'man cave'. So watch all the sport I want in the said 'man cave'. Complete and utter happiness without any sighs, hissing or moaning. Well worth the £10.00 a month extra for sport happiness.

 

[Washboard Didgets]

Had the Sky Q silver for a couple of months worth the upgrade. Works extremely well with the mini boxes. (Had to reboot the miniboxes on odd occasion, but this takes only a few minutes).
UHD can't say I notice a huge difference and it only plays HD on the mini boxes. Usual nonsense in negotiating with Sky to get it though, but got 40% off package on a18month contract including Sky Fibre so deals are to be had despite them saying no deals on Q packages.

I have the Sky Q box on a new set up, having recently moved house.
Very pleased with it, works very well for me. Have a wife who hates all sport, silly women.
Have set up a spare bedroom as a 'man cave'. So watch all the sport I want in the said 'man cave'. Complete and utter happiness without any sighs, hissing or moaning. Well worth the £10.00 a month extra for sport happiness.

I've had Sky Q with an extra mini-box for around 6/7 months. Been very happy with it, all the boxes seem reliable (including the new hub which replaces your old router). Means WiFi signal is strong all around the house and garden now (as each box acts as a repeater). I've probably had to reboot (unplug and plug in) the boxes a couple of times each but that's no different to my old Sky HD box and Fibre hub.

Being able to watch live Sky TV (mainly sports) upstairs in the bedroom or even in the kitchen on my iPad has been great, AFAIK the content is streamed from your main box so doesn't rely on the internet bandwidth.

Only issue I've noticed is when playing back a recording from my Sky Q box to the app on my iPad, occasionally skips forward around 20 seconds. Means I have to tap the '-30' twice to go back and for it rebuffer, but then rewatch around 40 seconds. Can be a bit of a pain, but will probably be fixed in an update I guess.

I got mine having rung Sky to complain about my excessive bill, had reached over £115 a month for TV (with HD, Sports & Movies), phone and fibre broadband. Got the upgrade to Sky Q and total price brought down to around £85. I paid extra up front to get the better box with more storage.

Haven't watched much in Ultra HD yet, apart from a few matches and the F1. But picture looks stunning.

 

[Captain Sensible]

[MENTION=2194]Oxy McFloppie-Tish[/MENTION] It sounds to me like your Lnb is failing. Easy and cheap to change. Or the dish has warped and/or is out of alignment. Latter is easy to fix yourself with a spanner and a sat finder from eBay or maplins. If it's warped it's a new dish, or you could try bending it back into shape but most likely a new dish.

 

[GOM]

Well, whether its mine or theirs is all semantics isn't it. They can call it what they want, but its a device they supplied me with that enables me to pay them rental, subscription, TV service or whatever for their services. Its not like I can use it for anything else, or sell it on. Its suits for them to say that its "mine" so that they can stiff me when it goes on the fritz.

Not really semantics, more facts. You can use it as a freesat box after you have left Sky, (or upgrade to Sky Q), and you can sell it on, go round any car boot sale and you'll see plenty.
Just because it was free doesn't make it any different to any other electrical goods you have.

 

[BensGrandad]

We have a communal aerial covering both sky and terrestrial tv and our reception was ok but our neighbours asked us as they were getting the message that they had lost transmission due to aerial problems. This is usually down to the weather affecting reception.

 

[Fungus]

Thanks all, we've had a recommendation for a local bloke to come round and sort us out.

 

[GOM]

We have a communal aerial covering both sky and terrestrial tv and our reception was ok but our neighbours asked us as they were getting the message that they had lost transmission due to aerial problems. This is usually down to the weather affecting reception.

Don't confuse aerials and dishes. It will be a communal aerial for terrestrial and a communal dish for sky.

 

[BensGrandad]

I havent seen a dish but I could be wrong so wont argue. The owners made everybody remove their dishes for this communal one but since then a few immigrants have moved in and installed dishes so that they can watch TV in their home language.