Sky q box with no dish

Neil_Jones

emmajones1976 said:

rickyroma said:

emmajones1976 said:

The reviews of Sky Glass so far havent been great, a lot of programmes cant actually be watched on catch up, I would be waiting a very long time to be getting that.

The existing Sky Q (or Sky +) setup without a dish is a bit pointless truth be told. 

I can see the advantage for sky in doing a TV with all the services built in over WiFi. But for the customer surely a complete WiFi box would be better.  

The issue is that Sky Glass isnt a carbon copy of Sky+ or Sky Q as it stands.

For example if ITV dont put a film they show on a Sunday afternoon on the ITV Hub, you have no way of "recording" it, little things like this clearly need ironing out.

Glass is built entirely around streaming.  Its dishless.  Content is not intended to be "recordable" in the way  of Sky+ and Sky Q.   There is "cloud recording" which is the closest equivalent.

emmajones1976

Neil_Jones said:

emmajones1976 said:

rickyroma said:

emmajones1976 said:

The reviews of Sky Glass so far havent been great, a lot of programmes cant actually be watched on catch up, I would be waiting a very long time to be getting that.

The existing Sky Q (or Sky +) setup without a dish is a bit pointless truth be told. 

I can see the advantage for sky in doing a TV with all the services built in over WiFi. But for the customer surely a complete WiFi box would be better.  

The issue is that Sky Glass isnt a carbon copy of Sky+ or Sky Q as it stands.

For example if ITV dont put a film they show on a Sunday afternoon on the ITV Hub, you have no way of "recording" it, little things like this clearly need ironing out.

Glass is built entirely around streaming.  Its dishless.  Content is not intended to be "recordable" in the way  of Sky+ and Sky Q.   There is "cloud recording" which is the closest equivalent.

Yes, hence why I put "recorded" in inverted commas. Have seen countless examples of programmes that are impossible to watch after the initial showing, for various reasons. If anyone has a dish and they change to Sky Glass, at the moment they are bonkers.

Belenus

rickyroma said:

We are about to move house but I doubt we could get the dish up in a suitable place at the new house. 

Because you don't want to or because you can't for some reason?

If the latter, then what is the reason?

Listed building? No line of sight to the satellite because of trees or other buildings? Local restrictions?

rickyroma

Belenus said:

rickyroma said:

We are about to move house but I doubt we could get the dish up in a suitable place at the new house. 

Because you don't want to or because you can't for some reason?

If the latter, then what is the reason?

Listed building? No line of sight to the satellite because of trees or other buildings? Local restrictions?

The east facing front and the south facing side of the house are not an option. If it is to go on the west facing back garden I imagine the only option would be an unsightly big bracket to get the S.E. line of sight needed.
 Torn berween cancelling the engineer visit or letting him come, for us to probably say we don't want the dish where he is likely to suggest 

emmajones1976

Why are they "not an option"? At least let them go out and look first, you then have some leeway with Sky to then how to proceed.
To be honest though, if a dish can go up quite easily and you choose to reject the location, you will probably end up having to pay to get out of the contract (months remaining multiplied by monthly cost). Its not Sky's fault if you choose to reject a dish.

Neil_Jones

rickyroma said:

Belenus said:

rickyroma said:

We are about to move house but I doubt we could get the dish up in a suitable place at the new house. 

Because you don't want to or because you can't for some reason?

If the latter, then what is the reason?

Listed building? No line of sight to the satellite because of trees or other buildings? Local restrictions?

The east facing front and the south facing side of the house are not an option. If it is to go on the west facing back garden I imagine the only option would be an unsightly big bracket to get the S.E. line of sight needed.
 Torn berween cancelling the engineer visit or letting him come, for us to probably say we don't want the dish where he is likely to suggest 

There is no obligation to have a dish on a wall.  It can in theory be installed anywhere that can see the satellite signal.  So that could be a wall, a chimney (though they tend not to do that now), a shed, down the bottom of the garden...  Long as the cables can be routed and secured, there are options.

And the brackets are not "big and unsightly".  It'll be no different to what you have now.  You can paint the dish to blend in with a wall if that makes you happier (you can probably paint the bracket too, but not the LNB):

https://www.smartaerials.co.uk/blog/can-i-paint-my-sky-satellite-dish

But that being said if you want satellite TV and you don't want the dish where the engineer says it needs to go, then not entirely sure what you think he can do for you.  You can't rotate the house, you can't move the satellites in the sky, the system doesn't work unless it can see a satellite...  you have to compromise somewhere.

CoastingHatbox

Neil_Jones said:

There is no obligation to have a dish on a wall.  It can in theory be installed anywhere that can see the satellite signal.  So that could be a wall, a chimney (though they tend not to do that now), a shed, down the bottom of the garden...  Long as the cables can be routed and secured, there are options.

This is certainly doable and something I'd look at in this situation*. If there's an out building you can situate the dish on, then that is probably ideal.

The feeder cable (coax) connected to the dish is lossy. The further away the dish is from the set-top-box, the lower the strength of the received signal. If the feeder cable is still generally quite short, it may not be a problem. If it is longer, then the signal maybe too attenuated by the time it reaches the set-top-box. You maybe able to mitigate with better quality coax that has a lower level of loss, or slightly larger dish with higher level of gain. Or, possibly, a pre-amp at the dish.

If you go down the lower-loss coax route, you might need connectors that can accommodate the likely larger diameter of the coax. These are usually soldered on - there are plenty of videos demonstrating how to strip coax and fit the relevant connectors.

*If I wanted Sky, however paying for Television and still being subject to advertisements rubs me up the wrong way.

Username03725

I read this thread earlier then out in town a little while ago passed one of those Sky sales pitch things so asked one of the reps... Yes, the catch-up services will work without a dish being connected. We know that catch-up service data arrives via broadband rather than the sat dish but there could conceivably be a step in the start-up process that prevents the home screen etc being available if a sat feed isn't discovered. That's not the case though.
It's easy to test this. Switch the Sky Q box off, disconnect the sat feeds round the back then start it up and see what happens. 

A couple of other thoughts:
WiFi is ok as a source but is liable to interruptions & dropouts esp if a neighbour starts to use the same channels. An Ethernet cable is always the best option in a fixed situation like this, where portability isn't a requirement and there's a spare port on the router or switch.

Netflix is available via the app on the Q Box using your own Netflix log-on, but it can also be provided as part of your Sky package at much cheaper cost. When I was onto Sky a couple of weeks ago reducing my monthly cost (no reduction in service obvs) the Retentions guy tried to sell me Netflix via Sky - £5 a month for the full UHD/4K package, compared to the £13 I had been paying till I cancelled NF a few months ago through lack of use. £5 is Sky's standard rate, not part of the deal they gave me.

neilmcl

I wouldn't trust anything that one of those on-street sales reps tell you.

emmajones1976

I bet the sales reps didnt tell you about the programmes you wouldnt be able to watch on catch up either, or the fact you have to sit there through all the ads on any ITV catch up programme, or the fact in 12 months you have to pay an extra fiver a month to fast forward the adverts.