In reply to a post by craski:

Sky+HD had similar issues albeit I think that Amstrad now manufacture pretty much all of the Sky+HD boxes as far as I understand it.

Well technically Sky do given they bought Amstrad back in '07 to move production in-house and reduce costs.

In reply to a post by Davey_H:

Well technically Sky do given they bought Amstrad back in '07 to move production in-house and reduce costs.

Thats funny, I didnt know that ... but yes that would go some way to explaining why all boxes are manufactured by Amstrad.

In reply to a post by craski:

Also I think Sky have moved the Sky Formula 1 HD channel.
Currently I get it is part of the family/HD bundle but now I think it is only part of sports so forces you to take all sports channels to get the F1.

Sky made that change at least 18 months ago (July 2014 rings bell in my head)

The good news though is that if you do still have the Legacy HD Pack (i.e. the old HD pack which allowed F1 without Sky Sports) then Sky have said you can carry that over onto a Sky Q subscription.

I get the Jist of what all this about but even some of the Sky Sales staff seem unclear at the product there selling.

At present we have 2 HD boxes one situated in the Lounge and one in the bedroom where the girlfriends hard drive is virtually full with the normal reality programs those girls watch,she is constantly wanting to record at least 2 programs if not 3 so i don't see how this Sky Q is going to work for us.

Today when speaking to sky i explained this situation and to my surprise i was told that you were only allowed 1 Sky Q Silver box per household and as many Mini as you wanted.

Now i know that the mini has its own planner and can record stuff from the main box [I see a conflict of interest there] and then it can play the stuff in the other room,what I'm not convinced about it the Sky Hub Router and the fact that this mini box so the lady at Sky informed me just needs plugging into the mains and it streams the stuff wirelessly which is the part i don't like as wireless in most cases is the second option if you have not got direct Ethernet access or a home plug network which i have.

Is this going to stream stuff to the mini box without any problems,can someone explain this to me please,do i need there Broadband service and Sky Hub for this to work correctly and efficiently,I'm guessing that without there Sky Hub and broadband service this is not half of what its cracked up to be.

It pains me to think i got to ditch my real expensive nether router which is running like a dream for a Sky Hub they give away for free that can not possibly be on par with a £200 router.

I understand some of it,but its the Sky Mini that confuses me somewhat and the fact its not connected to the Sky Dish.

I think my concerns are the wireless bit and the connection dropping out,i know they are suppose to be some kind of wireless hotspot but I'm still not getting how this all works and if this suits myself and my girlfriends needs to be honest.

Apart from that i have to Join the Sky Broadband to even get this equipment at the moment as my contract with BT is now up.

I said i would never ever use BT but what they offered 18 months ago opposed to my other ISP i was saving around £30 a month and at the time BT Sport was free.

They haven't been to bad to be honest but i have my reservations about the Sky Broadband service unless someone puts my mind at rest.

Im not saying they are bad or any better or worse than BT,just need to make the right choices.

Edited by time2die (Thu 18-Feb-16 17:57:12)

I did not know this. Will check if it works or not. Never checked.

The boxes can use wireless or powerline networking, i.e. they basically can create their own network over the mains wiring.

All the actual recording is done by the Sky Q box, the mini are really just EPG/streaming boxes

I believe the integrated powerline and WiFi hotspot features are currently disabled, but will be enabled via a future update of unspecified date.

Nothing to stop people using their own powerline adapters in the meantime though

In reply to a post by time2die:

I get the Jist of what all this about but even some of the Sky Sales staff seem unclear at the product there selling.

At present we have 2 HD boxes one situated in the Lounge and one in the bedroom where the girlfriends hard drive is virtually full with the normal reality programs those girls watch,she is constantly wanting to record at least 2 programs if not 3 so i don't see how this Sky Q is going to work for us.

Today when speaking to sky i explained this situation and to my surprise i was told that you were only allowed 1 Sky Q Silver box per household and as many Mini as you wanted.

I really don't see the issue.

You currently have a total of 4 tuners available to you, with Sky Q Silver you'll have 9 (it has 12 but they've been quiet about what the other 3 will be for)

4 dedicated to recording, 1 for viewing TV on the Silver, and 4 for use by the Minis and tablets etc

Edited by Davey_H (Thu 18-Feb-16 20:17:21)

Hello,

With regards to the wireless you don't need to replace your current router, although if you want the mesh networking features (just like sonos does things) you need to use the SkyQ as your hub/router. If you don't use it in that way then standard ethernet and wireless can be used with each box.

What you *should* find though with using the SKY Q box is there is less configuration in terms of the wireless and the supposed setup will give a better signal as each box itself becomes an extender to ensure wide ranging coverage.

Thanks
Sam

Tuners on the Sky Q Silver (12 in total) allocated as follows:

4 for recording
1 for live TV on the main Sky Q box
2 for live TV on up to 2 minis
2 for live TV on up to 2 tablets
1 for EPG data
1 for mini-tv on EPG
1 reserved for future use.